Let’s Start Over
An honest reflection of this year & where I’d like to go from here
As I sit on a plane, leaving behind the city I grew up in, Rochester, NY, heading back to my new home in sunny Florida, I reflect on where I come from and how I’ve grown to be who I am today. A few things come to mind, and I’d like to share them with you here. One of my best friends got married last night. Spending the entire day with him and our old high school friends reminded me so much of who we were as kids. How similar yet different we are now. We talked about our growing up, the drama we had with sports, family adversities we dealt with, girls from our past (thank God it didn’t work out with some of them), and marriage. It’s funny, when you’re 31 and talking with guys who knew you when you were a confused teen... it’s peculiar. I realize that my tendency is to prejudge people based on an action from their past that comes from my own possibly inaccurate recollection. And it is this attitude that gets in the way of me being open and present with people. For many years, I acted as I did when I was 18 or 20, always talking and never listening. I’d be pissed off at certain people for little to no good reason, nice, but not that nice, honest, but not that honest. I was certainly less than sincere in being myself around people - I was a people pleaser. Going into marriage is like going into the sauna. It feels good at the start, then when all the toxins begin to come out, it feels horrible- but if you stay in long enough, you come out feeling and looking better than when you went in.
When I got married at 26, things began to surface that I didn’t expect: insecurities, wounds, bad habits, etc. It took me until this time to really start coming to terms with who I was. I saw that my pride and ego did a good job of celebrating my self and that needed to change. I spent the next five years trying to be a better man and a better husband. Ironically, that meant I had to start digging and sifting through my areas of despondency, AKA my “crap.”This recent time of ‘stay at home more because of Covid’ has shown me that at my core, I’m pretty rotten. If any of us would be very honest with ourselves, I mean truly honest and vulnerable, we know that deep down we care more about ourselves and less for others. Marriage is such an interesting concept to me in this respect; its essence is caring more for another than yourself. There was something beyond special watching Timmy and Jenna at their wedding, looking at each other with a glow that I cannot put into words. They were entering an arena where each must put the other first in order to thrive together.It has been said that to be fully known but not accepted is the ultimate rejection, but to be fully known and fully accepted is what we crave most in life.
I was reminded at the wedding yesterday of how far I’ve come over time. My wife of four years has been there for me in all of our highs and lows, and, in our rock bottom lows. I see that, and admire that, yet my “flesh” still finds ways to be selfish and prideful. Our vow to each other was to be there in “sickness and in health.” I think many forget that part of the promise. I know I often do, and it hurts both of us. You see, in my early 20’s, I never truly accepted that I was selfish or prideful. I struggled with performance and the desire to please people. This was exhausting. But once I accepted reality, I started healing. Like working out at the gym, it takes 4-5 weeks before noticing a change. Emotional and psychological muscles that may have lain dormant for years need to be exercised, and you feel sore as hell through the process.… But I am not out of the woods yet. I’m about a few years into a therapy process, one of being open with a specialist, open with my closest friends, and being the most open with my wife. Churchill once said that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else. And this was me for years, trying everything else before getting help.
Maybe you’re reading this and you feel like your last year was horrible- maybe your family had some implosions, maybe you’ve been drinking too much, maybe you're just not happy with how you’ve been spending your time. Think about starting over. When I heard my friend’s vows to his new bride, I remembered my old vows, and honestly, I knew I needed to continually vow to “treat myself like I am someone worth treating.” I had spent years ignoring my mental and emotional state, and saw where that got me: controlled misery. But now, when I promise myself to get help and WANT the help, not only do I improve, but everyone around me benefits as well. Let’s each heal individually, so that we all can flourish collectively.
Please share your story, the bad, the good, and your personal “vows” for the new year. These stories are special to me, and reading them makes life more uplifting. I pray that you are living a life that you are proud of, and if you aren’t, I hope that you have the courage to start over again. Join me in “starting over” in 2021.
