And so I have done so. Or at least started to. I am not currently at a point, like I was last Fall, where I could write every day, espeically for the type of writing I need to do. It really has to bubble up and force itself out of me. Today was that day. Something about 2023 so far is that I am remembering feelings, or how I felt during certain parts of my life in the past. I unfortunately have learned over the past ten or so years to not just hide my emotions, but to suppress them altogether. Which is unlike me. In my younger years, late teens and early twenties, I was extremely emotional, I truly felt things. I felt anger, happiness, joy, excitment, love. My late twenties and up to the late thirties I have reached (still young!) have taught me just how useful those emotions can be to others, and how they can be used against me…and so I hide (poker face) and suppress.

I’m still not quite sure of my “voice”. I know it will come with time, and I get to it eventually as I write, but I do have a sense of what it is. Style is also something I have struggled with, especially when it comes to writing I plan to publish for the public to read. I want it to be written in a certain way so that it reads in a certain way. It may come across as choppy, but there is a thread woven throughout that connects everything. At least that’s how I see it in my mind. I have notebooks filled with thoughts started. Journal entires of complete thoughts. Scraps of paper, quite literally, kept together with a chicago screw, for a personal essay…I think that’s what it would be considered. Doesn’t matter. But that’s what I really felt pulled to this morning. Those scraps with ideas and feelings written on them. And so I started with the first one. Reading it brought back the same feelings I felt, and so I wrote. I turned to the second one, heavy feelings on that one and so I stopped.

This season of writing for me is going to be hard. Hard because of the closure it will bring, hopefully. Hard because of the work it will require. Hard because I never wanted to write about any of this in the first place.

Years ago I wrote a handwritten book of sorts for a close friend. He was just about to have his first kid and I wanted to share my experience so far with him. I filled a Field Notes notebook, as one does, with very tidy handwritten chapters on life as a dad. I wrote on the cover “On Becoming a Father”. That was the title. I never gave it to him. He now has three children, all girls (God bless him), and has much more experience than I do. And his marriage has remained intact.

When I finished writing it I thought that small booklets like that would be useful for folks to have. Simply written, honest accounts of becoming a husband, becoming a father, becoming an uncle, and so on and so forth. I laugh now at the idea but think it may still have merit, though I may not be the best person to write on becoming a husband, maybe I’ll save that one for last.

My intent was to give my friend an honest heads up to what things might be like. How having a kid will change him, his wife, and their relationship. Advice thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure why the notebook stayed in the back of my nightstand drawer, never making its way to my friend, but something happened that made me hold back…and so I did.

It was good to write this morning. To start chipping away at a larger piece that needs to be out there, out of my head for sure, and to write a bit here.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day :-)

(Another copy and paste from my journal).

And that mindset of stillness is something I remember having many years ago. It was during those times when another version of me took over and did the writing. I have only experienced those times of “stillness” when I am writing. It is during those times that I hit a stride, I feel as though I am living or existing in a sweet-spot of sorts. It is like hitting a tennis ball at the right spot on the racket, the ball goes farther, faster, and seems to put no strain whatsoever on the wrist. Hit the ball with any other part of the racket and it will not go as far, it will no go as fast, and it will hurt to hit. The sweet spot is where it is at, it is where I want to desperately get back to. The sweet spot is when I am existing at the right place and time, and I am doing the right thing. It is when I am doing what I was made to do. No other time in life feels like the sweet spot.

Putting the mind into that space is not easy. We have constant input and, now at this point in my life, constant pulls for my attention (wife, kid, dog). Plus there is work, extended family obligations, etc.

I need to prioritize writing even more in my new routine (yep, another “new” routine). I need to sit down to write right away. Before walking, before taking any inputs from life, write. Up at 5, writing by 5:15. That should be the goal. Walk at some point during the day. I need a spot in the middle anyways that gets me up and away from the computer. A 30 minute walk and 15 minute stretch is good for that. Up at 5, write at 5:15, breakfast and stuff around 7. Shower then too. “Ready” for obligations by 8. Almost two hours of writing every morning. Yeah. That’s what I need. And journal first, like I do here, to warm up, get my fingers moving, my brain in motion, and then switch gears to something else. What that “something” is, I have no clue, as usual, but at least give my mind the opportunity to be still and figure it out. The routine of putting writing first is key. That way it gets done. I have accomplished the most important thing before anything else.

