Life is better with the right words.

Of course you do.

In the history of that question, there’s only been a handful of people who’ve said no, and we both know they were lying.

If you’ve been reading my words for longer than a year, know me in real life, or have ever exchanged an email with me, then this secret is no surprise to you.

Cindy and I don’t have a son and daughter named Max and Mia – our matching set of mini-me’s are actually named Ethan and Haley.

Pen names are masks that make it easy to unmask our true selves, and back when I first started writing online I wanted one for each of us. I was Writer Dad, Cindy was Daisy, and Ethan and Haley were Max and Mia.

Yet there came a time in my writing when referring to Cindy as Daisy no longer felt honest, as though I was keeping truth at an arm’s length for no apparent reason. Two years after my first post, the pen names of my children seem like old clothes, threadbare and out of style.

We are opening new doors daily, but the excitement of this new life doesn’t match the old names, so I will leave them back in California and remember them fondly.

Ethan and Haley started school this week.

Though the academic calendar doesn’t begin until after Labor Day in Long Beach, neither child felt shortchanged by the brevity of their summer – both leapt up the stairs to their classrooms on the first day like true believers on Christmas morning.

They are eager, excited, and well deserving of the new environment that will feed their hungry minds and germinate their blooming brains.

Like Ethan and Haley, Cindy and I feel instantly at home, though 2,350 miles removed from the roots of our previous life. The natural transition is quite amazing, considering the immediacy of our move.

But Ohio isn’t a temporary harbor. It is our new home, and I feel my happy spirit now dangling its legs at the lip of a deep contentment that was previously just a pipe dream.

I feel overwhelming gratitude for this chapter in our family’s history, and since being grateful and keeping the feeling inside is a lot like wrapping a present and keeping it hidden on the top shelf of the closet, I want to give heartfelt thanks to every person who has helped our family along the way, championed our good fortune, or wished us well in our travels. Without you this would have been difficult, with you it’s been wonderful.

But I do miss home.

Which gives Writer Dad a perfect new identity. This site is now the bridge between our old life and the new one; my words the planks of thought that will remind me where we were and lay the days of where we’re going.

So now you know my secret. It isn’t a big one, but it is the final barrier between us. And we both know a well built bridge has no barricades to impede the crossing.

Happy Birthday, Buddy!

My friend just had a birthday
Now he’s really, really old
His hair’s a shock of silver
And his insides filled with mold
He’s probably gonna die soon
He might not last the day
His breathing is so labored
It could simply fade away
Because he is decaying
(And mostly walking dead)
When he rises in the morning
He can barely leave the bed
The younger generation
(Those whipper snapping brats!)
All seem to surround him
Like a swirling swarm of gnats
I’m not sure if he has his teeth
(If memory serves, he don’t)
Regardless, by the year’s end,
We’re all sure that he won’t
His skin is getting bumpy
And his bones are full of loss
Hair is curling from his ear
Just like a wiry patch of moss
He can’t remember anything
There are cavities in his thought
Things he once could recall
Alas he now cannot
His skin looks like origami -
It’s folded, wrinkled creased
His saggy slabs are swinging
Like a super scary beast
Yes he’s getting ancient
But the battle’s just begun
Next year at this time
My friend will be 41!

Happy Birthday Dave, I’ve no doubt in my mind – your 40th year will be your best yet!!!

Why I’m Moving to Ohio For Another Woman

Five months ago I boarded a plane and headed to Ohio, on my way to meet my newest partner, Lori Taylor. Having recently surfaced from a ridiculously difficult year, I made a promise to my family that I wouldn’t allow our new opportunity to swallow the success we’d worked so hard to find, or consume the schedule I’d fought so hard to shrink.

I stepped from the plane into bitter cold and wondered again if I was making a mistake. Five minutes later I was shaking hands with Dave, my giant, grizzly bear of a business partner I’d been working with for a year and a half, yet was meeting in person for the first time.

Like Cindy, Dave believed in my instincts enough to eagerly absorb the risk of the unknown.

With one partner at home and another on the other side of my hotel wall, I fell asleep that night lingering through thoughts of what it would be like to meet Lori, arranging arguments in my mind; casting aside those based on fear, and herding those born in creativity to the front of the line.

