🎧 Soundtrack for this story:
Coast Line— Hollow Coves
Press play, then keep reading.

YouTube Music: Coast Line

I didn’t go to Mexico expecting anything life-changing.
I just wanted a break… maybe a good story to tell when I got home.
Then a wild monkey climbed into my lap — and everything got quiet.

_{My daughter connecting with a baby monkey in the wild.}

The first monkey didn’t come to me right away.

He sat low in the branches, small and still, watching. Curious. Not afraid. Just… evaluating. Like he had learned, somewhere along the way, that not everything reaching toward him could be trusted.

Beside me, the woman who cared for them spoke softly in her German accent, the kind of voice reserved for fragile things that have already seen too much.

“They choose,” she said. “Always.”

So we waited.

No phones. No talking. No trying.

Just the quiet hum of the jungle breathing around us. Leaves shifting. Distant calls echoing through the trees. Time, somehow, loosening its grip.

And then… he moved.

A slow drop from the branch. A pause. Another step closer.

Until, without ceremony, he climbed gently into my lap.

Not like an animal approaching a human.

But like trust… being offered on someone else’s terms.

_{Safe to say, the monkeys seemed to like me :)}

It all started like any other family trip.

Cancun, Mexico. My wife, our three adult kids, and five days of what most people go there for… sunshine, tequila, and more food than anyone should reasonably consume.

We’d done the excursions before. Zip lines. Cenotes. ATVs kicking up dust in the jungle. Fun, no doubt. But the kind of fun that fades somewhere between the airport and real life.

This time, I wanted something different.

Not better. Just… deeper.

So I went down the rabbit hole. Late-night searches. Pages most people don’t scroll far enough to find. And somewhere in that quiet corner of the internet, I stumbled across something that didn’t feel like an excursion at all.

It felt like a story.

A humble website. No flashy booking buttons. No curated Instagram shots. Just words… carefully written… about a couple who had built a life in the jungle.

Years earlier, a local had brought them an injured baby monkey — hurt by poachers, barely alive. They took it in. Healed it. Loved it.

And then another came.

And another.

Until their home wasn’t just a home anymore. It had become something else entirely… a sanctuary woven into the trees.

Not a zoo. Not a tourist stop.

A place where broken things were given a second chance — and somehow, chose to stay.

Getting in wasn’t as simple as booking a time slot.

You had to write to her.

Not a request… more like an introduction. A quiet explanation of who you were and why you wanted to come.

So I wrote.

Honestly. A little emotionally, if I’m being real.

And she wrote back.

“Yes,” she said. “You may come.”

I didn’t tell my family where we were going.

Just that it would be different.

They were curious. A little skeptical. Probably expecting another version of something we’d already done.

But when we turned off the road and drove into what felt like a real-life Swiss Family Robinson scene — homes built into the trees, walkways above the jungle floor — they knew this wasn’t going to be ordinary.

She greeted us in the driveway.

Invited us in for lemonade like we were old friends.

And as she told her story, two baby monkeys ran freely through her home — climbing onto her shoulders, tugging gently at her shirt, chattering like children who had never known anything but safety.

She spoke to them the same way she spoke to us.

With love.

With familiarity.

With belonging.

Then came the instructions.

“Listen carefully,” she said. “This matters.”

We were led up into the trees, into a netted enclosure that felt more like their world than ours.

We sat along the edges.

She handed us small pieces of food.

“Do not feed them,” she said.

Just hold your hands open.

Palms up.

“They will decide.”

And then she said something I didn’t expect.

“Clear your mind. They feel everything.”

When the gates opened, they came.

Some slowly. Some boldly. Some stayed back, watching like the first one had watched me.

Feeling us out.

Measuring something we couldn’t see.

Now, I’ve always been someone animals seem to trust. Dogs, cats… even the ones people warn you about.

But this was different.

Within minutes… they were on me.

One climbed onto my head like it belonged there.

