Sharing the Load, Permission to Feel, & Impermanence

I’ve struggled to come up with three things to post today. It’s one of those days when the weight of the world feels heavy on my shoulders. I am grateful to know that I don’t have to shoulder that weight alone.

I’ve learned over the years that it’s okay to not be okay and to give myself permission to feel the things I feel without judgement. I am grateful to the teachers who have taught me this lesson in life.

Everything in the universe is impermanent. The only constant is change. Things won’t be like they are right now forever and I am oh so grateful for that.

Hiding in Plain Sight

I’m stealthy. I’ve always been good at keeping secrets — hiding things. I hid my feelings of guilt and shame about my father’s suicide when I was a kid by telling people all about it as soon as I got comfortable with them. If I told them the story quickly, and without a lot of feelings, then they would think I was over it — that I’d made peace with it. I told people that it was something that had happened, matter of factly, like it was as insignificant as what I’d had for breakfast.

I kept the fact that I was smoking hidden from my mother for five years. It was easy since I was in college and rarely home. When I was home for the summer, I made sure that I had a restaurant job that required me to work nights so that I could sleep late, leave the house early, and start work just before the dinner rush. That made it easy to conceal things, like smoking — and drinking. I told her that the reason my clothes stunk was because my roommate, Geoff, was a smoker — that was true, but it was only part of the truth.

I’ve been writing these gratitude posts for a little over a month. It’s a solid practice and it has helped me immensely. But it’s also a cover-up. If you read my gratitude posts it looks like I’ve got the world by the tail. If I don’t write about the challenges that I am facing, then you can’t know about them. And the truth is that things are fucking challenging right now. Just as challenging as they were back in November when I wrote this post.

I’m not sleeping well — waking up in the early morning and sometimes not being able to get back to sleep. I’m sometimes waking up because of dreams, sometimes because I’m in a cold sweat, and sometimes because I’ve been grinding my teeth so hard that the pain wakes me. I have been walking through life gritting my teeth subconsciously. I go to bed every night with aching teeth.

I started taking a beta blocker last week to try to help with the anxiety. Some days it seems to be helping. Others not so much.

At my last therapy appointment, I put on such a good act that my therapist said, “things seem to be going really well.” And I agreed with her. But it wasn’t conscious deceit. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I was actually convinced the things really were going well. It was only after a few days that I realized I had been hiding this so well.

Sometimes, just putting my truth out there is what I need to do. It’s not always pretty. Sometimes it’s messy, because life is messy and sometimes not pretty.

Skiing with the Scouts

A mounting sense of dread came over me as the weekend approached and I came to terms with the facts. I’d be driving four hours each way to a scout trip where the main activity would be skiing or snowboarding. I’d be giving up control of my weekend for the sake of my son and that of the troop.

Meals would be planned, and I wasn’t the planner. Sleeping arrangements would be first come, first served. I would not be the only one snoring in the bunkhouse. There would be communal bathrooms. The key to scouting is to keep the kids fully engaged, which meant that there would be very little downtime. And with 21 kids on the trip, it was going to be loud. I knew all of this when I’d signed up, but I had still volunteered to be a chaperone because I knew that if I didn’t, it was unlikely that my son would agree to go on the trip, and I wanted him to go on the trip.

It had been a while since he’d been on a Scout trip and his enthusiasm was waning. Over the weekend, I told another parent and a leader “Scouts teaches many meaningful life lessons to boys, not the least of which is that meetings suck but are required for successful outcomes.” My boy had only been to scout meetings and service hours since September. Not surprisingly, he was beginning to hate Scouts and frequently refused to go to the weekly meetings in January and February.

And then there was the the inherent risk of the main activity. No, not the risk of serious bodily injury. While there is risk associated with snow sports, that was not my main concern. My son wants to be an instant expert at everything that he tries and frequently when he isn’t an instant expert, he grows frustrated, talks negatively about himself, and gives up. I’ve witnessed this many times before and I knew that the probability of the weekend ending this way was statistically high.

Two weeks ago, in an effort to head this off, we’d gone on a snowboarding trip over Presidents’ Day weekend. I knew that the weekend would be busy on the slopes and so I’d done all the right things. I’d booked private lessons and paid for rentals and lift tickets in advance. When we arrived at the resort Friday night we’d picked up our rental equipment the night before our first day so as to avoid the clusterfuck that would certainly be the rental lines in the morning.

I had gone into that weekend with high hopes that we’d both learn enough to enjoy a few runs down an easy trail on the mountain. I’d envisioned myself snapping selfies of the two of us on the chair lift, and gently carving down the hill together. A real 2020 Norman Rockwell father and son kind of weekend. It was a shit show.