Most of life’s fears are rice paper walls easily walked through.

The trip flirted with amazing and Lori was everything in person I hoped she would be. The following five months flew by in a whirlwind; our mutual dreams coalescing to create something new and magical.

But it wasn’t easy.

Chaos at work collided with chaos at home. We were losing our house while at the same time digging deeper into our dream. Work with my new team was endless and 18 month’s worth of personal projects lay fallow as I did my best to maintain momentum amid shambles of shifting projects and spinning plates.

Lori is one of the best direct marketers in the world and has personally raised over two billion dollars for the Disabled American Veterans, five dollars at a time. I eagerly sip from her bottomless well of creative energy, but Lori’s fingers, fast as they move, can’t keep pace with her brain – and even 100 or so emails exchanged between us daily only seem to highlight the fissures in our fractured alliance.

Every so often Cindy would pack my bag and drive me to the airport where I’d amble through security missing home before I’d even left the time zone. Time spent with Lori always flew too fast, while feeling like a hunk of forever. I’d sit in the car on the way to the airport, driver silent, as I felt both eager to get home and sorrow at creativity severed as it was getting started.

This last trip changed everything.

This time it was summer, and I didn’t go alone. Cindy, Max and Mia boarded the plane by my side and accompanied me to Lori’s castle in the forest. Though Lori and I still stayed up talking until two in the morning, this time conversation included Cindy and Lori’s brilliant husband Steve. Around the fourth day and the 50th awesome idea, I finally started allowing myself to wonder what it would be like to stay.

The lush green scenery, low cost of living, and remarkable tribe of wonderful people populating Lori’s life nudged us forward—intersecting goals and creative firecrackers pushed us further, but the new school looking like a wing of Hogwarts brought a weeping Cindy to a decisive YES!

For the last half year, the scrambled colors of our life’s Rubik’s Cube have slowly shifted into place; that week brought the colors closer to their final click.

Her eyes fixed on mine, Lori told me she couldn’t do everything she wanted without me. That feeling is mutual, not just with me, but with Cindy, the most significant of my life’s many partners.

We agreed on the move and felt the burn of excitement. Cindy and the children returned to California to initiate the first of our farewells while I stayed one final week to take care of business.

My dreams have clarity, purpose and infinite possibility. Everything I’ve worked so hard for, with the devotion of my family behind me, now lies at life’s fringes, grazing the edges of my fingertips and teasing me with its proximity.

I’ll miss California, but after a lifetime underneath the sunny skies that make it all too easy to dream BIG, I’m ready for a transition that will put roots in my ground and fruit on my branches.

We’ll return to California one day, but it will be minus the struggle and with all the success.

Happy Birthday, Lori. We love you dearly, and not just because you made sure Daddy’s first trip to New York was in a private jet.

See you soon.

On Breaking Down

Last week I asked for suggestions for things to write about that would allow me to quickly drop a thought or two.

Here is one of the first questions asked, along with my response.

Hi there!

I’m Pito from Indonesia. Been following your blog for quite some times but trying to keep myself under the radar. I’m interested with your profession, and on my way to have one like you now.

Funny to meet your writing in my email tonight, because I have a thing in my mind for so long and the incident I experienced this afternoon brought it back to my consciousness: if people say that life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel, I view it as a tragic comic. Well, just stop me anytime if I’m being too nosy, but have you ever feel like breaking down? If you have, besides your cute, loving, little family, what prevent you from doing stupid things, then?

Thanks! Oh, and have a nice day!

Thanks for commenting Pito, I appreciate you breaking radio silence, especially from half way around the world!

No, you’re not being too nosy at all and yes, I’ve felt like breaking down many times.

Even a support system as strong as my family can’t cage what makes me human. There were plenty of times over the past year when I fell into the abyss. Blind hope is an amazing fuel, but it wasn’t always enough to keep me from wondering how many more times the mortgage would hit the credit card or prevent me from questioning whether the danger I was inviting on my trusting family would really be worth it.

I had my moments of internal tirades and outward tears, yes. But I never felt like giving up, at least not for longer than a minute or two at a time.

