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Common Enemy

Vibrant crowd cheering at outdoor stadium event

Instant replays are all over the World Cup now.

We can roll back the tape to reevaluate history in real-time.

Baseball is doing this new thing where they allow the players to challenge the umpire’s call by tapping their helmet. I first saw it in the minor leagues, but it’s now in all the games.

After the tap, the play is reviewed by a computer (AI?), which can easily tell if the ball was in the strike zone. Then the call is either underscored or overturned.

I heard a guy on NPR talking about this, and he brought up something I witnessed myself at the minor league games.

The crowd loves this new ruling.

Whenever someone taps their helmet, it’s like a betting pool opens up, but not with money, with emotion. We all have our opinions out there in the bleachers, and we let them be known. Both sides are equally confident.

Great call. Totally a strike.
That was a bullsh*t call. Not even close.

It’s almost like religion.

My God.
No, my God.
No! No God.

And we’re all right.

Right?

And then the loudspeaker comes on: The call is overturned. It’s a ball!

Half the crowd goes wild with excitement and half the crowd boos and jeers… middle fingers, high fives, arms thrown up, c’mon! beer spilling, and all of it directed at the umpire who, though doing his best, is the scapegoat placed there for us hate.

I’m guilty of it too. I do those high fives. I scream at the TV during the World Cup, text my disdain to friends. You get caught up in it. It feels great to slap literal and proverbial hands with people.

I just wish it wasn’t only for that.

Having a common enemy, in this case, a portly umpire or neon-shirted referree, bonds people together, but the glue is cheap and it doesn’t last. We become friends with strangers in the moment. Hands reach toward each other, and I suppose I should be happy about that.

But all I can think about as the applause dies down, and we resume our perches to vulture-watch the next call, is how fleeting the good vibe was.

How often do we reach out to each other only to put someone else down?

This is now a tactic of professional sports: to rally fans around their anger toward the umpire AGAIN. It’s a second chance to stoke the flames of anger and joy. To fuel us.

Like war.

Like the schoolyard.

We do this a lot: using hate to build alliances — hate exhumed from the belly and brought up to the surface, tacky and gooey.

It works long enough to give the illusion that we’re together. Alas, we are not; we’ll filter out into the parking lot and into the classrooms quite separately. That is, if we lose. If we win, we will dance.

Reticent free thinkers plagued with a legacy of tribalism.

Searching for something good with primitive tools.

Pitchforks, cudgels, torches…

And cheap glue.


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2 Trips

Woman in white sweater packing clothes in the luggage bag

My oldest daughter loves to pack for trips.

I asked her what’s so great about it, and she said, “It makes me think about what I need, so I think about being there, and so it’s like I’m already there.”

Not bad, kid.

If we think about packing as visualizing, it can be quite enjoyable. And productive.

Don’t just see a bathing suit, see the pool. As you grab your toothbrush, picture yourself standing in front of a mirror with a different reflection. As you pull out a dress, you’re in a sunny park. A nice belt means dinner in a new restaurant.

Each thing you grab fills in the image a little bit more, brings the future into the present.

You get 2 trips in 1.

And in a way, you’re planning. You’re deciding what you want to do on your trip, the moments you want to collect, a collage for a map, an agenda in a suitcase.

We have more control over the future than we think.

But whatever you do, don’t overpack.

You have to leave room for a few surprises.

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Prelude to Productivity

Squirming on the couch like a fish out of water, Hazel let out the refrain I knew was coming, the words all kids have howled out to their parents in a torturous tone:

“I’m sooooo BORED.”

Okay.

I, on the other hand, was not.

I’d just finished trimming the foliage of our front-yard/jungle, cleaned three rooms top-to-bottom, and was (quite ironically) trying to figure out a place to put all of Hazel’s toys, several of which were new additions sucked in through a surprise birthday party.

It was hard, with my sore back and arms full of stacked board games, not to call her a spoiled brat and throw her toys out the window.

But I kept it together, not because she didn’t deserve to be yelled at (spoiled brat!)… but mostly because she had an important lesson to learn.

“Being bored is the beginning of something great,” I said to her. “You’re lucky. Good stuff is about to happen for you.”

She writhed even more, kicked her legs, and cried out “You don’t GET IT!”

“I certainly do,” I said, in a calmness that pleased me and infuriated her, as signaled by her flipping over onto her stomach and burying her head in the pillows.