Two settled into my shoulders.

Two more curled into my lap.

Holding onto me… not tightly, but comfortably. Like I wasn’t something to fear.

Like I was… familiar.

_{Monkeys bonding with me}

My family looked at me, half laughing, half stunned.

“What are you doing?” they asked.

Honestly?

Nothing.

And maybe that was everything.

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t thrilling in the way most excursions try to be.

It was quiet.

Almost sacred.

These small creatures — some abandoned, some injured, some who had every reason to distrust the world — had chosen, in that moment, to trust me.

Not because I reached for them.

But because I didn’t.

And that’s what stayed with me.

Not the novelty. Not the photos. Not even the story I’d get to tell afterward.

It was the feeling.

That connection doesn’t come from chasing.

It comes from presence.

From stillness.

From whatever it is inside of us that others can feel… even when we’re not saying a word.

I’ve spent my life loving my family deeply. Protecting them. Showing up for them in every way I know how.

And somewhere in that jungle, sitting quietly with five monkeys wrapped around me, I had a realization I didn’t expect.

They felt it.

Somehow… they felt that same energy.

That same instinct to love, to protect, to connect.

_{Photo by Sikwe Scarter on Unsplash}

And a place where we can finally let our guard down… and just be.

A place where we feel safe enough…
to climb down,
get a little closer,
and choose to trust again.

YouTube Music: Horse Whisperer: Rhythm of the Horse

The Day a Horse Read My Mind

Stillness, Trust, Transformation — Hill Country, Texas

_{Photo by Christian Harb on Unsplash}

“Don’t touch him yet.”

The rancher’s voice was calm, but it carried weight — the kind that comes from years of saying very little and meaning all of it.

The horse stood a few feet away — massive, silent, watchful. His dark eyes held mine with a kind of knowing I couldn’t quite place.

“Just stand there,” he said. “And breathe.”

It felt like the opposite of everything I’d ever learned about control. No commands. No reins. No effort to close the distance.

Just… presence.

Minutes passed — long enough for the noise in my head to begin dissolving into the quiet of the Texas Hill Country. Wind moved through the grass. A gate creaked somewhere behind us.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, something shifted.

The horse took a step toward me.

Not because I asked him to.

Because something in me had changed first.

A Birthday Trip That Turned Into Something Else

There are travel experiences you enjoy…

…and then there are the ones that quietly rearrange something inside you.

The horse whispering session I stumbled into at Travaasa Experiential Resort — twenty miles north of Austin, tucked into the rugged folds of Texas Hill Country — was unmistakably the second kind.

I went in thinking it was just another unique activity to check off a list.

I walked out… not entirely the same person.

And if you had asked me why, I’m not sure I could have explained it.

It started, like most of the best things in my life, with a birthday.

Every year, I try to find something memorable for my wife Wendy — not just a place, but an experience. Good food is expected. Beautiful accommodations are standard.

What I’m chasing is something else entirely:

That one moment you’ll still be talking about years later.

Travaasa delivered from the second we turned off the highway and followed a long, winding ranch road into the hills. The world seemed to widen as we drove — cedar, limestone, open sky, and a quiet that felt earned.

The resort itself didn’t try too hard. It didn’t need to.

The food was outstanding. The rooms were beautiful. The activities list read like a playground for grown-ups: axe throwing (fun, slightly dangerous), rock climbing (humbling), BMX bike racing (Wendy’s idea… still questioning that one), plus spa time to remind our bodies we weren’t actually 25 anymore.

We felt adventurous. Satisfied.

And then, over breakfast one morning, everything shifted.

The Whisper That Pulled Us In

At the next table, a couple spoke in low, almost reverent tones.

“You have to do it,” the woman said.

“It’s not what you think,” the man added.

That was enough to hook me.

They weren’t talking about horseback riding. No saddles. No trails. No helmets.

“It’s about connection,” she said.

Connection.

That word can mean everything… or absolutely nothing.