Hard work and intense focus kept me from doing anything stupid, along with the knowledge that my family was depending on my and that my breakdown meant we’d probably crumble together. Often, when I was feeling my lowest, I wrote. Though almost none of those pages have been published, they will be someday when they can flesh out the chapters of a specific story. But at the time they were only written as the best means for self medication.

So I guess writing and family were the two things that kept me from going over the edge, but that’s probably two sides of the same need.

We all need to express ourselves, and we all need to be heard. Fortunately, I had both a keyboard and a family that was never too tired to listen.

Thanks for the question, Pito!

A Tiny Hand Growing Larger in Mine

Summer is here and my son is now six.

Yesterday was his birthday, as well as the final day of school and kindergarten graduation, which meant steady bursts of buzzed emotion for the four of us, all throughout the day.

Max is extraordinary. Though describing his incredible qualities would be difficult without the benefit of seeing his gorgeous green eyes dance, my sister’s description is lovely:

“He’s like the magical boy in the movies who comes to town and changes everyone’s life for the better.”

He is delightful, generous, and entertaining, but rascally enough to let the world know he is a boy and definitely not broken. Different enough from his sister to assure me nature and nurture are hard at work, though perhaps on different floors of the factory.

When told she could have anything she wanted for her birthday dinner, Mia went with lobster. For Max, it was, “plain pasta, if it’s not too much trouble, Mom.”

Yesterday was close to a perfect day. Max shared both birth date and celebration with a good friend from a great family, and it seemed all of kindergarten gathered at the park to sing Happy Birthday and bid farewell for the summer.

Max also left his Kinder campus with a perfect report card.

Perfect grades, perfect conduct and an end of First Grade benchmark in reading and writing. Considering his learning day is in another language, I admit to feeling twice as proud.

Max started his Kindergarten year keen to learn, but tentative, shy and not quite as ready for a Spanish school day as his sister was. And though it may have taken him longer to heat up, his fire ended up burning every bit as hot.

His teacher wrote this on his report card:

Max has done an outstanding job in Kindergarten. He is always working hard and putting all his efforts into his work. He is reading end of First Grade and I am very proud of him. He is also a fabulous writer and mathematician. He always has great stories to share with me and the class. He is a great translator and leader in class. I am very proud of all his accomplishments this year. I will really truly miss him.

Max has changed a lot this last year. The slow and lingering side of me that likes to sip my coffee and chew my food slowly, is loathe to see him grow up, up and away. But the other side, the one quickly swallowing coffee to caffeinate my day, is eager to see the man Max will soon become.

Happy birthday, buddy. You are the finest son a father could have. I am forever fortunate to have felt your tiny hand grow larger in mine, a day at a time.

I love you,

Daddy (and Mommy too)

It’s Up To YOU

This is one of those weeks. You know the ones.

It’s the last week of school, plus Max’s final day of Kindergarten and birthday both fall on the same day.

Time mocks me.

I’ll be back next week with some regular posts, but I was thinking that in the meantime you could help me out. It might even be fun.

I’d love to know what’s on your mind. Plus, I write well to prompts.

If there’s anything you’d like to know, or a subject you’d like me to write about, just drop it in the comments. That way, when I have a few moments, I can pull a prompt and answer it, no different than an email. This will not only help to ease me back into the natural flow of writing and how I’d like to post to the site, but it will serve as an intimate way to make it happen.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

My Daughter Gave Me the Finger

My daughter broke her finger. You probably heard her screaming.

It was the ring finger on her right hand; the one she writes, reads and draws with.

The worst part of the episode, besides the angry plum colored maw of a digit, was that by the time it was over I felt like 175 pounds of dirtbag (okay, 190 – Daddy has some work to do).

I’m not 100% sure since the event plays in my mind like a hazy flashback shot by an inebriated director, but I *think* I might have told her to please cease the melodrama somewhere in between her sixth and seventh shriek.

You have to understand, Mia sometimes pours it on thicker than Mrs. Butterworth. Last month, in the midst of attempting to doctor her nose through a relentless cold, she went all Linda Blair, foaming at the mouth and hissing, “THIS IS THE WORST MOMENT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!”

It must be nice to have a well of experience that runs just eight years deep.

Last week, Max was channeling his inner rascal and threw a paperback at her head. His aim was lousy and her reflexes sound. She nimbly dodged the projectile, turning a solid thump into a mere tickle. Her escape, however, did nothing to mute her outrage.

