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Stories about the things men carry but never say out loud. Written by one man figuring it out in real time. Start wherever it stings.
Men's inner life — without the mask
I climbed for over twenty years before I thought to look down.
Not a mountain. The usual ladder — the one they set up for you before you know what's at the top. School. Job. Better job. Title. Salary. Apartment. Car. The kind of life that looks right from the outside and feels thin from the inside.
Hunger Wounds
Part I
On food, shame, sexual insecurity, and the body that remembers.
I don’t have the healthiest relationship with food. Intellectually, I understand that food is medicine. It fuels the body. It sustains energy. It determines longevity.
But understanding something and living it are different negotiations. Food has often been a comfort.
Second Time
I became a father the first time when I was still trying to become a man. I was in my early twenties. Married young. Carrying more responsibility than clarity.
I thought adulthood would arrive automatically. That marriage would make me stable. That fatherhood would make me wise. That if I stepped into the “adult world,” answers would meet me there. They didn’t.
Old Reflexes
There are moments when I don’t become the man I believe I am. They arrive unexpectedly. A tone. A look. A sentence delivered just slightly above me. And before I can think, something tightens inside.
I stop being measured. I stop being calm. I stop being the man who writes reflective essays. I become reactive. I’ve started to notice a pattern.