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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.
Fine, Thanks
I was happiest alone as a boy. I had a bicycle and fields and small forest roads, and I could ride for hours without seeing anyone and feel completely full.
But I also loved being near people. Just not in them.
My mother's kitchen, when relatives came to visit. The adults around the table, the coffee, that particular hum of people being easy with each other. I sat in the other room and listened. Not to the words. To the warmth of it.
Looking in the Wrong Direction
Everyone I know has asked it at some point.
What do I want to do with my life? Or some version of it — what am I meant for, what is my purpose, what is the work that will finally feel like mine. We ask it at eighteen and at thirty and at forty-five.
The Parent You Never Had
I don't remember how old I was. Three, maybe four.
I remember the room. The door between me and everyone else. The knowledge — not thought, knowledge, the kind that lives in the body before the mind has words for it — that I had done something wrong. Eaten incorrectly. Moved wrong. Said something that didn't fit. Nobody explained what.
Knowing Isn't Freedom
On the gap between knowing your wounds and actually being free of them.
I have done the work.
I know why I get angry. I know what's underneath it. I've traced the root back to a boy who didn't have enough power and is now walking around in a man's body, occasionally honking at strangers like it means something.