Now, years before this trip, I had seen the movie The Horse Whisperer with Robert Redford and genuinely loved it. I’m an animal lover at heart, though my actual experience with horses had been limited to a few trail rides at various stables. Casual stuff. Nothing that would prepare me for what was coming.

But before I tell you about the corral in Texas, I need to tell you about Big Al.

Big Al, and the Limits of Control

Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash

Years ago, we took our kids to Double JJ Resort in Michigan — a fun, family-friendly place where even beginners could go horseback riding.

As we lined up, the rancher sized everyone up.

My wife and kids — honest people — said they were beginners and were paired with horses named Sunshine, Rainbow, and other confidence-boosting names.

Then I stepped up.

6’3”. 220 pounds. Feeling like I should probably represent the family well.

“Have you ridden before?” he asked.

I paused.

And then confidently exaggerated.

“Oh yeah… several times.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Bring out Big Al!”

Big Al walked out like a veteran who had seen things. As I climbed on, he slowly turned his head and looked back at me — like he already knew how this story was going to end.

Then he let out a long, thunderous, unapologetic fart…

…and started walking.

That was it.

No response to the reins. No interest in my input. No negotiation.

Big Al had a plan.

I was not part of it.

That ride taught me something I didn’t fully appreciate at the time:

Control is mostly an illusion.

My wife and kids had a great time, though — which, in the end, was all that really mattered.

The Cowboy and the Corral

With Big Al’s memory firmly in mind, Wendy and I debated whether to sign up for the horse whispering experience. It had come highly recommended. We decided to go for it.

The next morning, he was waiting for us at the front of the resort.

There is a certain kind of man the American West produces — unhurried, economical with words, weathered by decades of outdoor work, possessed of a quiet authority that has nothing to do with volume. This cowboy was exactly that. He introduced himself beside his Dodge Ram pickup truck, shook our hands with the kind of firm, no-nonsense grip that tells you everything you need to know about a person, and drove us ten minutes down a winding road to his ranch, where an immaculate stable stood in the morning light and horses moved calmly in the paddocks beyond.

He didn’t offer much explanation on arrival. He asked if we had any experience with horses. This time — older, wiser, and remembering Big Al — I told the truth. He smiled like a man who appreciated that, told us to listen carefully, and walked us toward one of his horses.

Before we could do what instinct said to do — reach out, close the distance, make contact — he stopped us. He explained, with the patience of someone who has said this a hundred times but still means every word: never approach a horse from behind. Horses see in nearly all directions, but directly behind them is a blind spot, and what they feel in that blind spot is danger. Their response is ancient and immediate. You will get kicked. The horse will run. Any chance of trust will be gone before it started.

Always approach from the front. Slowly. Let them see you coming. Let them decide.

We followed his instructions, gently patting the horse on his head and sides — an introduction, the cowboy called it — and then he handed us each a soft brush.

“Groom him,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

And then he left.

Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash

For the next fifteen minutes, Wendy and I stood there in the morning sun, brushing this horse, slowly realizing that we appeared to be paying good money to do someone else’s chores. We laughed about this. We genuinely did not mind. The horse leaned into the brush strokes. His eyes grew soft and half-closed. The three of us fell into a quiet, unhurried rhythm, and something in the air around us changed — loosened — in a way that was hard to name.

When the cowboy returned, he told us a story while instructing us to keep brushing. He described the Native Americans of the old West, who initially tried to capture wild horses the way you might expect — approaching from behind, quick and decisive, relying on surprise. It went badly every time. The horses sensed them through peripheral vision, kicked out, and bolted. Trust was never possible.

Over generations, they discovered a different way. Approach from the front. Hand extended, palm open. Stand still and let the horse look at you. Stroke the forehead, the cheeks, the flanks — slowly, without urgency or agenda. Earn the trust first. Then, and only then, gently slip a rope around the neck and walk them home.

It was an evolution born entirely of respect. And it worked every time.

