CO-PARENTING IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS

KT,

It is almost midnight and I am not in the least bit sleepy.  While anxiety is part of my diagnosis, I wonder if the source of my late night is ACTUALLY one of the emergent conditions of CTBI.  I say that because nearly everything that could be a symptom are traits that may not necessarily be singularly identified as such.  In fact, I often ignore telling myself that a particular behavior or some kind of mental failing is due to my condition, because f*ck THAT!

Anywho, what I do know is that you have been on my mind for some time.  The pandemic has shut down everything… I was so looking forward to watching you walk across the stage!  But with things being what they are, I felt that this is a time where I should talk to you about my college experience and the impact that an irregular event had on my LIFE.

See, in ‘92 I was really doing well as an amateur boxer.  I won the Carolina Golden Gloves and went to Knoxville, Tennessee to box in the regionals.  I was unable to make it through, but I still had a chance to make the Olympic Team by winning the Olympic Trials box-off.  This meant I would have to beat up people in Carolina and then I would be on my way to Marquette, Michigan to the next round of qualifying.  Even had I not made it through, I would have had a lot of boxing people get to look at me and maybe someone would have tried to set me up as a boxer.  Anywho, I had won the first fight that I had and I was confident that I was going to beat up the guy who stood between me and the Carolina berth to the Olympic Trials.

BUT WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS…

Most Olympic Trial competitors are made up of teams and groups around the athlete that makes sure that all the athlete has to do is compete.  My experience was not like that.  I drove down by myself from Greensboro to Wilmington, had to find my own hotel and figure out how to get around town, to where I needed to go for the boxing match.  I did that, and for the first night, I was golden.  I met my weight and was able to meet and represent myself in the appropriate meetings.  Later, I would beat up the cat for my first fight, and I had advanced to the next round.  BUT, as a fighter, I was not allowed to go to the coaches’ meeting, and by not finding out the details for the next day, I was not informed about when the weigh-in for the next night of matches.  Missing the weigh-in meant I would not be allowed to continue my Olympic dream.

I had taken spring semester off because this was going to be one of the biggest reaches at the brass ring on the Merry-Go-Round of my life.  This, I had told myself, was my “golden ticket”, my chance at a new life, dreams of becoming famous and having a gold medal hung around my neck.  At worst, I would be seen by boxing people and might have caught the eye of someone who was looking for a good fighter.  But all of those dreams, along with the dreams I did not know that I had, would be altered forever.

So now, in the time of COVID-19, your graduation has been delayed… and I am assuming that you are not sure of what is going to come of your senior year of college.  And this is how my experience and your “Graduating In The Time Of Coronavirus” sorta kinda dovetails.

Whatever it is you have going on in your life right now, do NOT lose your focus.  Identify the things that you are SURE OF in your life are the things you want to accomplish AT ALL COSTS.  I, not only did not do that, but throughout my life, have not been able to do so.  If I had your Mom’s talent for focus and goal setting and achievement, then who knows what our lives (because if I was THAT KIND OF GUY, I would have married her, at the very least, stayed in Carolina for the both of you) would have become.  But my penchant for distraction and whimsy, eventually brought me to Omaha.  I still have that penchant for whimsy (me moving to Georgia… more on that another time) so it is not like where your “maybe” is far from my ability to identify with you.  Saying “whimsy” is being kind to myself, because that is not an adjective that one should be using when describing the process that they use to arrange their thoughts, their life.  Existence is unkind to indecision.  The life that I have led is proof of that.

You do not want to have to live with a question that you should have answered when you first faced it.  You do not want to count on being able to continually find another chance to make something of yourself,  which is the knowledge that you can gain in only one way… through failure and disappointment.  The only reason that I can say this, obviously, is through my life experience.  This is the curse of the half-a** ghetto philosopher… having an understanding of “the why” my thoughts have brought me here, and in spite of the life that was foreshadowed, ending up being in this space anyway.  That is not what I want for you, to understand and being satisfied with knowing better and never really having done better.  You  deserve better than that.

I go back to missing my weigh-in and living my life without KNOWING.  I do not know what I could have been because of my own actions.  Something that I had full control of, a future of unknown positive possibilities, and I blew it.  Not missing the shot at the Olympic Team, but taking full responsibility and control of my life.  THAT is what I really missed.

See, none of your dreams and hopes are at risk.  You can still choose and make the life that you want.  You have AGENCY.  Stay on course, focus on achieving the things that you want.  Make that your prime directive.  I do not want you to end up living a life of compromise.  You have too much potential, too much ability, to live your life as a “woulda, coulda”.  Dream big, reach high, WORK HARD.  Get focused… do not worry about the things that do not fit conveniently with your goals and dreams… do not be discouraged when you have to work hard for the things you want (and if those “things” are people, let them go… but that is not this note..!).  Keep on the path, make sure you are still on YOUR PATH, and do the most you can to live a fulfilling life.

I love you more than anything I have ever loved in my life.  You are so precious and I do not care who knows it!  Be careful, do not let people breathe on you and for goodness sake, WASH YOUR FACE AND HANDS!  Anti-bacteria stuff does NOT protect you more from the virus… soap BREAKS DOWN AND DESTROYS THE VIRUS.  This may or may not be a permanent thing, unless the meeting at the Bohemian Grove decided to--

Love you lots and lots!!

Dad