You’d think being born inside a literal box would have its effects on the consciousness of a little Kevin. Maybe in some ways it did. I was born over two months early and spent the first months of my life inside an incubator, cookin’ up until I was ready for the prime time. I was ready for the world, but the world wasn’t ready for me…yet.
On my fifth rotation around the sun life showed me it does indeed have two sides.
I was sitting in my parents car, outside the same preschool where my innocence once lived. “Kevin, I don’t know how to say this, but your Grandpa is dead.” Paraphrasing, but the impact is still the same. As my pure little ears heard the sadness I reacted the only way I knew how. I cried.
These were the first tears I remember. Which is important, because at some point while growing up I forgot how to cry.
Starting To Come Online
Fast forward to third grade. I’m sure plenty of impactful things happened from the age of five to eight, but I don’t remember them. It’s a little fuzzy.
In third grade we made books. Real hardcover, writing on the pages, colored pencil books. My third grade brain didn’t realize the significance. I like to believe since then my perspective has evolved, but maybe not. Space adventures, plenty of pizza and skateboarding – the stories were a thing of legend. Rumor has it you can still track down these old books in the hidden cupboards of my mom’s house.
As I aged I was combed into a male version of sporty spice. Sports, rules, and school occupied most of my time. I still wrote, but mostly in darkness. Every night before I dozed off I pulled out my wrinkled notebook from underneath the bed and wrote shitty poems. The foundation was set.
A part of me thought what I was doing was wrong. I couldn’t admit I wanted to live a life of words. Even though my room was filled with too many books for my young soul to consume, I could never quite acknowledge I wanted to have a place on those same shelves.
Hello Old Friend
Even the walls were sad. In a single moment my entire life fell to pieces. I held his hand as my dad took his last breath. The shock of this moment reverberated throughout my life, inner and outer walls fell. The world didn’t make sense. Luckily for me, when tragedy strikes the grooves for happiness are cut even deeper.
Profound clarity and deep spiritual moments were intertwined with the messiness of trauma, sadness, grief and profound loss. Hours of meditation. Hours of crying. In a series of divine moments, the fat was cut from my life. I knew what mattered, and I sort of knew who I was.
I did the only thing I knew how to do. I wrote. I wrote to make sense of the world. I wrote to find myself. I wrote to find the pain. I wrote to find the love.
Today I still write, but now I write for more than me. I write for us. I write for those who have lost. I write for those who are yearning for more. I write for those lost in the dark. I write for those living in the light. I write because if I stop my world might collapse again.
I hope that in writing my story you can make a little more sense out of yours.
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