The cowboy let that land for a moment. Then he looked at us and asked: “Who wants to go first?”

Wendy looked at me with fear in her eyes. I looked at the circular corral. I performed my most convincing impression of a man who is absolutely not nervous.

“I’ll go,” I said.

The Moment Everything Changed

The corral was perhaps sixty feet across, its wooden fence worn smooth by years of use. The cowboy handed me a schooling whip — short, light, built for signaling rather than striking — and told me to stand in the center and not move. Then he disappeared through a gate on the far side of the corral and returned leading a large, unsaddled horse into the space.

The gate closed behind the horse.

The cowboy stepped outside the fence.

It was just the two of us.

The horse was stunning — dark, powerfully built, radiating the kind of calm, controlled energy that makes you hyper-aware of your own nervous system. He stood across the corral and studied me with those extraordinary eyes — eyes that seem to see not just you, but through you, past the clothes and the bravado and the held breath, to whatever is actually going on underneath.

I tried to look calm. I was not calm.

“Walk toward him,” the cowboy said from outside the fence. “Whip raised. Stay to his left.”

I raised the whip and walked forward. The horse’s eyes widened slightly — not in fear, but in sharp, ancient assessment. As I approached, he turned and began moving along the curved wall of the corral, keeping as much distance between us as the space would allow, watching me steadily over his shoulder with every single step.

I followed. The cowboy then instructed me to change directions and cut him off. The horse then changed direction fluidly, continuing his arc along the fence in the opposite direction. It was a strange and primal choreography — the two of us circling this dusty ring, neither touching, and yet connected by something invisible. I felt weirdly in control. I also felt acutely aware that this enormous animal could, at any moment, simply decide otherwise.

He didn’t. He responded to my every move, always stepping away, always watching.

“Now,” the cowboy said. “Cross to the other side. Lower the whip.”

I walked to the far wall and let the whip drop to my side. The horse stopped immediately. We faced each other across thirty feet of still air — motionless, watching. It felt exactly like a staring contest, except that the stakes felt oddly significant, and I had no idea who was supposed to blink first.

“Look him in the eyes,” the cowboy said, and his voice had shifted into something quieter, more careful — the way people speak in spaces they consider sacred, and started using my first name. “Rick, clear your mind. Connect with him.”

I stared. The horse stared back. Nothing happened.

Then the cowboy said something I wasn’t expecting.

“Rick — he can feel your anxiety. He feels everything you’re feeling right now. Take a deep breath. Let it go. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes. I breathed. And in the dark behind my eyelids I became suddenly, almost embarrassingly aware of how tightly I was holding everything — jaw clenched, shoulders raised, chest braced, the full-body posture of a man working very hard to appear like he isn’t trying. I let it go. Breath by breath, layer by layer, something in me unknotted. The sounds of the ranch came into focus: wind through the grass, that distant gate again, the soft, rhythmic sound of the horse breathing across the corral.

I felt the ground under my feet. I felt, somewhat absurdly, peaceful.

“Open your eyes,” the cowboy said, gently. “Look at your horse. Let him know you won’t harm him. Send him your calm, Rick.”

I opened my eyes.

The horse had changed. Something in the way he held his head, the angle of his ears, the ease in his massive body — something had softened completely. As I held his gaze and thought of nothing except that I meant him no harm, that I was simply here, simply present — the horse slowly lowered his great head. And then he took one step toward me.

Then another.

The cowboy, barely above a whisper: “Raise your left hand. Slowly.”

I raised my hand — palm open, fingers loose, an offering rather than a demand.

The horse walked directly to me and lowered his head beneath my outstretched palm.

I felt his warmth before I felt anything else. Then his breath. Then my hand found the broad space between his eyes, and it stayed there, moving in slow circles, and the horse was perfectly still, and his eyes were locked on mine, and — I’m not going to pretend otherwise — tears came. Unexpected, uncomplicated, completely real tears, standing in a dusty corral in Texas on a Tuesday morning.

