Believing in Myself
So here’s the thing: I have amazing intuition. Believe what you want about humans having only five senses. We don’t. We have more. And for me, one of my strongest senses is my gut feelings about what to do and not to do. I’ve had this ability since I was a small child, but I learned what it was all about in 2016 or so.
I’m an empath. And not just any old empath. I’m an extreme empath. Like, extreme. When I tell people that, if it’s not met with “Huh?” it’s met with skepticism. Which is fine. It’s a tough concept to grasp and wanders deep into the Woo-Woo Woods. But the reality is I can feel other people’s emotions, I’m a sponge for the energy of a crowd, and I have an uncanny knack for instantly knowing the right choice in difficult circumstances. The problem is, I also have an uncanny knack for not listening to myself.
This is born out of low self-confidence, a problem I’ve been working hard to address in recent months. I’d like to believe I’ve made significant progress. But I learned in the past few days that I still have work to do.
Our house went on the market Wednesday. On Thursday, we received a fantastic offer well above list price. Our Realtor advised me to wait until the weekend frenzy to drive the price up further. This wasn’t necessarily poor advice in the market we’re in. It’s an insane sellers market. But my gut was telling me to take the offer. So I pushed that strategy with the Realtor. And then I let him talk me out of it.
Things didn’t go as I’d have wanted them to go the rest of the week leading up to the 8 p.m. deadline for offers tonight. And so now we’re very much in a state of flux. As all of this was unfolding this evening, I took a cigar and went out to the yard and sat in a lawn chair I pulled out of the jumble of unpacked crap that’s in our garage. I smoked and fumed as night fell and lightning bugs began to dot the landscape. I knew I should have taken the offer. I knew. And I didn’t trust myself. I trusted the expertise of the Realtor, who made sure when he gave me his advice that he underscored that the decision was mine.
And it was mine. But I let someone else essentially make it for me. I’m forty-seven fucking years old, I am a smart person who has educated himself on the world and on business and, of late, on real estate, and I took advice from someone who wasn’t even born when I had my first management position. And again… I knew better.
Never again.
My life started to turn around this year when I began to believe in myself. I threaded the needle on an extremely complex set of circumstances that resulted with me landing a job that has potentially life-changing financial possibilities for my family. I clearly saw the way through a complicated housing opportunity that will erase about a half-decade of financial challenges.
I did that. Me.
I saw it, I felt it, I did it.
This isn’t to say I will never listen to counsel again. If an electrician tells me it might be wise for me not to touch Wire A to Wire B, I’m going to not touch Wire A to Wire B. But when it comes to non-life-threatening matters, I’ve got this.
Me and Music
It’s been an emotional day overall, kiddos. I’m not sure why. These days just sort of happen to me from time to time. One of the things I know about myself is that music matters. I don’t just listen to it. Oftentimes, I feel it. See the above item and maybe it’ll make some sort of sense. Anyway, Wifey-Poo and I were driving back from our weekend getaway. A year or so ago (maybe it’s been longer), I started an Amazon Music playlist for her. Every once in awhile, I’ll put a new song in there that makes me think of her or that is connected in some way to our past. One of the more recent songs I put in there was “If You Love Her” by Forest Blakk.
So we were listening to that playlist on the way home, and that song came on. And the lyrics were sung:
If she gives you her heart, don’t you break it
Let your arms be a place she feels safe in
She’s the best thing that you’ll ever have
She’ll love you, if you love her
On days when
It feels like the whole world might cave in
Stand side by side and you’ll make it
She’s the best thing that you’ll ever have
She’ll love you, if you love her like that
And suddenly, I realized tears were spilling from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.
In 2018, I lost my way. Well, if I’m being honest, it started three years or so before that. I don’t know exactly what happened, but what I do know is that I wasn’t Wifey-Poo’s safe place and I did break her heart. Repeatedly. I could say that the reasons and the details don’t matter, but they do. Every single one of them matters.
I found myself 20-plus years into my marriage with two boys who needed their dad, and we were fighting to survive.
Thankfully, we did.
As we drove today and that song played, the enormity of it all hit me. We are by no means the perfect couple, and we are still adjusting to some pretty big changes that have happened in our lives. But together, we are so good. So when I heard “she’s the best thing that you’ll ever have,” I realized how true that was. And I don’t mean that my head realized it. The depths of my heart realized it.
