Celebrating Three Years of Sobriety

I passed my third anniversary of giving up alcohol today. I thought I would share some background on this milestone and why I decided to stop drinking.

I have a long history with alcohol.  Maybe it’s the genetics mapped deep in my Irish blood or an inheritance from longstanding tradition, but alcoholism runs in the family, near and far. I can’t think of a time in my life that wasn’t steeped in the rituals of drinking. 

I met the love of my life in a dive bar. Most of my proudest accomplishments and favorite moments were punctuated with a celebration beer or glass of wine. An early love of Hemingway surely contributed to an interweaving of my very identity with alcohol. If I closed my eyes and pictured my true self in my natural element, it was cozied up to a dimly lit bar with a whiskey on the rocks in a brown, brown study.

Thank Your Teachers

I came across a journal entry I wrote on this day ten years ago. I was reflecting on the people in my life that made a difference on how things have turned out for me. I realized that many of these people couldn’t possibly know the impact they had on me and the countless others they helped.

I kept thinking about this one community college professor who did more than anyone to inspire me to pursue a college degree. I thought how sad it would be if he never knew the difference he made. So after a quick search on the internet, I found him. I wrote him an email. I introduced myself and told him a few stories about how he had challenged and inspired me, how he had helped me forge a path to the person I am today.

And he wrote back:

The Wastelands

Grieving the loss of a child is a journey through wastelands you never expected to cross. Unlike every other challenge you’ve ever faced, there is no easy way through a loss like this. You stumble and fall. You curse. You are hobbled and bloody. You are not sure of the way. You might be going in circles.

The truth is everyone suffers in this life. It’s our lot to take the awful with the beautiful. We all must face it. In a perfect world, your mom wouldn’t forget you in the fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. You wouldn’t lose a dear friend to cancer in the prime of her life. Your son wouldn’t die in a motorcycle accident before his twenty-first birthday.

A Father’s Grief

This is the most difficult thing I've ever written. I’m sharing this partly because I hope that releasing these words will provide some catharsis from the excruciating pain I have carried around these last months. Perhaps the sentiments I’ve conveyed here can be a small comfort to someone who has experienced a similar tragedy. I also know that people are worried about us, about me. Consider this an abbreviated journal of our past one hundred days. Unlike anything else I’ve written, this one contains no epiphany, enlightenment, or happy ending. This one is mired in the messy middle of heartbreak and loss.

On the night of September 27th, our son Connor died in a motorcycle accident in Colorado Springs. A car pulled out in front of him on a busy street a half mile from his apartment. He was killed instantly in the crash. He was riding a motorcycle he had owned for just one day. He was twenty years old.

I mentally replay the call we received from the coroner’s office in the wee hours of September 28th over and over and over again, my mind trying to push this all away, to wake up from the darkest, longest nightmare of my life.

The Art of Letting Go

If the first half of life is about growing and accumulating, then the second half must see us disbursing, letting go. Life is full of cycles — like the seasons, or perhaps more dear to me, the flooding and ebbing of tides.

In the past few years, I’ve let go of my aging parents, my career and a lifetime of associates and colleagues, a dear friend, and this past year I watched my two kids leave home to start their own lives of growth and accumulation.

At its best, letting go brings an emotional release, a lightness, a feeling of immense relief, like putting down a heavy weight you’ve been carrying around for too long. At its worst, it brings a paralyzing sense of irretrievable loss. I’ve been thinking about these two very different outcomes as we navigate our next phase of letting go.

Keep the Change

As I walked through the throng of travelers at LAX recently on my way to a flight that would be canceled the minute I got to the gate, I reflected on how change is the only real constant in life. In less than a week, I found myself hurrying through crowded airports in Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles (fun fact: these three airports accounted for 60% of all holiday flight cancelations). From Denver, I drove 1,200 miles to Los Angeles in a Jeep with Connor and his ten-month-old puppy, listening to baseball podcasts (yes, that's a thing) through Colorado and New Mexico. The music changed to hip hop in Arizona, and I felt nostalgic for the podcasts. I paid nearly $7 per gallon for gas in California and felt nostalgic for Arizona. We survived freeway driving in the rain as we neared Los Angeles with Connor relying on his 19-year-old reflexes -- or the Force -- to weave in and out of 80-mph traffic.

