5:00PM
I’m back on track. 5PM just as before. Feels good.
I had the conversation with my parents about the health insurance. I think so often we—no, let me stop, not “we” but “I”—I think so often I will assume that people will hear bad news and break away from the team, instead of doubling down to help. It hurts to think that sometimes I’d think my parents would do that and I feel so grateful that every time, they prove me wrong.
I feel so lucky to have my parents in my life and to still be able to spend time with them. While I haven’t had as much professional success as I would have hoped over the last few years, ironically, because I haven’t, I’ve been able to spend more time with them than I probably ever did as a kid.
I look at so many of my friends who have the houses, cars, spouses, kids, high positions in companies, and I feel jealous. Then I think about how I’ve been able to eat dinner with my parents for almost every night over the last two years and I feel so lucky.
There are days—and many of them—where I question who I am, what I do, and how much I’ve achieved in life. And it brings tears to my eyes to know that none of that truly matters to my parents. They just want me to be well. They have had my back ever since I was starting to grow a back, willing to defend me and help me even if my behaviors haven’t always warranted it. They were there to catch me when I was stumbling through my first steps and they’re there to catch me when I continue to fall.
I sometimes don’t like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day because I think I feel societal pressure to show everyone how much I care and I feel uncomfortable and almost annoyed to enter into that competition, especially now with the internet. I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t plan enough for the day, that I don’t splash my love for them enough in the public light, or that I don’t spend enough money or have it to spend. But just because I may not like the day, doesn’t mean I don’t like them.
I would not be the man I am today were it not for my parents. I would not have done anything in this world were it not for them. I would not be writing this to you if it were not their initial and continued support.
Sometimes I just don’t know how to put it into words—yes, someone who loves words struggles to find the right ones, more often than not. How do you properly thank people who brought you into this world and protected you all the way through?
I don’t know. I just know that I love my mom and I love my dad. Today is Mother’s Day and I just want to say that I love you both.
5:10PM