“I’m not going to save you.” I said. “You have to dig yourself out on your own.”

And I left, because, as mentioned already, I had plenty of things to do, and if the things in my head weren’t enough to keep me busy, I had a dry-erase board full of to-do’s.

As I walked into the dining room, I heard her run outside to appeal to Mom sweeping the front walk. Mom said something, and then more moaning.

Nice. Mom held her ground.

Hazel came back inside, wandered around the living room for a bit before storming up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door.

She likely was in the process of flinging herself onto her bed or into her self-created “wiggle nook.”

It took about 5 minutes.

5 minutes of ending the excruciating pain of being bored…

I knew she was saving herself when I heard the faint angsty lyrics of Olivia Rodrigo coming through the ceiling.

I heard the tell-tale signs of a young room-cleaner: drawers closing, wardrobe doors slamming, and underneath the banging and clacking and achy words of Olivia, I heard the hum of a little girl who had found her way through.

It went on like this for a half hour. Alas, my joy of listening to a lesson-learned faded when a friend of hers showed up and they went screaming through the house out into the backyard to play on our waterslide.

Ah well. She got a taste.

But then, while they played outside, I went upstairs with another armful of books and toys and birthday cards, and art projects piled up to my chin, and as I side-stepped into my office (where I safeguard the art projects), I had an unexpected delight.

There, on my crowded dry-erase board, at the bottom, in her unbalanced grade-school handwriting, was a sign that I had gotten through… or rather, she had gotten through.

In pink highlighter…

Hazel’s To-Do List:
–Clean room
–Fix sewing machine
–Sew

Ha!

The hardest part of work is the beginning. Plato said that.

Hazel got through the hardest part.

As I turned away from my dry-erase board, the art projects and folded, little paper things slid off the stack of boxes and scattered on my floor like falling leaves and snowflakes.

I sat on the hardwood, in a place I never sit, and looked across the multi-colored landscapes, origami boxes, homemade pop-up books, and half-done comic strips. I picked up one and pinned it to the wall between a picture of a talking ice cream cone and an exploding robot.

These little humans; miracles amidst chaos.

I wonder what she’ll sew.

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I Got a Dad Who…

I got a dad who acted like a backhoe operator on Sunday mornings to scoop us up out of bed and carry us to the bathroom to brush our teeth.

I got a dad who, when he watched cartoons with us on the family room floor, laughed out loud so hard that he would buckle over with an elbow on the couch and have to wipe away tears from his eyes. Especially when it was Wile E. Coyote, Pepe Le Pew, or Yosemite Sam.

I got a dad who came up with the greatest nickname ever: Clifford B. Clifford. (Okay, truth be told it was his bar buddy, but my dad immortalized it.) Still uses it today.

I got a dad who took me to the barber shop when I was little, and let me hang around all that big-boy talk I didn’t understand but felt privileged to hear.

I got a dad who, upon giving advice for my first date, told me to forget about “that thing in my pants” and focus on her.

I got a dad who’s not afraid to fall deeply in love. And admit it.

I got a dad who did that thing with the bike where he told me he’s still holding it up but he’s actually not; he was just rooting for me from a distance, watching me go.

I got a dad who dressed up for Halloween and wouldn’t break character, even when people talked to him.

I got a dad who, without hesitation, drove to the school in the middle of his workday to chew out the principal who falsely accused me of vandalism.

I got a dad who didn’t pressure me to pick a major or a career but when I showed interest in something, he was all about it. It was my dad who encouraged me to make slides out of my artwork. It was my dad who told me to keep writing. It was my dad who pointed me to buy a suit for my first interview at my first real job at the Writers’ Guild. Footnote: I was the best-dressed person in the office.

I got a dad who flew across the country to see my firstborn child come into the world, and when he walked into the room with his Yankees baseball cap and blazer, he did the grandfather strut across the room, and everyone laughed.

I got a dad who cries when he hurts.

I got a dad who is ALWAYS available to talk. And when I talk, he listens. My dad’s my biggest fan. No contest.

I got a dad who will say hi to anyone, especially janitors, security guards, and front desk folks who everyone else just walks by — a habit, I guess I’ve picked up myself, as noted by my daughter, who the other day impersonated me saying hello to a man selling newspapers.