I’m not exactly sure what the tears were for. I think a large part of it is the tremendous guilt and regret that bubbles up to the surface every once in a while. I look back on the things that happened in an eight-month period in 2018 and early 2019, and I regret everything. There’s not a moment of it that I wouldn’t take back. Were I granted three wishes by some magical genie, fixing that period of time would be Wish No. 1. Unquestionably. Unflinchingly. Before the genie was even fully out of the bottle.
But the thing is, there are no magic genies. And, as sad as it is to say, erasing that time period and everyone and everything in it wouldn’t fix all that I want to fix. So instead I’ve committed myself to the only path that actually exists when your marriage comes to the precipice — and that’s to turn around and walk yourself back to safer, more familiar ground.
Wifey-Poo would be the first one to tell you she’s far from perfect. She’s humble and beautiful like that. But she definitely has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. In a few short weeks, we’ll celebrate the 29th anniversary of knowing each other. We were freshmen at Drake University. We lived on the same floor, and her room was on the path for me to exit the building. One day, I was headed out and she had her door opened. She insists she was studying chemistry, and maybe she’s right — if chemistry somehow looks like Tetris. I said “Hey.” She said “Hi.” A few days later, we fell into a conversation in a packed dorm room in which everyone else seemed to disappear. A few weeks after that, we had our first date.
Our lives haven’t been easy. We’ve faced unimaginable sorrow. But here we are. And there I was in the car, crying, realizing how stupid I’d been, how I’d almost lost everything that truly matters to me — and thanking God that I didn’t.
The ‘Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Say It’ of the Day
‘Next to “God,” “love” is the word most mangled in every language.’
Richard Bach, A Bridge Across FOrever
Lunch With the Kids
We met up with Boy the Elder and his amazing girlfriend for lunch on our way home. I sat there watching the two of them and realized something: They remind me exactly, and I mean exactly, of me and Wifey-Poo when we were that age. Spooky and beautiful.
Today’s Reasons to Keep Living
- Wonderful moments of clarity about progress on your journey through life.
- Chipotle.
- Whacking weeds that are growing up through the crack in your driveway.
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🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Anti-Group⛔Movie Meltdown🎥One Of Us🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I have long had trouble with groups. Largely, it’s because there are few groups I want people to associate me with when they consider the worst things they have ever done. Maybe … maybe … I was OK with my Little League teams, but…
Barf Sport — October 10, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Cross Country🤮🏃♀️Happy Coffee☕Stride🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I’m not sure how long my current non-barf streak is, but I know it’s long — perhaps longer than at any point in my life, and, knock on wood, we’re just at the start of a streak that would make Cal Ripkin say, “Damn, son…
Eyeglass Racket— October 9, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩New specs🤓Designer Babies👶Clearly🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I’m pretty sure that if I had lived during those long-ago early-human times, I’d have been dead a long, long time ago. I was thinking about this while at the eye doctor yesterday. I had to get glasses in third grade, and my vision has…
Chaos — October 8, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Teetering😡Starbucks Sinkhole☕Mosh🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE Bad stuff happens amidst chaos. When things are or seem out of control, people’s decision-making abilities are proven to falter. Good, kind, law-abiding people in the middle of an unruly crowd are known to do horrible things they would never do on their own. I’m pretty…
Cowboy Hell — October 4, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Nebraska Adventure🚴🚴🚴Sleeping Roaches🚴Against The Wind🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE To be honest, I have no idea which of the three women I am traveling with is most responsible for the fact that I awoke this morning in someplace called Stuart, Nebraska, a town so small that it make my former Small Town…
Standardization — October 3, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Commie Correctness🪆Zero Road Deaths🚒Winds of Change🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE These are dangerous times to say what I’m about to say, but I’m gonna say it anyway: The Commies had it right. Now before you get your Pro-Trump panties in a bunch, know this: I am well-versed in why Communism not only…
