Category: Essays

Somewhere between the marshmallow goo still fused to our camping gear and the smell of half-washed socks wafting from a duffel bag that has more battle scars than some gruzzled vets, I realized I’d been working a side hustle as a chauffeur for the SKs. Which isnt surprising. All parents do this, more or less.

Our calendar reads like a tactical military schedule. Scouts every weekend. Every. Single. One. If we’re not camping, we are prepping to camp, or engaged in the deeply humbling task of cleaning up from the last one. It’s a lifestyle, really, a pungent, dirt-streaked lifestyle that requires a tetanus shot and a strong stomach. We’ve got more canvas and propane gear in our garage than most national parks.

Then there’s robotics. The nerd Olympics. Where my children, brilliant and curious, build machines that can do things I never learned, like shoot rubber balls into goals and follow taped lines on the floor like little Roomba assassins. The kids talk about torque and coding and precision motors, and I just nod, wondering when these bots will unionize and demand USB ports in the bathroom.

At least sports were simpler. A ball. A net. A sunburn. Now it’s motors and logic boards and ethical concerns about whether teaching robots to “destroy the other team’s base” is a stepping stone to Skynet. But sure, it’s fine. It’s all “for college.”

The older three were small once. They wanted me to watch their every cartwheel and catch. Now, they emerge only to forage. They are like cryptids: rumored to exist,but rarely seen. I pass them in the hall, and they grunt, a sound I assume means “hello,” “I require food,” or “what does this rash mean?”

It’s a language unto itself.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of them on Discord or Twitch, their faces glowing blue with the light of digital warfare. I want to interrupt, to be invited in, but there are barriers now. Unspoken but undeniable.

This is supposed to happen, I know. It’s normal. Healthy, even. They are becoming men, inching away from the protective gravity of home and into the wide, weird world of adulthood. I’m proud of them, deeply so. They are kind, clever, sarcastic in a way that makes me both furious and impressed. But some nights, I walk past their rooms and wish I could hear them whispering again, planning Lego heists or giggling about a fart with the awe and reverence of a sacred mystery. 

I miss those boys. Oh, they’re still here. They just aren’t those boys anymore and, while its a joy to know they men theyre becomming, its also sad. It’s a kind of mourning that sneaks up on you. You never expect to grieve someone who hasn’t left, but here I am, tearing up while reheating Chipotle Chicken at 11:30p.m.

Now, there’s SK5, the girl.

She’s six, going on unstoppable. Gymnastics is her new thing. Why not add another logistical nightmare to our weekly puzzle, right? She cartwheels everywhere, does sudden splits in the living room just because, and will soon be able to walk on her hands as well as her feet. 

Watching her is like watching joy with arms. I sit on the sidelines at her weekly class, surrounded by parents with water bottles the size of toddlers, trying not to take up two seats. I’m built like a defensive lineman, after all, even after the weight loss. Every movement I make seems to require an apology and a repositioning of limbs.

Mid-session, she breaks formation and runs over, sweaty and glowing.

“I love you, Daddy,” she says, and then she’s off again, vaulting back into the fray, a tiny superhero in a sparkly leotard.

In that moment, I know: the letting go has started again. Tiny at first. Sweet. Manageable. But it will grow. And someday, she too will grunt and retreat to her room, and I’ll be left wondering where the little girl in the rainbow socks disappeared to.

Parenting is a series of small, beautiful betrayals. You build the world for them, then cheer as they leave it. You’re the training wheels they outgrow. The flashlight they stop needing. The driver they someday don’t call.

But for now, there’s another practice tomorrow. And camping this weekend. And robots to build. And somewhere in all of it, maybe, hopefully, a hug.

At least until she learns to teleport.

The invitation read:

“Flag Retirement Ceremony. 10am. Bring your old, worn flags and your sense of gratitude.”

Gratitude I had. Several worn flags I had. What I lacked was a sense of how exactly this would go. The words flag retirement ceremony sound official, vaguely military, and not entirely suited for a man like me whose idea of ceremony is remembering to stand up during the National Anthem while balancing a cup of overpriced ballpark beer.

But my wife, ever the optimist, saw it as an opportunity: “it’s service,” she saif. “It’ll be good for the kids,” she said, loading the car with all the enthusiasm of a woman who has wrangled five children into church pews, dentist chairs, and trips to Disney World without losing a single one.

So there we were: me, my wife, and our five children, arriving at a small local park like the opening scene of a patriotic sitcom. The Florida sun was in full, blazing glory, hitting its peak over a row of pines. The local scout troops were already there, my kids now among them, organizing a stack of folded, faded American flags that looked like they’d seen more history than most of the people holding them.

Flag Day gets short shrift in our country. It’s lost in thw shuffle between the end of school and the beginning of summer. The 4th of July gets all the attention with loud fireworks, parades, hot dogs, and the kids arguing over who got to wave the biggest flag at the parade route. Flag Day is different. Quieter. The kind of quiet that makes you nervous at first, until you realize you’re supposed to feel something. Then, you do.

A Vietnam veteran with a silver beard and pressed slacks talked to my kids as we presented our pile of flags for returement. His voice was gravelly but warm. 