“You just bonded with your horse,” the cowboy said.

He was right. Though bonded feels too small. What it felt like was something closer to being seen — the startling, humbling experience of being read by a creature who has no interest in pretense, no patience for performance, and no capacity whatsoever to be fooled. Horses, it turns out, are ruthless editors of the human interior. You cannot fake calm for them. You cannot manufacture stillness. Either you are what you’re projecting, or you are not, and they know the difference before you’ve finished deciding.

I had walked into that corral wrapped in anxiety and amateur bravado. The horse had simply waited — with extraordinary patience — until I set it all down. Only then did he come to me.

_{Photo by Live Kaiah on Unsplash}

What Travel Sometimes Gives You

I’ve done a lot of things while traveling — some thrilling, some relaxing, some unforgettable for all the obvious reasons.

But this was different.

This wasn’t about adrenaline or scenery or even story.

This was about stillness.

About the quiet realization that the energy you carry — the thoughts you hold, the tension you don’t even know you’re gripping — doesn’t just live inside you. It radiates outward. It shapes how the world responds.

That horse didn’t come to me because I did something right.

He came because I finally stopped doing everything wrong.

And in that moment, standing in a dusty corral in the Texas Hill Country, I understood something I hadn’t expected to learn on a birthday trip:

Sometimes the most powerful journeys don’t take you anywhere at all.

They just bring you back… to a version of yourself you forgot was there.

That, I think, is the finest thing travel can do for you.

🎧 Soundtrack for this story:
Wherever You Are Tonight— Kenny Chesney
Press play, then keep reading.

Wherever You Are Tonight ««« Click Here

One more tough one to write … about my brother

I wrote it, and it was picked up and published on Newsweek. It all happened very quickly. I wrote it, submitted it, and the editor of Newsweek emailed me back the next day. It was then published a few days later.

Newsweek Article about my brother Ronnie

Gentle Rain: Diana Krall

This is a very personal story to me.

I wrote it, and it was picked up and published on HuffPost Personal and had over 110,000 reads. Would love to hear your thoughts:

HuffPost Article about my sister Sue

YouTube Music: Stop This Train

The 20-year-old, 35-year-old, 45-year-old and 60-year-old versions of us are all still rattling around inside the same person.

My Dad and I had a lot of deep conversations, especially at night. Night has a way of making men honest. The world quiets down. The distractions fall asleep. The bigger questions walk into the room.

During one of those talks, my dad said something I never forgot.

“I’d sign a contract if I could just live to 80 years old.”

I understood why he said it.

His dad died at 63. My dad knew the family history. He knew the risks. To him, 80 was not just an age. It was a victory. A summit. A finish line drawn beyond fear.

I smiled and nodded.

We laughed a little.

But I remembered.

Then, in 2012, my dad turned 80.

On his birthday, I reminded him of that old conversation.

“Dad,” I said, “you once told me you’d sign a contract if you could just live to 80. Well, here you are. So what do you do now?”

He looked at me.

He paused.

Then he smiled and said, “Time to renegotiate.”

I laughed out loud.

So did he.

But I have thought about that line ever since.

There is a lyric in John Mayer’s song “Stop This Train” that has been living inside me lately:

“I’m so scared of getting older. I’m only good at being young.”

It is one of those lines that does not just pass through your ears. It sits down somewhere inside you. It waits there. Years maybe. Quietly. Patiently. Then one day, when your knees make strange noises or your parents are gone or your own children are suddenly adults, the lyric raises its hand and says, Now do you understand me?

I do.

Me and My Dad — photo by author

I listen to a lot of music. Country, hip-hop, jazz, pop, instrumentals, songs I grew up with, songs my kids introduced me to, songs I pretended not to like until I found myself saving them to a playlist. I have been making custom playlists for probably 25 years now. Playlists for driving. Playlists for working out. Playlists for wine on the deck. Playlists for nostalgia. Playlists for moods I do not even know how to explain.