Fat-ass Reprise — September 30, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Accidental Cursing🤬Heart Rot❤️🩹Civil War🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I didn’t mean to curse in front of the nurse. Honestly, I didn’t. It’s just that when I saw the number on the scale she innocently asked me to step upon, I was surprised. And so “Holy shit!” was immediately followed by me clasping…
Bonus Son — September 27, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Engaged💍Good Cars🚗Institutionalized🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I have been blessed for many years to have a bonus son. Matthew is the boy of our neighbors when we lived in Ohio, the son of Wifey Poo’s best friend and Boy The Elder’s early-life best friend. He was a regular presence in my home…
Robo-John — September 26, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Inspire🤖Bad Food🍪Alive🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE We have an interesting relationship with the human/machine hybrid. For example, when Obi Wan Kanobi appears in ghost form to tell Luke, “Um, yeah … sorry I lied about that whole daddy thing,” he says of Darth Vader nee Skywalker … “He’s more machine now than…
No-Show Jesus — September 25, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Late Savior📖Dead Romance💔REM🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE Once again, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has disappointed, failing to show up despite telling one of this most ardent supports that he was coming back. South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela has claimed for months that God’s Only Son personally revealed to him that he…
Flying Fly — September 24, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Travel Buddy🪰Sleep😴Swinging🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE There was a fly on my flight from Washington, D.C., back to the STL on Sunday. This made me wonder how confused that fly would be when he got off the plane. And before you say “Flies aren’t capable of confusion,” are you really so sure?…
School Debauchery — September 23, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Freaking Fox Lane🤯Math Zap⚡Swinging🎶 THE DAILY UPDATE I spent the weekend hanging with someone I knew in high school who had become a friend later in life. This was the second year of a Dudes Trip in which we go to a baseball game at a different park. Last year was…
Censorship — September 22, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Shhhh🤐Maria🎶Free Speech🤐 THE DAILY UPDATE As a high school senior, I served as the sports editor of the Fox Lane Forum, the school newspaper of Fox Lane High School. But on the day a kid named Jason flung a chair across the basketball court while play was still going on before…
Planes, Trains & Automobiles— September 20, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Travel Log✈️Maria🎶Free Speech🤐 THE DAILY UPDATE I awoke this morning in an Airbnb in Baltimore, Maryland, a row house in the shadows of Camden Yards. At least … I’m pretty sure that’s where I awoke. I understand there are people out there for whom transcontinental travel is the norm. I am…
The AI Conundrum — September 17, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Making Myself Jobless?💔Voices🎶Good Cancer😕 THE DAILY UPDATE Want to know a secret? I’ve used artificial intelligence to write an article for a client. Not only that, but I didn’t tell my client I wrote the article. Depending on who you are, your reaction is somewhere between “And …?” and “YOU FRAUD!…
San Diego’s Homeless — September 16, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩The Least of These💔Voices🎶Good Cancer😕 THE DAILY UPDATE I’ve been in San Diego since Saturday, hanging out with Wifey Poo for a few days in advance of the Content Marketing World 2025 conference that apparently has brought half the continental United States to learn more about writing and producing stuff. We…
Saying Goodbye — September 12, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Giving Up On Hope❤️Hesitate🎶Eternal Sunshine🌞 THE DAILY UPDATE A few days ago, I wrote about Hope. In understanding that the hope I was holding for change and resolution in a situation that has pretty much defined most of the past six or seven years of my life was causing me a…
Free Speech — September 11, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Charlie Kirk 😔Sludge🎶Claims🤥 THE DAILY UPDATE I’ll be honest: Until he was shot and killed yesterday, Charlie Kirk was not on my radar. If you had asked me, “Who’s Charlie Kirk?” I would have said, “An NFL wide receive who used to play for the Jaguars.” Of course, that’s Christian Kirk,…
An End to Hope — September 10, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Shawshank❤️Shinedown🎶Eternal Sunshine🌞 THE DAILY UPDATE The 1994 film Shawshank Redemption, based on the short story by author/god Stephen King, is about many things but none more so than hope. The concept of hope bubbles up throughout the movie and provides the framework for its conclusion, partly illustrated by the GIF above…