I got a dad who somehow surprised us every Christmas, even when money was tight, even when we no longer lived together. He was more excited than us when we opened our presents, and he helped us build, fix, power up, and play with all of our toys that same morning.

I got a dad who, when he moved out, rented a house he couldn’t afford so he could have 2 extra bedrooms in it, even though we lived with mom and only saw him every other weekend.

I got a dad who waited patiently with nothing but love while I separated myself from him and shut off my heart for 12 years. And when I came back at age 22, after a long-overdue conversation, I lay on his shoulder on the couch at my Aunt’s house, and we just sat like that for an hour.

I got a dad who lets me off the hook when I forget something important, like his birthday. No questions asked. No guilt trip.

I got a dad who tells me repeatedly that I’m smart and kind and loving and special.

I got a dad who loves to stop everything and tell everybody to enjoy the moment. His mantra is “Here we are…” Both of my daughters do an impersonation of him saying this, which makes me laugh every time.

I got a dad who has an insane ability to predict the future, especially when it’s my future.

I got a dad who still likes to learn. And not just from books, from moments and people, especially people younger than him.

I got a dad who offered to fly out to Montana to help my mom when she got dementia, and when I told him it would be too intense for her to see him, he told me he’d just come and sit in the hotel lobby so he could be there for me when I got back.

I got a dad who is doing the greatest thing a dad can do when he gets older: be happy and live a fulfilled life. It’s not as easy as it sounds! But little eyes are watching.

I got a dad who’s proud to be my dad and who makes me proud to be a dad.

I bought a T-shirt, now tattered and almost illegible, that has a pair of baby shoes next to some beat-up old work boots, and in script it says:

Fatherhood: the toughest job you’ll ever love.

Yeah.

I love my job because my dad loved his.

Happy Father’s Day, Al Flamer, Jr!

You did a bang-up job, not once but twice.

And I’m carrying on that legacy.

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Sculpture 2.0

Modern futuristic installation

Your life is a great work of art.

It is one of a kind, twisting and turning, some of it intentional, some of it spontaneous, some of it luck. You’ve spent years on it.

So, when it shatters into hundreds/thousands/millions of pieces, it is devastating, to say the least.

Our body helps us with the first part. We feel sorrow, our stomach aches, our throat closes, we cry, we moan, we fall to the ground.

Go with that.

Then, with a tear-stained, snotty face, shaking hands, and a wounded heart, you will begin to see differently. (This is the faith part.)

Now that your great sculpture has shattered, you can see what it’s made of. You can see the inside, which has been trapped. You can feel the sculpture without worrying about breaking it. Remember when you worried about breaking it?

You may be so bold as to grind down a few pieces and snort them right up your nose. Grind a few more, and you’ve got a full supply of body glitter. Walk into town, fabulous, high as a kite, and shimmering all over from what used to be.

You can carry the pain and still twirl.

Perhaps the artist who made that sculpture needs a break, would appreciate a divergent path. Perhaps that artist breathes differently now, wants to hold her hands differently.

Loss is liberating if you let it be.

You still have the talent. You still have experience.

And now you have the thing you’ve likely been upset about not having but were also so unwilling to create for yourself.

Now you have space on your shelf.

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The Virtues of Loving Someone

Kissing cousins

It feels good. For them, and for you.

You become more connected to others. Mom, tell me how you met dad.

You live longer.

You can do things you didn’t think you could before.

You are capable of surprising yourself, which, regardless of timing or magnitude, is always a gift.

Love can make you smile when you’re alone.

It helps you feel your heart.

It allows you to discover things about yourself — good and bad things — which are both, in the long run, good.

You gain admission to the greatest show on earth: experiencing ALL of life’s emotions.

No one can take it away from you. Not even the person you love, not even if they leave, not even if they betray. That love is yours.

Love makes grief possible, and grief is the forever-reminder of love; it is the hardest thing we do, that gives us all of these virtues, infinitely. It connects us in our great and courageous acts.

Love brings people together.

Love brightens the darkest room.

In loving, we live fully; we access the entirety of the universe from our small patch of Earth.

We travel through time.

And we are always home.

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Grampa Vic & The (Not So) Mini Golf Course

I had a dream about my grandpa last night.

(In line with how most dreams go, it was weird.)

We were in Chicago. No idea how I knew that.