“These flags have served their purpose,” he said. “They’ve flown over homes, schools, and cemeteries. They’ve seen weddings, funerals, homecomings, and heartbreak.”

I looked down at my kids, standing in a row like Russian nesting dolls. The oldest trued looking stoic. The youngest cartwheeled around like she had discovered a new form of transportation. One of the middle kids mouted the Pledge of Allegiance as it was being recited, the words half-learned, half-invented.

One by one, families stepped forward to deliver their flags. Some were frayed at the edges, others nearly pink from too much Florida sun. Person after person carefully laid each flag onto the fire, where they folded into themselves, flames curling the fabric, their work done, an exhalation after a long shift, the end of watch. 

Our turn came. We stepped up together, each holding our flag across our hearts as we had been instructed in accordance with the proper procedures Official ceremony

We placed our flags on the edge of the flame. For a moment, they resisted, like they wanted to cling to existence. Then they surrendered, red, white, and blue curling into orange and black.

There’s something haunting about burning a flag. You’re told all your life to treat it with respect, to never let it touch the ground, to fold it with precision as though your mistakes might dishonor the nation and the sacrifices if thise who gave their all for the freedoms it represents. Now here we were, watching ours go up in smoke, not out of disrespect, but as an act of reverence. An ending done the right way.

The kids stood quietly. Those in scout uniforms saluted. I don’t know what exactly they were feeling. I barely knew what I was feeling. Pride, certainly. Sadness, maybe. Gratitude, definitely.

Summer holidays often trick us into thinking patriotism is fireworks and cookouts, that loving your country means singing along to Lee Greenwood and wearing flag-print board shorts. But standing there, watching our flags retire into flame, I was reminded that it’s also about endings. About change. About remembering that this nation, like the tattered flag I retired, has been through a lot, is going through a lot, and that burning amd retiring a flag properly is not erasing its story but honoring the fact that its story was worth telling in the first place.

In the moments after the ceremony, the kids buzzing again with energy, I glanced at my wife and said, “That was actually kind of beautiful.”

She smiled. “See? I told you it would be good for the kids.”

It was good for me, too.

Maybe this is how we shoukd remember our origins, not just with the noise and the parades, but with the quiet, with the letting go, with the understanding that even in the act of retiring an old flag, we’re recommitting ourselves to the idea that this country, for all its frayed edges and faded colors, is still worth standing up for. 

Happy Flag Day.

So I’m in the office breakroom, just standing there, minding my own business, trying to get a cup of that tasty, lukewarm coffee-flavored watwr when these two ladies stroll in and start talking. Not near me; next to me. RIGHT next to me. Like, I’m suddenly the potted plant in their conversation.

I’m the ficus. I don’t exist.

And one of them goes, “I’m retiring soon … gonna help my husband with his painting business.”

Okay, nice. You hear “painting business,” and you think ladders, tarps, beige walls, fumes that make you think the Beatles were right. But no. Her husband is an artist. He paints FOR A LIVING. 

“Lucky bastard,” I think. 

She says, “Well, he doesn’t want me in the studio too much because he needs space to create.”

Alright, solid. Makes sense. Creative people need silence, solitude, and a room with just the right kind of despair lighting. The usual. 

Then the other woman leans in with this nuclear-level nonsense and says, “Well, HE’S got the easy part. All he has to do is create. YOU’RE doing the real work!”

WHAT!? All he has to do is create!?

Listen, sweetheart. Creating is not the easy part. Creating is spiritual plumbing with a hammer. It’s waking up at 3 a.m. with a brilliant idea and forgetting it by 3:05 because your brain decided it needed to think about whether penguins have knees.

“Creating is the easy part” is something only people who’ve never created a damn thing say, amd they say it brazenly, without shame or self-awareness. You think art just oozes out like soft-serve? Like he sits down, lights a candle, farts a masterpiece and hits print?

No! Creation is torture with a side of taxes. It’s bleeding your soul out through your eyeballs and hoping someone on Etsy buys it for $35. And that’s if they don’t leave a one-star review because it “didn’t match the couch.”

You know what’s easy? Filing paperwork. You know exactly how many forms there are. You know where they go. You know when you’re done. Try creating something from scratch. It’s like trying to birth a unicorn on a deadline with no epidural.

And artists? Real artists? They’re haunted. They see beauty and pain and truth in the shape of a coffee stain. They feel everything. That’s the job. To feel. Constantly. It’s like being emotionally lactose intolerant in a world made of cheese.

But sure, yeah, he’s got the “easy part.” All he has to do is pour his entire essence into a canvas, risk his mental health, manage the crushing fear that he’ll never be relevant, and then sell his soul on Instagram for algorithm points. Easy peasy.

Meanwhile, I’m standing there with my sad cup of breakroom crap in a cup, stuck in this verbal drive-by, thinking, “I just wanted coffee. Not a TED Talk on how to accidentally insult every artist who ever lived.”

So here’s my PSA, friends. Next time you think creating is easy, try staring at a blank page for three hours and see if your brain doesn’t start chewing its own leg off. And when you’re done, let the artist work. 

And give him the good coffee.