Organizing the Tool Shed

In my office, I keep an old photograph of the Buckaroo Tavern in the Seattle neighborhood of Fremont. The photo truly captured the character of the place: two chrome-festooned Harley Davidson motorcycles parked up on the sidewalk out front, bright orbs from the lights hung over the pool tables, and an outstretched arm and pool cue of a patron poised in mid-shot. I spent many nights at this dive bar as a young man. My eyes burned from the cigarette smoke, and the rough-looking biker crowd that congregated at the bar would often chuckle over their beers at this clean-cut accountant toting a pool cue case, but I loved the place. I had the photograph framed when we first moved to Vashon Island. It hangs between a picture of Mark Twain standing before a pool table considering his next shot and a signed photograph of Jack Dempsey in his famous boxing stance. But, it’s the tavern picture that has caught my attention lately as I think back on that long ago life before kids.

Coaches

I'm told I say it every year, but today was certainly the best Father's Day ever. Being spoiled by my two children, and seeing how they've become wonderful adults has put me in a thankful, reflective mood. I'm sure every generation thinks this, but I believe what it means to be a father has changed a lot over the past thirty years. I had the benefit of having two dads as I grew up, first one and then the other. I loved them both, but I looked for other role models when I became a father myself.

Fear of Flying

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas to attend my niece’s Little White Chapel wedding on the Strip. Frequent flier miles paid for our tickets, placing us in the far back of the plane. On the way home to Seattle, my family took the whole row on the port side of the aircraft, while I settled into the opposite aisle seat. A couple soon appeared and clambered into the seats next to mine. They had flown down for the weekend to see Billy Idol perform and were on their way back home.

The Ferry Commuter's Secret

I’ve taken over 6,000 ferry rides since moving to Vashon Island. Most of these were uneventful passages to work and back. But everyone once in a while, say 1% off the time, or 60 sailings, I’ve been the very first car on the ferry.

Being the first car on the ferry has some unique benefits. Unless an ambulance or police car has priority loading, the first car loads into the first spot of the center lane, perched out on the bow of the boat. The view from this vantage point is unencumbered and fantastic. On summer days, you can roll down the windows and open the sunroof and take in the glory of sun and sea. In winter, you feel the rollers and spray even with the windows up. No reason to go up on deck when you have such a wonderful ringside seat. I almost always put down my book or laptop on these journeys and soak in the raw beauty of the waves usually lost on me back in the bowels of the car deck on other sailings.

Losses and Gains

Back in my early thirties, my uncle Jim died unexpectedly. He had a lifelong passion of sailing, particularly the sell-everything-and-sail-off-across the-horizon variety. He had years and years of Cruising World magazines stacked up next to the toilet in his bathroom. I remember him waxing on about his plans to cast off, the destinations he’d visit, the freedom he would feel. He bought a sailboat, a very seaworthy vessel, capable of sailing anywhere in the world, and spent years in the boatyard getting her ready for sea. The conversations changed from if he would go, to when. And then, out of the blue, he passed away. To my knowledge, her keel never floated while Jim lived. He never achieved his dream of casting off and chasing the horizon.

I vividly recall the day I learned of his death. I was shocked. His was the first close death in my life. He was still a young man and I struggled to comprehend the awful fact that he was gone. Living near Puget Sound afforded access to many marinas. I drove to the nearest one and walked the docks thinking of my uncle Jim. I looked at each boat on the dock, most of the boats sadly forlorn, and was miserable at my loss. And then something happened to me, literally on that dock. I was struck by an idea that I must carry on his passion for sailing.

House Guest

I’ve always been a big reader and dreamed of having my own private library for as long as I can remember. One of the things that drew me to our house here on Vashon was the book-lined room with views out to the water. We’ve expanded the shelves over the years and now have all my books in easy reach from two antique leather wingback chairs. I’ve spent many a quiet evening reading from one of these chairs in perfect peace, feeling very fortunate to have such a sanctuary.

And then … we got a puppy.

Valencia of Childhood Dreams

When I was a boy, younger than twelve-year-old Connor is now, I believed all the stories my dear Pop told me. He sailed across oceans, traveled down the Nile, jumped out of planes in the 82nd Airborne, drank with Hemingway, conspired with Castro, along with many other misdeeds and adventures. While my kids are constant skeptics of any tales I tell, even the true ones, I didn’t question the stories I was told. Pop was a great story teller. He would get this gleam in his eye while he drew you in and threw in such vivid details of the surroundings and the things that happened to him that you couldn’t help but believe.

One of Pop’s favorite tales was about his time in Valencia, Spain. I don’t recall why he was there. Maybe the army? It didn’t matter. All I knew is he loved Valencia. Its beaches, women, wine and music. Its history and machismo and bullfighting. This was captivating stuff for a ten year old.