1980s Rom-Coms — September 9, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩The Lloyd In Me❤️Mannequin Song🎶Eternal Sunshine🌞 THE DAILY UPDATE Having done most of my growing up in the 1980s and polishing off my teen years in the 1990s, today confuses the hell out of me when it comes to romance and love. Yesterday, I mentioned Lloyd Dobler from the movie Say…
Love the Niche — September 8, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Sumo/Curling Connection🥌Eyes🎶Danced🕺 THE DAILY UPDATE I grew up in the Lloyd Dobler era, which means I believe deeply in the power of the boombox to overcome all sorts of relationship and cultural differences and in the beauty of niche sports. To quote the wise soothsayer from Say Anything: “What I’ve been…
Fire & Ice — September 7, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Burnin’ n’ Curlin’🥌Live Again🎶Fraud💻 THE DAILY UPDATE Yesterday was a day of temperature extremes for me. I spent the morning burning the second half of a huge pile of limbs and brush I’d cleaned up in the spring. Little known fact: When you move to Missourah, you are issued a huge…
No Hiccups — September 6, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Medical Marvel🩺Black —>Blue🎶Good Cancer?😮 THE DAILY UPDATE Here’s an odd fact about me: I haven’t had a case of the hiccups this millennia. No one — no doctor, no non-doctor, no AI — knows exactly why, but the last time I remember having hiccups is 1999. And the only significant health…
The Ugly Things — September 4, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩A Writing Project🖊️Cold🎶Wildfire🔥 THE DAILY UPDATE Life isn’t pretty. I’m not sure when it was that I learned that, but I know it is true. No stage of my life can be considered anything other than “how the sausage is made,” and for those who haven’t seen sausage made, it is…
Hacked — September 3, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩blinkies-karaoke.com😠Fast Car🎶Fall🍂 THE DAILY UPDATE First, an ear update from yesterday’s plight. Fear not, loyal reader. I am back among the two-eared hearing. What came out of my ear during the ceremonial cleaning ritual I did over my bathroom sink was unholy and the stuff of horror movies. We shall never…
What? — September 2, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Deaf👂Fast Car🎶Sports Wednesday⚾ THE DAILY UPDATE I can’t hear. Or, more specifically, I can’t hear out of my right ear. And it’s making me cranky. As the one regular reader of this drivel (Yo, Kim) knows but probably forgot because who in their right mind would actually commit this to memory…
Sad Anniversaries — September 1, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Jacob😢Sludge🎶Curling🥌 THE DAILY UPDATE August 30th marked the 25th anniversary of the day my life changed forever. On Aug. 30, 2000, Wifey Poo and I went to what was supposed to be a routine ultrasound for our first child. We were so excited. We were going to get to see our…
Pedophile Bus Driver — August 28, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Don🚌Can’t Remember🎶Pizza Date🍕 THE DAILY UPDATE I’m not sure when I realized that my elementary school bus driver was probably a child molester, but it was long after my time at Pound Ridge Elementary. His name was Don, and I can picture him as good today at 51 as I could…
In Defense of Boredom — August 27, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Updates and Stuff📋Shinedown🎶DnD🐉 THE DAILY UPDATE Yeah yeah yeah, it’s been awhile again. Forgive me. I’ve been busy figuring out how to be bored. I’m sure this has something to do with the fact that I’m increasingly old, but I have been craving simplicity, and by that, I mean, not what…
Game Over — July 22, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Bye Bye Baseball🤭NWA🎶Fraud🪪 THE DAILY UPDATE I am no longer a baseball coach. Sunday evening, my coaching career came to an end with a 12-2 defeat in the finals of the silver bracket of the GMB AA World Series. That butt-whooping ties a bow on a two-year odyssey that I promised…
Life Updates — June 28, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Various Stuff🤭NWA🎶Fraud🪪 THE DAILY UPDATE As Staind would say, It’s Been Awhile. To be honest, I just haven’t felt much like sharing. I’ve been insanely busy with my day job, side business, baseball coaching, home and property maintenance stuff, and trying to find someone within 50 miles who might want to…
Operations — June 6, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩Becoming Handy🪚Anna🎶Partnerships🤝 THE DAILY UPDATE I was not raised to be handy around the house. This isn’t because my father was unhandy. He just didn’t necessarily teach me the handy stuff he knew. Either that, or I was more interested in playing baseball or riding my bike than I was in…
Me and Ice Cube — June 5, 2025
🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩O’Shea🎙️Good Day🎶Patrick Ewing⛹🏿 THE DAILY UPDATE Me and Ice Cube don’t have much in common. I was thinking about that on my drive into the office today while listening to his 1992 hit, “It Was a Good Day.” That was a big year for me and Cube (if I may be…
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