We passed a mini golf course, and I commented on how cool it looked.

“That’s the golf course I saw on TV. It has the longest putt in the world!”

My grandpa, a very fast walker who was always in front of me when we were going places, turned to look at the course, jingled the change in his pocket, and promptly said: “Let’s go.”

My Grampa Vic was the closest thing I had to a genie. If I mentioned something, he would try to make it happen. Not material things; he didn’t gift me with gifts, rather, he gifted me with the notion that everything was possible. He loved to find things, and fix things. And he was good at it.

If I mentioned my basketball hoop was unusable because the rim was bent down, I’d come home from school the next day, and he’d have jimmied up the rim with a 2X4 resting on a piece of plywood, offering me a rubber mallet before I could put my backpack down.

If I said I had a hankering for pancakes, but we didn’t have a car, he threw me my jacket, and we’d walk 2 miles to the restaurant, with him up in front the whole time.

One thing we loved to do together is go to the town flea market. He’d look at old tools, and I’d try to sneak a look at girly magazines. He wouldn’t buy me fireworks, which I complained about as a kid, but eventually realized that’s the answer I wanted him to give.

I felt safe around my grandpa. He was a barrel-chested Viking of a man, who always wore the same 3 short-sleeve polyester, button-up shirts with his glasses pouch sticking out of the chest pocket. Much like most grandpas in our nostalgic memories, he smelled like aftershave, and his jaw felt like sandpaper.

After the flea market we’d hit the Redwood Cafe, which was an ancient eatery on the south end of the flea market property. The floors bowed, and the tables wobbled.

Grampa Vic loved to wager the waitresses that I could eat 2 breakfasts in one sitting. I was a skinny little stick of a boy (and they loved his eager smile), so they would always bet against me. And I’d always win, gulping down a stack of pancakes and a cheese omelet, including the homefries, and toast.

Each and every time, he’d laugh. And when he laughed, he’d laugh with all his breath with his mouth open so I could see his gold fillings in the way back.

“You didn’t think he’d eat all that food, did ya?” He’d say, laughing and playing with his napkin in both hands. “Your eyes just about bugged out of your head when you saw his plate was empty.”

And the waitresses would do their part: “I can’t believe he ate all that!”

The adult-me realizes that it was a game they were playing, but the kid-me would just sit back, quite uncomfortably full, and lick his chops and pat his belly like a proud lion.

It was part of our routine. He’d challenge me to do something that I didn’t think I could do, or that I didn’t think could be done at all. And then I’d do it.

So, when I found myself at the mini-golf course with him in my dream, it’s not surprising that there was an optional challenge to get to the first hole. You had to climb, hand-over-hand, up a black cable that got steeper and steeper, until you reached the top of the course, where the first hole was.

I hopped up there without even thinking about it, and, unlike real life (I’m afraid of heights), I wasn’t scared at all. My body was light; I could have climbed like that all day.

“He’s gonna do it!” the mini-golf person at the top said, and everyone looked up at me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my Grampa Vic down below, using the railing to pull himself up the stairs, looking up at me, after every step, and laughing that breathy laugh of his.

In the real world, I never got to be an adult around him; I was always a kid, my mom’s son. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was playing a role too.

He died when I was 19. Got hit by a drunk driver while traversing a crosswalk. He was on his way to the mall to read Halloween stories to the kids. I was in college. And just days before I got the call from my mom, I thought to myself: I should plan a trip to see Grampa Vic. Just me and him. Just us.

I never got to go on that trip, never even planned it. And I never got to play that monumental mini-golf course in my dream.

When I woke up, I tried to hold that fresh image of him in my mind as long as I could, a bird’s-eye view of him looking up at me while pulling his heavy frame up the stairs.

It made me happy and sad at the same time.

Happy, because, for the first time in a while, I could see him.

And sad because I wished my dream lasted long enough for me to get to the top of the course, and for him to get to the top of the course, and for what came after that.

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The Uncertain Years

The most difficult form of parenting to deal with as a child is when the caregiver is inconsistent in their behavior.

Psychologists say this leads to a ‘disorganized attachment style’ for the child. In other words, the child is unable to predict the behavior that’s coming at them and therefore fluctuates from hiding away to clinging too tightly to being despondent. This can show up as depression, loneliness, anxiety, disconnectedness, fearfulness, and rage.