When it became clear to the instructor that my son needed more help than me, he directed his attention to my son. I was grateful for that. Hugo worked diligently with Mr. Grey for nearly 90 minutes. And at the end, Mr. Grey still could not get up on the board on his own, let alone slide down the bunny slope. I suggested that we take a break and get some lunch. That’s when I discovered that my wallet was missing. (After much panic on my part, my wife found it at the lost and found, complete with all my credit cards and money.)

After lunch I worked with my son for a while, but when he was getting frustrated enough that he was yelling at me, and I was starting to yell back at him on the side of the slope, we called it quits. I can’t recall if we’d even tried on day two or not. I think we did, but I have blocked it from my memory.

Expectations can be a killer for a guy like me. When my expectations were not met, I found myself wanting to go down to the lodge bar and order a bucket of bourbon. I’ve found that when I give those cravings space to exist, and then voice them, they go away, which is what I did that afternoon.

So, I had been ruminating on the events of Presidents Day going into this past weekend. And I was expecting disaster.

Mr. Grey and I had separate lessons. About mid way through my lesson, he showed up in tears on the side of the hill. There was no doubt about it, my lesson was over. And I was okay with that. I’d already fallen on my tailbone and I was beginning to doubt whether I really wanted to learn to snowboard or not, considering that I knew I could ski.

Over a Cherry Coke and a Kit Kat bar, we discussed whether or not to try more boarding or to get skis. Mr. Grey said he wanted to try skis. So we went back to the rental shop and traded in our boards for skis and went outside just in time for a leader to tell us that it was time to meet as a troop for lunch.

While at lunch, I discussed the situation with the leader who had organized the trip, who was also an avid skier. Brian agreed to try to teach Mr. Grey to ski and spent about 45 minutes with him before Mr. Grey threw in the towel. It was 1:30 on Saturday. We had the rest of the afternoon and the evening to fill and I was worried.

I fully expected my son to say that he wanted to go home, which would have been impossible because we had another scout in our car and there was no other car with space for him to ride home. I also fully expected that my son was going to demand that I stay by his side for the rest of the day. In an instant I saw not one but two ski trips gone south.

Mercifully, before I could get caught up in my own head, some of the scouts my son’s age were also tired of skiing and he synced up with them to go tubing and to play video games for the rest of the afternoon.

I went skiing.

I hadn’t been skiing in 17 years, but it came back like riding a bike. I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the slopes with a few other adults from the troop. We had dinner (taco salad which was surprisingly good) and went back out under the lights. I hadn’t skied at night since grade school, but it was fantastic. I skied until 8:30 when I was tired and cold. I called it a night after the fastest run down one of the steepest slopes and returned to the cabin.

The next morning, after breakfast, we skied for another two hours and then drove the four long hours home. I arrived home around 5:30 and my son told me that he was bummed that the weekend was over. He said he didn’t want to go to school. I told him that I didn’t want to go to work either.

While we were on the first trip, Mr. Grey asked me, “Dad, why did you stop doing all the cool things you do?” I asked him what he meant. “Well, you played guitar and stoped. You skied and stopped. You were an artist, and you stopped drawing.” I looked at him and said, “Well, sometimes when someone starts drinking, they stop doing all the cool things they used to do. But, I’m picking up those old things again now that I’m not drinking.”

There is a part of me that gets a bit regretful about that. But I do not regret my past. I’m just grateful to be able to do these things again. And as I reflect on this past weekend, I’m overwhelmed by my good fortune. We only have a short time on this stone hurling through space and we might as well make the best of that time.

Don’t Bite the Hook

Feelings can be so intense. This morning I was supposed to take my son fishing on a charter out of Menemsha harbor. I woke at 6:30, made coffee, prepared lunch and snacks, and got him up for the adventure. We walked down to the appointed meeting point, the Menemsha Texaco, arriving at 7:50. Plenty of time to grab an extra snack and a T shirt for the boy who was wearing a sweatshirt with nothing underneath in August. Plenty of time to catch the boat.

My wife had made the arrangements and we’d been told to meet at the Texaco. As the clock neared 8:00, the time to shove off, I started to wonder where everyone was, when the owner of the boat was going to show up. I knew that I should have started asking questions but my social anxiety got the better of me.

They will show up I kept thinking. It’s island time. No big deal. Until I saw the boat pulling away and said, “we just missed our boat.” That’s when the woman who organizes the trips emerged from behind the Texaco and said, “I’m sorry, we were waiting for you.”

I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t have a cell phone to call the captain. Apparently he didn’t have one either because when I offered mine she didn’t respond. A friendly man, said he’d radio the boat but the news was not good. The captain wasn’t coming back. The woman said, “we’re just getting started, how could I have avoided this?” I suggested that perhaps a sign, clearer directions to the boat beyond meet at the Texaco, and perhaps making a call out that the boat was leaving might be helpful.

Mr. Grey and I started walking home. And then the feelings hit.

