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This Wasn’t Part of the Plan

This is the first in a series of posts about navigating through the unexpected. It’s based on experiences I’ve had since my father’s death last year. I’ve tried to follow the words of Winston Churchill, who once said, “If you’re going through Hell, keep going.”

I’ve had shitty years before — 1984, when my brother died, the year following my best friend’s suicide in 1997, and 2004, when another close friend died and I came closest to an emotional breakdown.

I can’t say 2015 was the worst year I’ve ever had. But it was pretty damn shitty all the same.

My aunt and father — siblings — died within a week of each other after long illnesses. I inherited the task of closing out the family business, which included the responsibility of trying to sell a building that’s mired in a costly environmental cleanup. That, in addition to the already full family life and career I have.

I had spent my life running from the family business. I had built my own successful career. Now the whole crumbling enterprise was on my shoulders, and there was no escaping the responsibility. But I wasn’t about to quit the career I’d worked so hard on. So I doubled down, and 2016 has been about learning to make this new equilibrium work.

Because of the cleanup, I decided to hang on to the building and lease it. I moved into my father’s office and determined that I could do my real job from there and keep an eye on the place without having to keep driving between offices for crisis control. So far, so good.

It hasn’t been all bad. I’ve learned more about business and the legal system this year than I ever expected to. Having the office doesn’t suck. And the fact that I haven’t fucked it all up yet is a sizable confidence booster.

At one point in my life, I thought I had already faced all the big tests, passing them one by one until about the time I started this blog six-and-a-half years ago.

Looking back at the posts I wrote that first year, everything was about how I had brought all the demons to heel: facing down fear and anxiety, learning to manage an addictive personality, and so on.

What I wrote was genuine, and I’ve continued to hold true to a lot of the older lessons.

But the test is never over. Now that I know that, the next several posts will delve deeper into the new challenges.

Stay tuned.

If you’re going through hell keep going Winston Churchill

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Sending Our Kids to Another School

After weeks of agonizing, debating, praying and researching, Erin and I made the painful but necessary decision to move the kids from the only school they’ve ever known to someplace new.

Mood music:

In three weeks, Sean and Duncan won’t be starting school at St. Joseph’s in Haverhill. Instead, they’re going to St. Augustine’s in Andover.

We love the St. Joe’s community and always will. But the bottom line is that both boys have extra needs the school simply isn’t equipped to provide. Sean needs more of an academic challenge in the next two years, as he sets his sights on getting into a prestigious, private high school. Duncan needs an environment better equipped to meet the needs of his IEP (Individualized Education Program). St. Joe’s has struggled to do what’s needed for a child with ADHD.

We’re excited to send them to St. Augustine’s, which has many more resources to meet those needs. But getting to that decision was hard. And telling the kids was even harder.

Like many parents, we instinctively want to shield our children from trauma. Few traumas are greater to kids than being sent to another school, particularly when they’ve been in the same place since pre-school. As expected, they were upset when we told them. There were tears and protests. We were emotionally spent by day’s end.

The next morning, we took them to the new school for admissions testing and a tour. We spent more than half the morning there, and by the time we were done, the kids were smiling. They still have their anxieties about the unknown. They are not jumping for joy, and they won’t be. But by the time we left, I think they knew this was for the best and that they were going to be just fine.

They know they’ll make new friends, and we’ve made it clear that we’ll help them stay connected to their St. Joe’s friends. Doing so won’t be difficult. We’re still parishioners of the school’s parent church, All Saints. Sean is still part of the church youth group and will see many of his friends there. And both boys are still Scouts, which will ensure another level of continuity.

In the final analysis playing it safe was unacceptable to us. Kids are going to have tough experiences in their lives and need to learn to roll with it. As parents, we have to give them our time and attention and help them stay on the right path. But we also must take occasional risks, upsetting the balance in the face of opportunity, teaching them to do the same.

And so we have.

The New School

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Older But More Alive

Sunday is my 42nd birthday, which happens near a bunch of other birthdays in the family and at work. Inevitably, when discussing this, someone admits they’re depressed about being a year older.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:2qZu6ByfZFFb56CwZRfwTo]

I have a different outlook, which is that when you reach another year without having dropped dead, that’s cause to celebrate.

When I was sick with the Crohn’s Disease as a kid, I lost a lot of blood and developed several side ailments. I’m told by my father that the doctors were going to remove the colon more than once. It didn’t happen. I felt close to death a few times, though I doubt it was ever that serious. Either way, here I am.

When the OCD was burning out of control, I often felt I’d die young. I was never suicidal, but I had a fatalistic view of things. I just assumed I wasn’t long for this world, and I didn’t care. I certainly did a lot to slowly help the dying process along. That’s what addicts do. We feed the addiction compulsively knowing full well what the consequences will be.

When I was a prisoner to fear and anxiety, I really didn’t want to live long. I had isolated myself. Fortunately, I never had the guts to do anything about it. And, like I said, suicide was never really an option.

I spent much of my 30s on the couch with a shattered back and escaped with the TV. I was breathing, but I was also as good as dead some of the time.

I’ve watched others go before me at a young age. Michael. Sean. Even Peter. Lose the young people in your life often enough, and you’ll start assuming you’re next.

When you live for yourself and don’t put faith in God, you’re not really living. When it’s all about you, there’s no room to let all the other life in. So the soul shrivels and hardens. I’ve been there.

I also had a strange fear of current events and was convinced at one point that the world would burn in a nuclear holocaust before I hit 30. That hasn’t happened yet.

So now I’m 42, and it’s almost comical that I’m still here.

I’m more grateful than you could imagine for the turn of events my life has taken in the last six years.

I’ve learned to stop over-thinking and to manage the OCD. When you learn to stop over-thinking, a lot of things that used to be daunting become a lot easier. You also find yourself in a lot of precious moments that were always there, but you didn’t notice them because you were sick with worry.

I notice them now, and I am blessed far beyond what I probably deserve. I have a career that I love. I have the best wife on Earth and two boys that teach me something new every day. I have many, many friends who have helped me along in more ways than they’ll ever know.

Most importantly, I have God in my life. When you put your faith in Him, there’s a lot less to be afraid of. Aging is one of the first things you stop worrying about.

These days, I fell a lot better about myself than I did a decade ago. In fact, 32 kind of sucked.

I’d be in denial if I told you everything was perfect. I wouldn’t tell you that anyway, because I’ve always thought that perfection was a bullshit concept. That makes it all the more ironic and comical that OCD would be the life-long thorn in my side.

In recovery, I have good days and not-so-good days when I’ve come close to relapsing. I’ve had to work harder at being a good man. All of that is OK.

I’m still very much the work in progress, just like everyone else. The scars are merely the scaffolding and newly inserted steel beams propping me up.

I don’t know what comes next, but I have much less fear about the unknown.

And so I think will have a happy birthday.

Birthday Cake on Fire