Where was the fucking driftwood? Shaking and sobbing, I told her that I couldn’t function. That my sleep was for shit, I wasn’t eating much if anything, the tiniest tasks were overwhelming for me. Could I please, PLEASE get some help? “Are you thinking of ending your life?” “Have you…

Mom loved and adored all kinds of people. That may be where we get it from. My siblings and I. I’d like to think so. She was up for most anything. She lived life with warmth and openness and accessibility and irreverence and vulnerability and curiosity and a very forgiving…

I was staying true to my meds, on Cymbalta and Wellbutrin for nineteen years, and while I had some very real sadness at times, it wasn’t the darkness that I knew clinical depression to be. I could separate myself from the sadness. I didn’t become the dark. …

That’s the question that drives and plagues me. Not as in those times when you’re having to endure hardship or abuse that goes on and on in an unhealthy relationship or when you have worked so hard toward a goal, perhaps a career, and it no longer seems to be…

About three years into the latest of our couples therapy sessions trying to “save” our marriage, I asked my then wife, “Do you see any way I can be the person you want me to be?” “No.” “Do you see any way you can be the person I want you to be?” “No.” “Yeah…

My dog, Abby, is the first to announce their arrival. The boys enter through the kitchen door, fresh from the gym. Fresh in teenage boys’ sweaty funk and in a sense of triumph. They come here most everyday after their post-employment/post-school workout to make protein shakes. …

There’s a practice among elite swimmers, or even the non-elite but seriously competitive swimmers, where one does everything one can to make oneself as aquadynamic as possible. There’s the equipment: the goggles, swim cap, and tech suit (more about these in a bit), and there’s shaving down. I think shaving…

Ladies and gentlemen, the Prostate of the United States. It’s official. I have an enlarged prostate. I made the appointment four months ago, and this was the earliest they could get me in. A dear friend who read my essay, The Unbearable Likeness of Peeing about my frequent and piddling…

It’s Wednesday morning which means I’ve just come from therapy. It’s also May 18th, 2022, which means it’s the 23rd anniversary of Mom’s death. I used to say “passing”, but that was like she was just walking by, maybe leaving the room for a minute. Which is maybe what I…