Failure. Shitty father. Idiot. Dumbass. You fuck everything up. You let down the ones you love the most.

The same feelings that I used to have when I was drinking. Only now there isn’t anything to numb the pain. No escape hatch. Just have to sit with them.

My son is more forgiving than I am. He asked me to take him fishing when we get home. And I will. And still, I have a hard time forgiving myself.

I know that in the grand scheme of things missing a fishing charter is nothing compared to being the drunk dad that I once was, destined to die early in life. And yet, I still feel like I failed today.

I’m going to try to shake this off. I’m going to offer myself metta — loving kindness. I’m going to do my best to let go of this. As Pema Chödrön says, “don’t bite the hook.”

The ferry that wasn’t a ferry. 

“Hi, welcome to Seastreak. Do you have a reservation?”  

“Yes, we’re on the 2 PM to Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Okay, parking is down the street for $13 a day, or we can valet it for $25 a day.”

“We were planning to take our car…”

“We don’t take cars, sir. You need to go to the Steamship Authority up in Woods Hole for that.”

My sinking heart was met by my rising stomach, as that familiar rushing feeling started in my face, neck, and chest. Something was terribly wrong with this situation. This wasn’t a ferry. Ferries are boats that transport cars and trucks. This was an overpriced boat offering rides to passengers to the island.  Not a ferry.

She repeated the bit about Woods Hole after I didn’t respond. Then she offered that we really don’t need a car on the Vineyard, lots of bikes and public transportation. All well and good, but we had a load of shit in the way-back of the Volvo.

There would be no refund, but our prepaid reservation would be good for a year.

I was not concerned in the least about the money, though I probably should’ve been more concerned about losing $120 on tickets that we will never use. I was concerned that there would be no chance of us getting a reservation on the car ferry and that we’d be lucky to get to our vacation spot after two solid days in the car.

And I was right, the website confirmed that there were no available reservations until the next day.

We needed lunch, desperately, and had passed a restaurant on the way to this ferry that’s not a ferry. So we headed for it. The parking lot was a disaster, of course, and I nearly lost it trying to find a place to park the car.

The car.

The car was a gift from Mrs. TKD’s father. A twelve year old Volvo XC70 with 213K miles on it that had been nothing but trouble for my father in law. Why on earth was I driving this to Martha’s Vineyard? Well, it rides a lot nicer than either Subaru and it’s got very comfortable seats. It survived Mrs. TKD’s trip to Cooperstown. So, I figured what the hell.

Mid-way through our first leg of this journey the “Check Engine” light came on. The fluids were good. The car was driving fine. So we continued. Besides it was 8:30 PM, we weren’t going to find a mechanic anyway. It made it the 90 miles that we had left with no problems.

Mrs. TKD googled “Volvo xc70 check engine light” and found that the most common cause is a failing or improperly tightened gas cap. Visual inspection of the 12 year old gas cap revealed a failing gasket. Since our reservation for the ferry that was not actually a ferry was for 2 PM and since we had a 4 hour drive, I knew we needed to get to the bottom of the light first thing in the morning. So I’d been to Autozone to purchase a new fuel cap at 7:30. It did not immediately seem to have any effect on the light.

Fortunately, Mrs. TKD’s dad’s mechanic opened at 8:00. We headed there and explained the situation. They checked the codes and confirmed that it was infact the gas cap that had triggered the light. They reset the code. No charge.

So, back to this parking lot and the restaurant.

I haven’t felt a compulsion to have a drink as strongly as the moment I walked in that door since I quit drinking. Every cell in my body screamed, “give me the booze!”

I was furious, — with my wife and also with myself. When she asked me to reserve this ferry that is not a ferry, I had some concerns about it because all I’d ever heard of was the Steamship Authority ferry. But I took her word for it and reserved anyway without doing my research. I should have verified.

I was also anxious. All the stars seemed to be aligning against me. Maybe we should have gone to the Outerbanks like Mrs. TKD had suggested back in April.  

As I sat there sullenly, Mrs. TKD made a reservation for the next day and we started making our way to Woods Hole. I read from some 12 step literature. The reading in Daily Reflections was particularly helpful.

We reacted more strongly to frustrations than normal people. 

— AS BILL SEES IT, p. 111

Impatience with other people is one of my principal failings.

A little food. The Serenity Prayer. Deep breathing. Acceptance.

I got through the compulsion. I got past the irritation. I didn’t explode outwardly even as I felt like I might inside.


It’s still the same day as it was when we arrived at the wrong boat. I started this post on my phone while in the standby line at Woods Hole. I fully expected to be waiting hours – and if it were peak season, we probably would have – but I’m finishing this post from aboard the ferry and we’ll be landing on the island within a half hour.

Everything worked out. 

My family isn’t mad at me.

I am still sober.