It is amazing to me how much we can lose our sense of self if we are not careful. I have lost what feels like all sense of who I am over the past twelve years, even more so in the past 6 years. I am only thirty-three, so still a child in many aspects of life, but I do know that who I was 13 years ago, maybe even as far back as 15 years ago (before dating and all of that), was the real version of me. That version had an unwavering confidence and the ability to enter into a mindset of stillness. I remember it clearly, as if it was yesterday, how that mindset felt then. The years of life since then, and the impacts I have allowed it to make on me have scarred that portion of my mind with a hard tissue that will take more time to remove. But, I believe, and hope, that with diligence I can do so.

This is not to say that the past, as a writer, is not valuable. It is extremely valuable and will most likely be what I pull from as I get back into the mindset of a being a writer, but the loss of self that was required is painful to reflect on. That sounds dramatic, maybe even overly dramatic, but that does not make it untrue.

As with everything in life, I am arriving at this point (this realization) at the precise time I was meant to. It is my job to not waste it.

Allow me to get personal. Okay, not too personal, but at least hear me out with a crazy goal that I have with my little family of three.

We want to travel around the country (USA) in a RV. Or as Mozzie, my six-year-old, calls it, a “camper van.”

We want to travel as a family and we want to start where we currently live. The world has a lot to offer, but I believe starting our journey as “travelers” here in the States will be a fine way to kick things off.

But it isn’t that simple, as anyone with a family, job, and financial obligations will know. Just packing everything into a trailer on wheels and waving good-buy to the suburbs is not a reality.

It takes planning. Extra income, in my case, as my wife’s sole focus is training/raising/educating Mozzie. And guts.

Guts that I think we have, but will know for sure when things become a bit more of a reality.

I have two goals, or prerequisites, that I want to hit before embarking on this crezy journey of taking my family from a 1,200 square foot ranch home with a big back-yard and shoving them into a twenty-some foot RV.

1) I want to do it debt free. No financing on the RV. Pay cash. Entirely. And no debt from our “previous” life. No student loan. No mortgage. (The only debt I currently have).

2) I want to have a few streams of income, all “self-employed” income sources if possible. If my current traditional employer is game, I’ll consider it. But as of now they are pretty structured on the normal 9-5 window of availability, even with me working from my home office 99% of the time.

So, with those two goals in mind I am beginning to plan things out now. And my life has become increasingly busier as a result.

In order to hit the first goal I need to be making a certain amount of money above and beyond my day-job salary. So, to accomplish that, I built and run an e-commerce site for a local cigar shop where I split the profit, and then took a part-time role with that same cigar shop for a fixed monthly amount of money. The fixed amount hits my goal of what is needed annually to knock out all debt within five years. Any income from the website is extra and simply not planned on since that can realistically take years to get to a point of providing financially.

In addition to that, and also with the second goal in mind, I am doing whatever I can to learn iOS development. I have been living on the edge of “becoming a developer” and just need to do it already. So I am using it to reach a few goals. My aim is to develop an app that I can market and sell in the App Store. I know, I know, lofty dreams and goals, but I am going to try. I do not want to do client work because that creates ties and obligations to others, which becomes complicated while traveling. And iOS because, well, I just like the way Apple does things. Plus their hardware is the best I have used.

So an app or two or three to replace the income generated from working at the cigar shop (retail work is not for me) and then to somehow carry that into life on the road.

Another stream of income I would like to developer is tied to writing. Not writing code, although some would argue that counts, but writing to tell stories, educate, inspire, or scare away. “Being a writer” is another thing I have always wanted to do but never did anything with other than to think “that would be nice, for people to pay for my written thoughts.” Never before has it been more of possibly to connect with an audience who will pay to read what one writes, but also never before has it been more difficult simply based on the sheer number of people trying to do the same thing.

And exactly what I would write…I have no clue yet, but there must be something that I can do with this idea…

So the next 4-5 years is what I am working with. During that time I am preparing for what I hope to be a crazy life change that is an adventure for my family. One that we will never forget, and maybe never quit.

I plan to share my progress here and hope that doing so creates a sense of accountability for myself, but also helps one or two others who also have a crazy idea they’d like to try. Not to say that the way I am doing things is right, it is probably all wrong, but maybe the spirit will be all that is needed to give someone that push they were looking for.

So that’s a long explanation for posts and such to follow. If you read up to this point, I thank you!

Here we go :-)