I didn’t notice the ground at first. There was no moment where things clicked into place. No deep breath followed by relief. No sense that I had made it through something. If anything, it was the opposite. The days just stopped surprising me in quite the same way. That’s how footing arrived. After a year where everything felt unstable, predictability began to creep back in.

It’s the start of another new year. This one doesn’t feel like it’s asking for resolutions—the kind that usually get abandoned before the month is out. It’s not about exercising more, losing weight, eating better, or drinking more water. It’s not about learning French, or guitar, or drawing, or how to cook something impressive. This year isn’t about optimization. There will be fundamental differences this year.

This has been an extremely difficult year. Not difficult in a single, dramatic way. Difficult in the slow accumulation of loss. The kind that doesn’t arrive all at once, but keeps showing up until you realize you’re standing in a year that no longer resembles the one you started in. My father passed away this fall. It was slow, and then it was fast.

We sat in the exam room, waiting for the doctor. It was his regular follow-up with his neurologist. She has managed his care for almost ten years. She has been with him through keto, multiple surgeries, and the rollercoaster of physical and emotional effects that his condition has had on my son. This appointment, in particular, was one I had been dreading ever since my son…

Recently, we started watching Stranger Things. For most families, that means settling into the couch, grabbing snacks, and diving into the next episode. For us, it means something different. In between episodes, I have to remind him of what happened last time—who the characters are, what they’re trying to do, how the story left off. Even when we watched it the day before.

Recently, we started watching Stranger Things. For most families, that means settling into the couch, grabbing snacks, and diving into the next episode. For us, it means something different. In between episodes, I have to remind him of what happened last time—who the characters are, what they’re trying to do, how the story left off. Even when we watched it the day before.

I love my son’s school. I’m grateful every day for what they’ve done for him. He’s had many of the same teachers for years, and this is the first year the school expanded to 10th grade. My son is part of that first cohort, which made our first 10th-grade parent–teacher conference feel like a milestone. When his homeroom teacher started talking, something tightened in my chest—because she wasn’t talking about grades at all.

It’s great to have people in your life who want to help. I know how lucky I am to have friends and family who care, who check in, who ask what they can do. I am very fortunate. But when you’re already overwhelmed, even the offer of help can add to the weight. Suddenly, instead of just managing my own list, I’m trying to come up with something for someone else to do so they feel helpful, because they genuinely want to be helpful.

I’ve been on this epilepsy journey with my son for more than ten years. Ten years of seizures, medications, side effects, appointments, therapies, surgeries, sleepless nights, and the fear and instability that come with having uncontrolled seizures. After ten years of anything, most people assume you’d eventually get used to it. Like living next to a railroad track long enough that the passing trains become background noise, or becoming so accustomed to planes overhead that you stop noticing them entirely.

At a recent appointment, my son brought up the topic of driving. Even though we had talked about how he wouldn't be able to get a license while he was still having seizures, I knew that, once he turned 16, we would have to revisit the conversation. I remember getting my driver's license shortly after my 16th birthday. I had been working since I was 14 and saved up enough money to buy a car.

There’s a theme in my last few posts. Survival. Survival is the most primitive, instinctive reaction. It’s the “keep myself safe” and “keep this child alive” mode. It’s adrenaline, reflex, and emergency decision-making. No long-term view. No nuance. It’s the hospital room at 3 AM when you’re just trying to make it to the next hour. Survival is the body and brain trying to stay alive.

Every year, my son has a birthday that I didn't think I'd get. Since the age of five, he's never gone more than a day or two without a seizure. There were times when he wouldn't go an hour without one. And there were times when he was in status, and he wouldn't stop seizing at all. The first few years were especially scary.

I was never taught about money. To be fair, we didn't really have any growing up. My first exposure to it was when I was around seven years old. We lived in a row of apartments, and an elderly lady at the end of our block would occasionally open up a roll of coins, usually pennies or nickles, and toss them into the air and watch the neighborhood kids scramble to grab as many as they could.

A few weeks ago, I took my son to the airport. It was the first time he was going on a trip without me. And not just without me, he was traveling for the first time as an unaccompanied minor. He was growing increasingly nervous leading up to his trip, and each day, his anxiety showed more on his face. I woke him up early that morning to give us plenty of time to check in and get my gate pass, which added a slow, sleepy haze to his nervousness.

When I was young, I didn't have a lot of support learning how to manage big emotions. When things got hard, I would go internal, like a turtle pulling itself into its shell. I'd get anxious and scared, pulling my extremities closer to my body to make myself as small as possible until the danger passed. That was a survival skill, but while it helped me get through the danger, it didn't address the fear and anxiety that remained.

I don’t know where you’re going, but do you have room for one more troubled soul? That’s a line from the Fall Out Boy song Alone Together. The title itself is an oxymoron. How can someone be both alone and together at the same time? There are a lot of ways to interpret it. Some people hear it as being about drugs.

Last summer, I was at the pool with my son. It wasn't that long ago that he needed to stand on his tiptoes to keep his head above the water. Now, standing over six feet tall (the tallest in our family, as he likes to tell everyone), only his waist is submerged. His skinny torso sticks up like a twig in a pond.

A father reflects on childhood memories of baseball games with his dad and the importance of creating new, meaningful memories with his own son.

"Oh, the cleverness of me.” (Peter Pan, Barrie 1911) In Peter Pan, after teaching Wendy and her brothers how to fly, Peter proudly declares, “Oh, the cleverness of me.” It’s a line that sparkles with the joy of discovery but also reveals the limits of his childlike perspective. Peter delights in his own ingenuity, yet he lacks the maturity to see the risks or responsibilities that come with it.

I've never been good at maintaining relationships beyond the present moment. I know people who have maintained friendships since grade school. Grade school. They became friends before they were teenagers and still talk to each other twenty or thirty years later. I know other people who do yearly trips with college friends. Trips. They board an airplane and fly to another location to play golf, gamble, or whatever it is that friends who have known each other for twenty years do.

"Dad, I made a song." That was the first thing my son said to me when I got home from work. "That's cool, pal!" I responded, thinking he had jotted down a few lyrics to show me. "Do you want to hear it?" he asked. Hear it, I thought. Interesting. "Of course!" I said, following him to his room.

For most of my life, I carried the idea that the things that happened to me as a child were my fault. I didn't think I was a bad kid, but I knew and hung out with plenty of bad kids. My neighborhood growing up wasn't a stranger to crime and drugs. Compared to many of my friends, I was an angel.

For most of my life, I carried the idea that the things that happened to me as a child were my fault. I didn't think I was a bad kid, but I knew and hung out with plenty of bad kids. My neighborhood growing up wasn't a stranger to crime and drugs. Compared to many of my friends, I was an angel.

My first video game console was an Atari 2600 that my sister and I received for Christmas when I was eight.1 It was magical to toggle the switchbox and have an arcade on my television screen. Within a few months, I had a collection of cartridges. Pitfall, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong. I even had that horrible E.T. game. But Space Invaders was my favorite game, and my mother's boss and I had a friendly competition every time we visited his family.

As caregivers, we become skilled at putting on a brave face. Every weekend, I play tennis at a club near our house. I've been playing there for a few years, and a group of us have become friendly. We ask about each other's lives and families, even though many of us have never met their families. A few, though, met my wife and son when we first became members, including a few who happen to be doctors and know of my son's epilepsy.