absolution

how did i get here?

i realized today, only a bit ago, just how much my life has changed in the past year. i dig it.

i traded suits and ties for jeans and sambas.

i traded martinis and sushi for microbrews and subway.

midnight walks in the malibu sands and the california sun for lake champlain and random snowy nights in may.

smiles through teeth and an endless pretension for ugly and true and humble.

i traded the fast life in to slow it all down.

i dig it.

i never realized how different everything was until this afternoon. i see this young guy in a suit who reminds me of me and, for the first time, i don't miss it.

i don't need to have everyone tell me i'm successful and on the right path to know i am. the difference is so much more. i feel it.

and it makes no sense, trading in everything for nothing and on a whim. but it was so much easier, i think, because it was so much worse.

i didn't recognize the face i saw in the mirror. i hated my life and everything about the man i had become. i hated the city. i hated the people. i hated myself. i hit rock bottom.

i'll never forget what my father told me when i called him from a friend's couch on some random and otherwise entirely nondescript morning. "pick yourself up and i'll carry you."

the past year has been hard. i've met a lot of people and been in a lot of situations, some circumstantial, some deliberate, chosen. i've had a lot of reasons to keep looking back and tell myself to give in. just go home. go back.

for better, for worse, i stood my ground. i picked myself up. and maybe someone else did the heavy lifting from there. but i did it. i'm alive. and i choose.

i choose to live a better life.

i choose to put others and this world before myself. to keep humble and selfless.

i choose to love and just give in to it. i'm all in and in love and more committed than i've ever allowed myself to be.

i choose to lose myself in this novel, to keep writing until my fingers bleed from the tension and keep as honest and relative as i can. i will share this story and hope and love.

i choose to get back to being as ethical as possible in all things, small and big. in every decision. in every moment.

i choose to become my father's son again.

i choose to get back.

i'm home.

and i'm on fire.

watch me.