But I have always been a lyric person first.

The melody can pull me in, but the words are what make me stay. I listen for the sentence that feels like it somehow knows me. The line that sounds less written than discovered. The phrase that sneaks past all my defenses and taps on a memory I did not realize was unlocked.

Maybe that is one of the quiet truths of life. We spend the first part of it learning how to be young, and then just when we feel we have finally mastered it, life hands us a different assignment.

No instructions.

No practice round.

No gentle tutorial.

Just a calendar, a mirror, and the sudden realization that time has been moving faster than we thought.

My family history has always made time feel less like an abstract idea and more like something with teeth.

On my mom’s side, cancer seemed to be the shadow that followed too many people out of this life. On my dad’s side, it was heart disease. The heart, that stubborn little engine we trust without thinking, until one day someone we love proves how fragile it can be.

My dad’s dad, my Grandpa Joe, died at 63 after his third heart attack.

I was six years old.

Six is too young to understand death, but not too young to feel it. I remember him. I remember his humor. His storytelling. The kind of personality that could rearrange the air in a room. His funeral was the first one I ever attended, and though I did not fully understand what was happening, I understood enough to know that something permanent had entered my life.

Someone could be here.

And then not.

That was the first time time scared me.

It scared my dad too.

He was only 40 when his dad died. He was married to my mom and had six children. Six children ranging from 12 down to 3 years old. A house full of school papers, cereal bowls, sports schedules, laundry, scraped knees, laughter, arguments, and noise. So much noise.

Then, in the middle of all that life, his dad was gone.

Sixty-three years old.

When you are young, 63 sounds distant. Almost ancient.

Then one day you get closer to it, and the number changes shape.

It no longer sounds old.

It sounds unfinished.

My parents lived for their family. That is not poetic exaggeration. That is simply what they did. My mom volunteered at our schools, drove us to practices, games, activities, and everywhere else six children somehow needed to be. My dad coached many of our sports teams, served on boards for my sisters’ swim clubs, and showed up for just about everything.

They were always there.

When you are a child, you think that is normal.

You think parents just appear in bleachers. You think clean uniforms magically return to your drawer. You think rides happen, dinners happen, encouragement happens, love happens.

Then you get older and realize none of it just happened.

Someone chose it.

Again and again.

That is one of the strange gifts of aging. It lets you look backward with better eyes.

Years later, one of my son’s school assignments gave me one of the clearest views I ever had of my dad.

My son was about 12 years old at the time, and he had to interview a relative about their life. He prepared a list of questions about childhood, accomplishments, memories, and lessons learned. He chose my dad, his grandpa.

They were both excited.

My dad had lived the kind of life a young boy could easily admire. He was an outstanding baseball player and was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in 1952. He played professionally for six years. He later served in the military during the Korean War before marrying my mom in 1958.

There was plenty to ask about.

Baseball. The Tigers. The military. Marriage. Children. Life.

I filmed the interview with one of those old video cameras, back when recording a family moment required a machine roughly the size of a toaster and the confidence that you were pointing it in the right direction.

My son worked through his questions. My dad answered them all.

Then came the big one.

“Grandpa, what was the proudest moment of your life?”

My dad paused.

Then he closed his eyes.

I watched him through the camera lens. For maybe 30 seconds, he seemed to travel somewhere none of us could follow. It was as if he were walking through the rooms of his own life. Baseball fields. Military barracks. Wedding day. Children. Houses. Holidays. Good years. Hard years. Everything.

My Dad when he played for the Detroit Tigers

Then he opened his eyes.

“Marrying your grandma and raising six wonderful kids with her.”

That was it.

Not baseball.

Not being drafted by the Detroit Tigers.

Not professional sports.

Not military service.

Not something that could be written on a plaque or printed in a program.

His proudest moment was love.

His proudest accomplishment was family.