(Do you see where I’m going with this?)

I think we are all experiencing disorganized attachment right now.

If we think of our authority figures as parents — or at least influential people who are dictating what happens to us — our “parents” are pretty goddamn unpredictable right now.

We never know what to expect from them.

The president is the poster child of inconsistent parenting. Even his most loyal followers and his staunchest enemies would come together on this: you never know what he’s going to do next. This indecision, this waffling, this gift stealing, this oh-on-second-thought… it’s exhausting.

But it doesn’t stop there. Politics isn’t the only sphere of uncertainty that’s draining us of our lifeblood.

Right now, our bosses are inconsistent too. We can’t tell if they’re going to praise us or fire us. We can’t take that last performance review seriously. However great we deliver on our promises, we feel like we’ve got a target on our back.

This lack of certainty, this unstable foundation, runs right up the chain of command. Our boss is probably uncertain of what’s coming. They really may have meant that they appreciated you.

But as they’ll tell you on your last day before you walk out the door, it’s out of their control.

Can you believe them? Maybe. It’s uncertain. Everything is.

If you’re unemployed, it’s no different; you’re drowning in an Olympic-sized swimming pool of uncertainty. Is my resume going anywhere? Will they call me back? Are my skills going to be valuable in a month? Will I ever work again?

Uncertainty is the word of the year. Last year too.

It’s like there’s no safe place.

Our leaders — the people above us, whether we put them there or not — are unpredictable as hell.

And we’re all suffering because of it.

The suffering and the abuse wind their way up through the chain. Above and below the President. Above and below your boss. And up further. And down further.

So that’s, like, everyone.

It’s not just a fog. The path keeps changing. The boundaries keep moving. We can’t find the walls. And when we finally do, they’re not there in the morning. And no one is there to tell us where they are or where they’re going to be.

How can you trust anyone?

How can we believe anything?

Putting on the news, going to work, looking for work, it’s like hearing the car rolling into the driveway, feeling the vibration of the footsteps coming up the stairs.

Whether we cower behind the couch or stand tall in the doorway, in our heart of hearts (the only place where truth resides)… we don’t know what’s coming.

And, as any child who’s cowered behind a coach or stood tall in the doorway will tell you, that’s the scariest thing in the world.

Because, unlike our quickening heart and our short, fragile breaths… the door, the stairs, the couch, the gravel in the driveway, that is to say, the house, is not ours.

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The Relentless Reincarnation of Artists (& Scientists)

Close up of a yellow object 3d design

“You’re an artist.”

He said it as a compliment, albeit a bit surprised to see me in this way. Me, the guy writing his resume.

I was busy brainstorming job titles with him. I came up with some ideas he hadn’t thought of. But the real artistry is the fact that I, too, had yet to come up with them.

It’s not easy — generating a 2- to 5-word phrase that stays true to a person’s actual job title while gently hinting at the type of job he wants now. Staying within the bounds of truth, that’s the hard part.

And I love toiling over something like that; it’s like immersing in the depths of language, a secret room, only us word nerds are allowed to enter, getting up close with the big black curves of the letters, climbing over and through them like a wide-eyed kid in a ball pit.

For me, language isn’t a tool. It’s a friend. I truly love words, stringing them together in novel ways, like popcorn kernals on a string. I think that’s how you know you’re an artist, or that you’ve jiust done an art-like thing,:when you finish it, you just want to step back and look at it for a while.

I don’t care if it’s a poem, a painting, or a multi-day corporate events schedule. It’s all art. And you, the creator of that thing, are an artist.

My client sat quiet while I spat out ideas like a painter throwing different colors on the canvas.

“Well…” I said. “It’s an Art and a Science,”

In a sense, EVERYTHING is an Art and a Science. Almost like a chemical compound: Every single thing we do is some parts Art and some parts Science. Sometimes it’s all Art, sometimes it’s all Science, but usually it’s both.

Think of Art as making a new, as-of-yet undiscovered connection.

Think of Science as using a formula to generate a (mostly) predicted outcome.

With my client’s job titles, I was using the Science of words with the Art of arranging them. That is, the mechanics and meanings of each word already existed, but the combinations I created with them were new.

Art and Science. Two disciplines that have played and fought with each other like children, yielding countless moment of joy and frustration.

