Thank you, Mr. Hively

I had never heard of John Hively before.
But I was looking for a quote about aging and found this:

“It's easy to grow old if you haven't grown up”

Wow... I'd not heard this one bit of my psyche put so succinctly before- but thank you Mr. Hively.

I turned 40 last year. That sentence does not cause me any great emotions except to wonder the same thing I have told folks for pretty much the last twenty years.

"I can't believe that the world has allowed me to enter the adult workspace..."

From the moment I felt the freedom of not living under parental control and being loose in the world, I have hardly felt a day like I belonged in it.

This isn't to say I have not learned your rules and adapted to how to "be an adult." I never felt like Peter Pan and wanted to stay young, but I always felt like I had pulled something over on the rest of the world. Like a kid who stayed up too late for the first time. That realization that I could, still wondered "why?"

I guess it seems slightly irrational. Is it any less so than the fact that I look at my nine-year old year old daughter and still see the baby girl? I KNOW she is nine and quickly approaching 30, but I will always see that little baby face. As proud of the little person my nine-year old daughter is becoming, it is hard to forget where she came from. Thankfully, she seems to have inherited this little part of my psyche that says growing old is ok, just don't grow up.

So as my body is clearly beginning to tell me that I have grown up, I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm still a stranger in this strange land of being an adult. Thankfully, I do have a little reminder, but haven't grown up.

Check out my appearance on the The Toddcast Podcast

Click and watch the podcast recording of my appearance on the Toddcast Podcast Such a fun time!

New Life

It's weird, sad and slightly freeing. I've been headed towards a completely different life for a lot longer than I even knew. It took me a while to catch up to realize it was happening. Thankfully, I was cognizant enough to see it finally and mostly ready for it. It's amazing when you have the rug completely pulled out from underneath you. The adjustments are jarring. I made mistakes, but like most I learned from them, adapted, and tried my best to do better. The reason you see that truck next to a storage place? That's the sum of my life right now. Never take for granted that you will work hard for something or someone, and it will end up meaning very little. You are guaranteed nothing, owed nothing, promised nothing. Anything and everything can be taken away in a heartbeat. I wrote this to my kids a while back: I tried to be the best father I could be based on what I knew when I knew it and how I could. One of the lessons for your life needs to be: you need to b

Guiding Light

Most folk who know me, know I lost my father when I was 14 years old. However, before he passed, he shared a timeless secret with me—a practice that would shape my life in ways I could never have imagined. He didn't teach me meditation in the traditional sense, with incense and crossed legs. Instead, he showed me how to meditate by gazing at a lone light on the ceiling. When I was very young, I had night terrors that would wake me in the middle of the night. I'm sure it was terribly frustrating to calm a child from that. But my father had the way. I never understood how he came to the practice. But over the years, I've come to understand that my father's unique approach to meditation was, in fact, a profound lesson in mindfulness and presence. In a nearly pitch black room, he would tell me to find a speck of light, not unlike a star. Then focus. He would say, "Just watch the light, like you're watching a story unfold. Be the observer, not the thinker." I

Todd Lyden

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