“That didn’t hurt,” I said, barely looking up.

“Yes. It. Did.” Her brow furrowed like her mom’s and her voice dropped to a pitch that clearly belonged to her father. “THAT was 287 pages of PAIN!”

So yeah, wolf has been cried and my armor is thin. It was only midway through her hysteria, with Cindy’s shirt saturated by Mia’s shudders, when I finally realized this was a no doubt, real deal sorta thing.

“I’m sorry,” I said, spinning from my chair and crossing the room.

I was halfway there when she said, “No, you’re not! You just want to work.”

OUCH

The next hour felt like a week, as Mia breathed into her murmurs with a few choice phrases:

“I just love you soooooo much.”
“Please just say something to cheer me up.”
“It just hurts, SO so much.”
“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“The next time anyone hurts themselves even a little, I’m going to cry with them.”

And my favorite…

“You don’t even know what pain is.”

Eventually her sobbing subsided and we were able to soothe our first born. But it wasn’t until the next day, after a twin set of X-Rays, when we knew for sure she had a hairline crack in her tiny bone.

It’s a week later and her finger is no longer the size of two. I’m sorry I doubted her.

We try to teach our children lessons in both what we do and don’t do. Sometimes it’s what we don’t do, though, that teaches us the most.

Sorry Mia.

Losing Our House With a Smile on My Face

Life’s been tap dancing on my toes for a while now. But each day this year has been better than the one before, and it’s possible that right now at this moment, I’ve never been happier.

I’m not exactly sorry I’ve been away, as I’ve been tending opportunity, and that is after all why I started a life online. But I did miss you and do thank you for the emails. It’s always nice to know when you’re being thought of.

Last week at dinner my mom said, “You know your last post is the video wishing Cindy a happy birthday, right?”

And though the month had felt like a week, the sun’s rotation rarely lies. It was odd to realize I’d unplugged from something I’d connected with daily for nearly two years. Yet even the most passionate lovers can sometimes drift apart.

I plan on posting as consistently as possible, though I’m not quite sure what that means just yet. Minutes are Evian in the Mojave right now, but I’ll do more to plan my sips a bit better.

So anyway, we’ve moved. Loaded the last of the boxes today. It is an immeasurable relief to have shed the dead skin of a previous life.

We bought the house five years back after falling for it so hard we would’ve gladly added it to our marriage certificate. This was right after I talked Cindy into leaving her job as a fourth grade teacher.

“Forget about your benefits, baby,” I gave her that grin that makes it hard for her to argue. “I’ll leave the flower shop, too. We can open a preschool together and stay with the children until they’re both in school.”

We were stretched near see-through at the time. Mia was three and Max the size of an oversized honeydew. Time was racing and slapping us on the back of the head as it whizzed on by. We both knew the first five years of our children’s life would vanish and leave us wondering where they went.

And they have.

We weren’t willing to let time win without a fight. So we bought the house, opened the preschool and stayed with Max and Mia each and every day.

We planned to expand our school, but soon found that a lack of parking meant the city would never allow us to expand our enrollment. The preschool was designed to provide us time with our children, but only delivered enough income to keep our heads above water.

It was clear we would need to move on.

Around this time I was discovering the writer inside me. That, sparked with my native entrepreneurial spirit, had us quickly closing a business with narrow walls and a ceiling low enough to crush the curls in our hair, in an eager exchange for the limitless potential of an online living.

The 18 months that followed were in many ways amazing. But they were also hard. Very hard. We jumped without a net, and though we landed a lot softer than we had any reasonable right to expect, it was still more like being thrown through glass than either of us anticipated.

We bought the house at the height of the market, the neighborhood transitional, but promising. Our realtor and close trusted friend urged us not to buy, suggesting we take our money and move to one of the city’s better neighborhoods. But a symphony of hammers and saws were singing in the air and you couldn’t walk a block without kicking a nail from all the new construction.

Rosy optimists that we are, we sold the pair of condos we owned outright, trading them for a downpayment on our new ghetto mansion.