And then, comes along AI… a distant cousin of Art & Science, greedy and smart.

AI put Science in a headlock. It gobbled up all of them formulas and spit them back out in rapid fire..

A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H+I+J+K+L+M+N…

Science created AI ,but is already falling behind.

And then there’s Art.

AI has taken Art and, perhaps worse than killing it or giving it a wedgie, it has take Art and turned it into Science.

AI writes poetry. AI paints pictures. AI creates multi-week corporate calendars with no time conflicts. AI “thinks up” 50 alternative job titles in seconds.

It hurts.

And not in a selfish way.

Okay, sure, AI is holding out shiny toys for us to play with, but that doesn’t address the hole that it left behind. That greedy cousin of ours stole all our other toys.

The toys of Artists and Scientists. Surgically removed the things we love with precision and absolute certainty, not to mention politeness.

So. Ouch.

But then I think about Basquiat, Warhol, Picasso, Frieda Kahlo, and Van Gogh. I think about John Lennon, and Alice Waters, that guy who painted with his ;left foot, the person who made the Lite Brite, my aunt who secretly paints portraits of things and gives them away, and a brilliant guy at the flea market who designed a picture of Prince using only broken pieces of glass.

Artists, like Scientists, are innovators. They’re activists. They’re entrepreneurs. They’re bold enough to do stupid things. Repeatedly. Until the stupidness out there in the world matches the stupidness in their head. Sometimes they never get there, but on the way, they’re as alive as anyone can be.

We can’t be eliminated. We can’t be out-maneuvered.

As Willy Wonka put it, “We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams.”

We’re being forced to move on quicker than I’d like. We’re being implored to look much farther into the ether. My eyes and brain hurt from concentrating on the horizon.

But we will keep drawing and putting little drops of colored liquid into test tubes.

And coming up with novel combinations of words, until we get it right.

Or at least have a good laugh.

“What about Director of Innovation & Transformation?”

“Sounds like a magician.”

[Lol]

[Lol]

“We’re getting there.”

“Agreed.”

It’s the human thing to do.


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LGBTQIA

Two men hugging

LGBTQIA is a mouthful. It takes a while to say it. It’s a commitment to go all the way through it in a conversation

And when I do (which is always), I’m not doing it to be righteous or to prove my wokeness. I’m not doing it to push my agenda or be seen as a certain kind of person.

Rather, I do it because people I love are part of that community.

My daughter’s bestie is Trans (and so damn cool!). She got her surgery and has never been happier. She makes it worth it for me to stumble through the letters.

A friend of mine is nonbinary and such a good person, committed to a life of selflessness and altruism, so I continue to work at saying “them.” I’m not good at it; I keep failing. I don’t like to fail, I don’t like to not be good at something, but I keep working at it, because if that’s all I gotta do to create a space for my friend, then I’ll do it.

Some of my best and oldest friends are Gay and Lesbian. (I’m pretty sure we can all say this now; thankfully, the L and the G are mostly accepted these days, or at least acknowledged).

But I’m always learning and changing…

A loved one came out as asexual and taught me a whole new way of being and loving. And I’ll be damned if I leave that A off of LGBTQIA ever again. How could anyone expect me to leave it out? To leave them out?! Ever.

All it takes is one person close to you to share their true self, and you will immediately be confronted with a painful challenge: do I change the way I speak and think, or do I cut out a piece of my heart?

It is painful to be willed out of existence. We are hurting the ones we love.

Let’s be better.

Why wait until someone you love draws up the courage to show you their heart and ask you to say the letters? Isn’t it enough to imagine someone you love needing to do that? Or maybe you can just know that someone you love (me!) loves someone who is part of the community?

Isn’t that enough?

Stepping into the light of the LGBTQIA community is among the bravest things in the world, like walking into a ring of people with swords drawn. It is scary. It is dangerous. But it is necessary, because walking in the other direction leads to a steep drop-off into a dark, silent place.

Dropping into darkness isn’t an option. It is a death.

An involuntary decaying of the heart, not chosen, but forced. And in this banishment, we lose voices and thoughts and love, we lose new love we don’t yet understand, which is so important, because when we seek to understand, we grow. And our hearts become stronger and more capable.

But for some reason, we push all of this away.

We choose not to celebrate. We willfully and quietly cut out a piece of our hearts.

Instead of changing our minds.