I remember my jaw dropping. Not because the answer shocked me, exactly, but because of how pure it was. How certain. How undressed by ego. He had been asked to measure the meaning of his life, and he did not reach for status. He reached for people.

That moment has stayed with me because I think it revealed something we spend much of our lives trying not to admit.

The most important things are rarely the loudest things.

The world teaches us to chase applause. Titles. Recognition. Money. Achievement. The visible proof that we mattered. But time, if we live long enough, becomes a brutal editor. It cuts away the extra words. It leaves the clean sentence.

Who did you love?

Who loved you back?

Who was better because you were here?

My dad’s health, like his own dad’s, became its own long negotiation with mortality. Heart disease followed him through the years. Surgeries. A triple bypass. A heart attack he survived. The kind of medical history that makes birthdays feel less automatic.

When my Dad said those words: “time to renegotiate” it was funny, yes. But it was also profound in the way the best humor often is. My dad had reached the age he once would have accepted as enough. He had arrived at the finish line he once hoped for.

And once he got there, he wanted more.

Not because he was greedy.

Because he was alive.

That is the holy absurdity of being human. We make bargains with time and then, when time honors them, we ask for an extension.

One more birthday.

One more summer.

One more conversation.

One more ordinary afternoon that will not feel precious until later.

Not long after that, my dad’s heart required another serious procedure. His cardiologist called a family meeting. My sister Sally and I were there with him in one of those sterile medical rooms where the fluorescent lights seem to hum with worry.

The doctor explained the risks. The complications. The seriousness of it all.

Then he looked at my dad and asked him a question that changed the entire room.

“Ron, with all of these risks, why would you want this surgery?”

There was a silence.

Not an empty silence.

A full one.

My dad looked at me. Then at my sister. We stayed quiet, because somehow, we knew this was not our question to answer.

His lip trembled.

Then he looked at the doctor and said, slowly and clearly:

“Because I want to live…… I want to live.”

The doctor smiled.

That, he said, was exactly what he needed to hear.

The surgery gave my dad three more years.

He died in 2015 at the age of 83.

Three years past the contract.

Three years after the renegotiation.

Three more years of life he chose to fight for.

I think about that when I hear the John Mayer lyric.

“I’m so scared of getting older. I’m only good at being young.”

I think most of us feel that in some private corner of ourselves.

We fear getting older because aging feels like loss. Loss of speed. Loss of strength. Loss of possibility. Loss of the version of ourselves we still carry around inside, even when the mirror insists on introducing us to someone else.

Inside, most of us are still many ages at once.

We are the child at the funeral.

The teenager with impossible dreams.

The young parent trying to figure it out.

The adult watching our own children grow.

The son or daughter realizing our parents were never as permanent as they seemed.

Aging does not erase those versions of us. It stacks them. We carry them all. That is why time feels so strange. We are not one age. We are a whole crowded house of former selves.

And every once in a while, a song opens the door and lets them all speak.

Maybe we are not only good at being young.

Maybe we are simply inexperienced at being older.

Maybe aging is not something we are supposed to master. Maybe it is something we are supposed to keep renegotiating.

With our bodies.

With our fears.

With our memories.

With our regrets.

With the people we love.

With the dreams that changed shape.

With the dreams that still quietly wait for us.

My dad taught me that age is not just a number. It is a question.

What do you still want?

Who do you still love?

What are you not finished with yet?

He taught me that a life is not measured only by what we accomplish, but by what we refuse to stop caring about. He wanted to live because he was still connected to this world. Still invested. Still curious. Still attached to the people around him by invisible threads strong enough to pull him through fear.

I still hear him sometimes. Not in a supernatural way. In a human way. In the way a father’s voice can stay in a son’s bones.

“Time to renegotiate.”

Maybe that is all aging really is. Not stopping the train. Not pretending we are still young. Just waking up each morning, looking at what remains, loving it harder, and asking life, with whatever courage we have left:

What can we do with today?