Presently my day starts when the alarm on my phone goes off at 5:30am. After one hit (okay maybe two) on the old snooze button, I’m up and off to work out. Covid and the cold Pittsburgh winter have me exclusively indoors. By 6:15 I’m joined by my fiance, Audrey. She churns out a well paced cardio session on the Max trainer while I get the blood pumping on the treadmill. Afterwards we throw some free weights around. Resistance training is more fun when you have a partner that checks your form and lets you know if you’re slacking. Audrey and I are good like that. The hour and a half we spend together in the basement is my favorite part of the day.
That basement is in Lawrenceville, a neighborhood of Pittsburgh that is sought out by millennials and lined with cheeky boutique shops and mostly upscale restaurants. In my life, I never envisioned a future that included living in Lawrenceville. But this is my present.
After our workout I shower and get ready for work. Scooping up lunch and a tea for the road I get in the car and drive 40 minutes, directly into my past. I still work less than three blocks from the home I shared with my wife Ellen and our children, Aly and Mason. I love my work, and I love my hometown of Vandergrift. Growing up there was idyllic. Raising a family there was a joy. We had it all. Then cancer came knocking, and the story goes south from there. Ellen passed away in our home on Hancock Ave. Now Aly lives there with our dogs, Willow and Nero, while I drive towards it and then away from it every day. Symbolic, isn’t it.
The mornings aren’t so bad. Fresh from a sweaty workout with my best friend and fiance, I can be assured that life is so very good again. My emotions are mostly manageable on my way to Vandergrift, but the drive back to Lawrenceville is tough some days. The voices in my head call me terrible things. Traitor, deserter, fraud… I have to choose to ignore them. Ellen would approve of my life. She begged me, pleading that I not stay alone. But this is the lot of a widower. The hardest part about being okay is BEING OKAY.
Music can and will occasionally betray me so I fill the drive with podcasts, mostly. Pat McAfee seems like a friend. Dan Harris and his cadre of meditation and mindfulness experts make me 10% Happier. Dr. Michael Gervais is my teacher. Brene Brown is my advisor. The McElroy Brothers, Tony Diggs, Boston Connor, Nick, Zeets, Gumpy, Evan Fox, Ty Schmitt, Billy Buttchecks, Mitt, and Michael are my Comic relief. Vaguely Scientific satisfies my nerd side, and bonus, Aly is a frequent guest.
The future looks amazing. The past, wonderful. And even though the space between can be difficult, replacing the voices in my head with education, validation, and pure silliness is a gift.
Maybe that’s why they call it the present.
