I Turned Myself Into A Monster

Because gardeners don't make good soldiers

It’s been a very challenging few days.

These are the moments in life that make you or break you.

LFG. 🔥

My Son’s Mystery Disease

It’s 10:00 PM on Thursday evening. I’m writing this now because I need to be rock solid in the morning to get The Sweet Girl to day care, and then meet Jules at the hospital.

Neither Jules nor I have gotten more than a few hours of sleep the last few nights. Jules just took The Little Dude to the ER, as we finally heard back from the doctor and they think they know what’s wrong.

Two weeks ago, I had a little scab on my jaw line. My beard was growing in thick, so I figured it was just an ingrown hair. It was painful, but I didn’t think much of it.

Then The Sweet Girl and The Little Dude started getting scabs on their faces.

It’s called impetigo. Don’t Google it. It’s pretty gross. Honestly, it’s sort of embarrassing to even talk about. I just kept my beard long so hardly anyone noticed, but it was unpleasant, to say the least.

The doctor gave us all some cream and The Sweet Girl’s and my symptoms cleared up.

But The Little Dude’s didn’t.

He woke up with it spreading to the inside of his nose and ears. Worse, his face started swelling. Extreme puffiness around his eyes, his lips, and his entire face. His face is like twice its normal size. It’s been disturbing.

For the last three nights, he’s been hysterically screaming in pain, telling us his body stings. When we ask where, he just screams louder and says it stings all over. It’s agonizing. All you want to do is help him, but you don’t know how.

What’s worse, today he started getting blistering around his lips, his back, and his butt. We thought it was an allergic reaction, but the doctor just called and said she’s pretty sure it’s something called Staph Scalded Skin Syndrome.

Seriously. Don’t Google it.

Anyway, Jules just took The Little Man to the ER. The doctors are waiting for him there. They need to keep him for at least 24 hours and give him IV antibiotics, which I absolutely hate. I believe in antibiotics, but they’re not a free lunch and we overprescribe them like crazy. I hate knowing that my beautiful little man is going to be pumped full of intense medication that will wreck his gut biome.

So why am I telling you all this?

Well, for one, my cortisol levels are sky high. I’m so fucking tired and strung out, and there’s something about putting my thoughts onto the blank page that has always been therapeutic for me.

But also, because I want to talk about living in wartime.

It’s Better To Be a Soldier In S Garden Than A Gardener In A War

Life is not easy. It’s not easy for anyone.

No matter how lucky you are with the cards you were dealt, everyone deals with pain, struggle, doubt, hardship, and grief.

You truly never know what someone else is going through. It’s easy to look around and assume someone has it made. But everyone is going through something. It’s true.

Yet, some people are more equipped to deal with hardship than others.

It’s moments like these that make me grateful for my parents. They’re so goddamn tough. It’s no wonder I turned out the way I did after being raised by them.

All they did was work. They must have been so tired. I have crystal clear memories of my father coming home from work and collapsing on the couch, falling asleep in 30 seconds.

And you know what? They told us every day how lucky we were to have two parents.

It was very common for kids in my neighborhood to have deadbeat dads, or crackheads for parents, or be raised by their grandmothers. I’m not saying it was easy for my family, but we had everything we needed, and my parents never let us feel sorry for ourselves.

We had adequate protein. We had a house full of love. I always felt protected.

I don’t know how they did it. Seriously, there are days when Jules and I feel like we’re drowning, and then I think about what they had to do to raise my sister and me, and I get filled with appreciation and respect for them.

My parents are monsters. They could be scary and ruthless. They were rarely mean or unkind, but they didn’t live in a world where the goal was to make everyone happy. They had one priority, and that was to raise my sister and me. If you got in the way of that, then they would eat you alive.

Sometimes, you need to become a monster. You want to be a dangerous person.

Everyone who trains martial arts knows this. Being capable of violence and pushing through pain is not a trivial feat. It’s noble. The most competent people in the world are the ones who know how to wield a sword, but choose to keep it sheathed.

Sometimes, life calls on you to do hard things.

In those moments, can you deal with the discomfort? Can you push through agony? Can you go through hell and keep going?

I can.

The Hardest Things Are The Best Things That Ever Happened To Me

I feel so grateful to have suffered the way I did.

I’ve been sober for 15 years, and every day I think about what it was like to be strung out, weighing 140 pounds, throwing up every morning from withdrawals, and living in quiet desperation. That suffering has never left me. I keep it tight to my hip as a daily reminder to appreciate what I have. I never let it get too far away from me. The truth is, I’m so grateful for it.

All my favorite people are the ones who dealt with the hardest challenges.

One of my training partners, Jake, has Crohn’s disease. His entire high school and early twenties were spent in and out of hospitals, living on the edge of death. When he talks about it, he always mentions how grateful he is that we live in a world where it’s even possible to treat Crohn’s disease. As recently as the 1940’s, Crohn’s disease was a death sentence. You we’re absolutely going to die in a manner that was painful, degrading, and terrible.

Now, hard things just don’t seem that hard to him. What could be harder than what he already went through?

My wife struggled with severe anorexia and bulimia for over 15 years. When I met her, I thought being a heroin addict was the hardest addiction. I found out very quickly that eating disorders are 1000 times more brutal than heroin addiction.

It’s not even close.

Jules is now one of the strongest, most confident, and most graceful people I will ever know. So much of that is because of the quiet confidence one develops after living on the edge of death and choosing not to surrender.

Hardship is not bad. Pain is not bad. Struggle is required. You want to be anti fragile. Your immune system gets stronger the more diseases it fights off. That’s how you want to be. You don’t want to be free of danger. You want to be fully equipped to fight it off.

You want to use danger to build your strength.

I hope that’s what I’ve been doing this past week. Jules and I have been giving each other hugs each morning, smiling and saying “it’s wartime.” I’ve been going to a different place in my mind. I haven’t been allowing myself to feel tired, or to slow down, or to show weakness. I can have a mental breakdown next week, but this week, the kiddos need me to be a strong and supportive father. Jules needs me to get my ass in gear, get to work, and be responsible to perform my duties as her husband and as the man of the house. They don’t need me to be comfortable or happy or even pleasant. They need me to be a monster, and that’s what I will be.

Sometimes life is peaceful. Sometimes you go to war.

So be grateful for your battle scars. They will prove useful.

Love you guys. Talk to you Monday.

Tim

P.S. - Did any of this make sense? or did I just black out and rage write? Who cares, I’m publishing it.

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