It was an old Victorian, carriage house included. We lived on the top floor and ran the preschool from the bottom. A year into our new business, the housing market tanked and the neighborhood decided to race it to the bottom. Two and a half years later, at the soggy floor of the economy, Cindy believed in me enough to sever our only source of steady income.

I said I would Sink or Swim and meant it. Doggy paddling was more exhausting that I imagined, but then again so is most every other thing in this world that I’m truly proud of.

We lost the house.

Losing the house was hard, but it is also the best thing that could have possibly happened. It would have been a fool’s decision to continue paying for that house, we were so upside down, parts of our head were peeking up from somewhere in Peking.

And though I believed in the neighborhood, I was wrong. In the last month there were two murders within three blocks, both in broad daylight and on the street. The corner liquor store where we buy our emergency milk had a shootout just last weekend.

Losing the house was painful, but mostly because of ego. I’m glad it happened before the stubborn mule inside me stuck it out simply because I could afford to. We held on about six months longer than we should have as it was, mortgages hitting credit cards; six, seven, eight months in a row until finally I stared into the steely eyes of truth and knew it was better to swallow my pride than choke on it, and throwing good money after bad was about the most dangerous thing I could do to the people depending on me most.

The same trusted friend who told us not to buy, also happens to manage a place just steps from the sand, so we knew where we would be moving before the house was vacant.

We now live on a narrow peninsula; a thin strip of cottages with Alamitos Bay on one side and the scent of the Pacific on the other. The neighborhood is wonderfully quiet and every night seems to mute itself in anticipation of the rolling waves.

My family is safe and we are happy.

Making a living online is scary, but I’m really glad I took the plunge and lived the adventure. I’m fortunate to have a wife with unwavering faith in me, who teaches my children to have the same.

The worst is over and an amazing ride is just beginning. Dreams are expensive, and this last one we bought on credit. I’ve never been one to abandon obligation, and will pay every penny borrowed to make our dreams come true.

We lost the house, but gained a limitless future and the knowledge that we can do anything we set our minds to.

Though I don’t ever plan to directly monetize this site, it still has a job to do. If you like what you’ve read, please pass it forward through Facebook, Twitter, or maybe even email to a friend. Thanks!

Happy Birthday Cindy

Today is Cindy’s birthday.

Happy birthday, baby!

You are the bestest friend I could ever hope to have.

This year is already great and getting better! Here’s to the best one yet!

Been Weird Lately

Been weird, not writing.

Life’s never been busier. And though things are terrific, I’ve hardly have time to think, let alone craft copy for Writer Dad. Most of what has been published here lately are words written long ago, then stored in WordPress like wood for winter.

The few times I’ve managed to find the minutes in my schedule, I’ve found myself shaking a dry pen, trying to find the right flow of thought, while barely having the energy to show up.

But Dave wrote something earlier in the week that kicked me right clean in the obvious. His post, Changing Why I Blog, made me realize something important.

Unlike Dave, I’ve not changed the reason why I blog. I didn’t start out online with a specific goal in mind. Sure, I wanted to get published or become well known enough to successfully self-publish, but the end game has always been more than that, too.

I set out to make a good living behind the keyboard. I knew that there were a million and one ways to do that and that blogging would be just one of the sharper tools in the box.

I am now making my living online. Things are good and getting better. I placed my bet, looked the worst of it in its beady snake eyes full of hate, then passed it by before it could swallow me whole.

Through the worst of it, I’ve always had this site. Yet making time to keep it live has been increasingly difficult. It was a line in Dave’s post made me realize what I’d been missing:

For the past few months, I’ve been so busy I’ve hardly had time to do regular blog posts. But the reality is that I didn’t have the time to do the kind of blog posts I was doing here at BloggerDad. I spent a lot of time on posts in the past, carefully crafting them as I would a column, writing and re-writing until I was happy – or somewhat happy with the result. Since I’ve not had time to do that kind of post, I’ve pretty much stopped posting as frequently.

Well, duh.

I know exactly what I want to do with Writer Dad, as well as how to best integrate it into my life and business. But I’ve been so worried about structure lately that I’ve disregarded flow.

I’m not back, but will be soon. I’m mostly just checking in to say that things are great. Work is going well, school is almost over, I’m in the middle of a move and life is in transition. All of it for the better.

Thinking of you…

Sean

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