Double dose of gratitude

Hello and happy Monday-

After doing this for a few months now, I’ve realize a pattern has emerged. The main part of me loves writing this newsletter. Loved setting up the website and the premise. But lately there’s another part that’s started to fear it. The reasons vary week to week—from waffling on essay topics, to realizing I could do better with the creator conversations, to feeling an inordinate amount of pressure to deliver The Atlantic level writing to a tiny list of gracious subscribers (Who consistently delight me with thoughtful and kind replies)

So I’ve been stalling and doing it more last minute. But that’s not why I started it in the first place, obvi. It’s a symptom of something bigger. A topic I was actually going to write about in this edition. But I’m postponing that in honor of the unique day that befalls me today…

It’s our 23rd Anniversary and my 18th Father’s Day. In honor of those two roles I’m blessed with—I’m gonna spend a turn reflecting on how much they’ve been part of the journey.

She got her first warning shot before we had even walked down the aisle. I was student teaching 5th grade in the fall of 2002, and had just proposed to my incredible, now-wife, Beth. She was living in Indianapolis working her first job out of college, while I was in my 9th semester finishing my degree in education. Student teaching in Ft Wayne, IN while living at home with my parents.

We were on the phone talking one night and I dropped the bombshell that I realized teaching was not for me and I had no interest in doing it after all. I wanted to do something else. Anything else, really. It was the first of those mountains I climbed only to realize I didn’t want to keep going. I still remember the sound in her voice. “Um, ok…”

To this day it’s my least favorite tone to detect. The one that externalizes all my inner fears of not having it figured out because I catch the whiff of uncertainty. To be fair, it doesn’t happen often, and it’s understood and warranted when it does. In that moment though, I think she met the wild wanderer she’d unknowingly hitched her wagon to.

Fast forward through many seasons of wandering, dreaming, scrambling, building, creating, and chasing… and I’m keenly aware I couldn’t have asked for a better, more loyal, or supportive teammate.

We’ve lived at 10 mailing addresses over the span of our 23 year marriage, including moves across the country. Each has had its own reason and story, but all of which we fondly remember (for the most part). As we’ve settled into our current home over the past six years, it marks the longest we’ve ever been under one roof. It’s the one we don’t ever intend to leave (even if we have done research to see if it’s on an ancient Indian burial ground that has caused the steady barrage of bad “luck” we’ve experienced here with appliances, plumbing, electricity, irrigation, doors, and windows). We still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The number of times she has gotten behind me, lifted me up, and believed in me are more than I deserve. But they’re the reason we’re still here and still going.

I don’t know if any moment will be quite so memorable as Valentines Day 2008. Working for the first entrepreneur along my path, I’d spent a few years growing a little startup alongside him and we had hired a production team and moved into a legit office space. But on that day, he came in, sat us all down and told us that he was out of money. He couldn’t give us our final 2 paychecks and we were shutting down effective immediately. I was simply floored and in shock.

After sticking around for hours and helping wind things down, I faced the ride home. I hadn’t called her to tell her. She was 5 months pregnant with our first, and already fed up with the way I’d been giving myself to this job without the implied reward. Now I was gonna have to look at her and that beautiful bump and say it was all gone for good. (We cancelled our nice dinner reservations and ended up having McDonalds instead that night)

That bump became our baby boy in June, just in time for Father’s Day. I’d moved on to contract work for another entrepreneur, which would be my second disappointment in that arena. By that fall, I’d taken my first corporate job as Art Director at a timeshare company. Just a few weeks before the financial collapse and I watched that company unravel from the inside, starting with a 25% pay cut by my 4th paycheck.

I was doing freelance work until 1am trying to help bridge the gap. We ended up having to short sell our first home. I remember one night our son was in his baby bouncer next to my home desk and I absolutely broke down. I just sat there looking at home with no idea how I was gonna be able to take care of him. It seemed so insurmountable.

Today, he’s 6’7” and one of the most outward, fun loving people I know. Last summer around this time, I had a work trip to London and the pleasure of bringing him along with me just for fun. He was able to head off into the city on his own and explore. He even took the Eurostar to France by himself for a day. We had a blast, and it aligned with what we’ve claimed as our “experiences over stuff” approach to life.

That trip serves as a good reminder on how much things can change. Time will tell how the turbulence he and his sister have experienced through Beth and I will impact their own relationships with work, identity, and career. God knows I’ve bungled it plenty. But I also like to think they’ve seen glimpses of someone passionate about what they do and why they do it.

Because I know they’ve seen the other side. The way I got chewed up in other jobs. That’s why, all things considered, I keep coming back to the primary reason I stepped away from my latest role. Beth had looked at me and said with clear concern that she was worried about me (and so were the kids) I knew I was giving leftovers as a husband and father. And so I eschewed everything else to salvage those most important roles.

It worked, for a few months. I got my energy, enthusiasm, and spark back. But over the past month the uncertainty and resistance has crept in, and I’ve regressed to some old patterns. Staying deeply internal. Overworking my tasks. Overthinking every obstacle.

Today was a good reminder that nothing really matters so much as being the best version of me for these people. That’s all they really want. I just keep turning that into something else in my head and then telling myself I’m coming up short on a requirement that’s not even there to start with.

The kids each wrote me a nice card this year, and my son’s in particular was unexpectedly thoughtful and sincere. The kind that made me really pause, and that I’ll read a few more times the rest of the summer.

Gratitude goes a long way these days, but it’s easy to bypass when everything is chaos. I spend a lot of time wrestling with decisions, facing challenges, and chasing what I think is “the thing”. But the best creation I’ve been a part of is right here all around me every day, and I’m so eternally thankful for it.

-Justin