I’m not a scientist, or a doctor, a lawyer or even a drive thru employee, but barring all of that I have been doing a lot of thinking. I firmly believe in writing what you know, and that’s a major reason that I don’t pack whatever I write with statistics and specific dates. It’s not that I think I’m not capable or that I have any misgivings against those who do because most of what I do know is thanks in part to them. What I mean by writing what you know isn’t that you can’t create ideas or stories. I just think that whenever people conjure those stories of superheroes, or magic beings and whatever else that they pull from their real life. There are so many examples that are inherently meta, especially what could be considered classics in this day in age. I watched Alice in wonderland recently and I realized though it was a real enough world, which may still be up for debate there were parallels in Alice’s life when it came to wonderland. The Wizard of Oz is another, where Dorothy goes to a place where she finds that a lot of her encounters in the land of Oz resonate with her real life. Removing yourself from within and looking at the bigger picture I don’t believe L. Frank Baum or Lewis Carrol had ever been in worlds that resembled this not that I know everything but I do believe that their imagination had given them the tools to create it. The characters are people just like you and I know people and they have qualities that correlate with the real world. I believe that most people write what they inherently know, but I also think that both of them did so. They pulled from moments in their life and experiences that they’d had that gave them no option but to share it with the world. I don’t think I ever truly understood that if I’m being honest, but mostly because though I do love the aforementioned stories, I don’t necessarily believe in most of what I can’t see. Not that I’m not an inspired person, but because when I was younger I decided that I was going to put my faith in people and as I got older that was only reinforced. The good in people that is, and recently I have been going through a lot mentally. Not in the way that most people would assume, genuinely I’m a happy person and glad to be that way. But I do value intellect and the thought processes that accommodate it. It’s just, I have been blocked, which leads me down roads of scrapping what I thought was what I wanted to do with my life after all this time and choosing something else. Like most people I believe that there are a multitude of career paths I could go down, but as an inspired person I can’t ever settle on something that doesn’t keep me up at night. So I go in a circle sometimes bigger than other times back to this. Along with being blocked, come all the fears; will I be able to make money? Will I be able to sustain a career? Or just plainly am I good enough? Then a few days ago something started to happen. I never used to dream in continuity, they never made sense in any fashion, there was no storyline and I rarely could remember them. The only thing in my life that changed was that I was desperate to think of something because I have never wanted anything so badly. Then it happened, recently it feels as if my brain is looking out for me in ways that it never had before. Stories, ideas, and all types of other stuff have been planting themselves firmly in my mind. Whether it be in dreams or me noticing something in my life that I never had before. The reason I talked about not being the professions I named earlier is because I’m sure there’s ample amount of research that can support what’s been recently happening to me. It isn’t that I agree or disagree, but when I think about all of the awespiring worlds and inventions that people have recreated I have to wonder, could any of those professionals have predicted that? Innovation isn’t about facts and calculations, sure they play a part but the seed being planted is about believing in something more than you ever should. Telling yourself no matter what anybody thinks what you put your heart and soul into is going to change the world. The people who’ve conquered that are the ones that we still talk about decades later, whatever it was inside of them that told them that it needed to happen. I’m not saying that I will write the next wizard of Oz or advance our world into a technological utopia, and I don’t want to. For me it isn’t about that, I found something that my brain won’t let me quit, and I think that is the real goal in all of this. For everybody to figure out what their mind, body, and soul clings to no matter what. It might take you a long time to find it, and you will most definitely get side tracked along the way. But there is nothing better than realizing that no matter what you can’t give up, you won’t let yourself. So although I’m not a doctor or a lawyer and virtually have no skills, I am a dreamer and I’ll take that any day.

A lot of my life, I heard people talk about different professions that they or others wanted to pursue. A common consensus more often than not from people who never pursued this type of career is that there would be “no money” in it. Whether it’s being an actor or a musician, maybe even a writer. God forbid you maybe wanted to get into education because a lot of the educators were the culprits of this idealism. It used to blow my mind that they were able to look someone in the face and tell them their dreams are unrealistic, or far fetched, maybe even not worth it. Like it was something that even was remotely in their jurisdiction to rule on let alone demolish. What is also strange to me is that wanting to be something in the realm of an engineer, or an accountant ( which by the way appealed to me the same way being the best man at your ex’s wedding would) is often encouraged. Of course I could understand why, but the reasons that I was given were, in simplest terms, weak. Yes, to some people “ job security” or the obvious one money is an incentive. Not to mention you are presented as someone of superior intelligence or status, when you can drop that you’re something like a biomechanical engineer. Not that I even know what that would mean or even if it’s a real job, but it sounds smart. But if it’s so difficult why are we pushing people into it? At the same time telling kids who can’t function unless they are steam rolling towards their wildest dreams that they should just drop it, or make it a hobby. Maybe we have it backwards, about how difficult either path really is. To be a creative in the arts and humanities sense is maybe about the scariest thing in the world that you can do. When someone tells you that your math is wrong, or your formula is off, maybe it does hit a nerve in you. But it’s also a crutch, the fact that what you did wrong can finitely be improved or changed so that you can get the “right” answer. For the children with that dream, to be an actor, or anything that I named before when your craft is questioned, it shakes your very core. If it doesn’t you might not really belong in this minority, the people who bare their heart and soul knowing full well that someone who has never met you and might not ever meet you again can make or break everything you ever worked for. For someone to tell you “ you just don’t have what it takes”, and there is no blueprint to perfection. A lot of the time, in the arts the beauty is in the imperfections. Sure you can go and study and based on some rules that were written some absurd amount of years ago become technically sound. And if that were enough, if there was enough security in just being sound mechanically in your craft I think that less people would be scared to follow what they really dreamed of. The world needs all kinds of people, the engineers, mathematicians, and all of the finite thinkers of the world. It wouldn’t work if we didn’t have them. And maybe I’m wrong, which in itself is evidence that attempting something as simple as voicing my own vision is almost like Russian roulette with rounds in five of the six available locations. But I would be less scared every day if I knew that I could arrive at the correct answer. Being broke, or struggling doesn’t scare me nearly as much as my passion being stripped bare by somebody who understands in its entirety, how truly important it really is to us. How there isn’t anything else, but this. It’s scary to create something, and be so afraid that it will be the last idea you ever have. Almost synonymous with crippling in some ways. And still, we wake up everyday and choose to be afraid, because the alternative isn’t an option. I don’t mean to spite anybody who does those other kinds of jobs, or people who stifle other dreams intentionally or otherwise. I don’t think that it usually comes from a bitter place, maybe they know what it feels like to have that fire inside of them extinguished and never lit again. Apart of us dies, when our dreams do. So maybe they just want to save you from that level of pain, because it can stay with you, and it will bleed into every aspect of your life. But some people need it to feel alive, like what they’re doing might change someone’s life the way someone before them changed theirs. No matter your dream you should follow it, because it’s your right. It just isn’t anybody’s right to tell someone that their dream is too big, or insinuating that it should scare them off, because trust me when I say that it most definitely already does. And if your dreams never scared you before, maybe they aren’t big enough.

I always wanted a man cave, a room oozing of masculinity and overcompensation.  From the day we brought you home, no matter how much I wanted to see you grow up, I would be remiss to say that I wasn’t looking forward to you taking on the world and me starting my next chapter.  I thought about it more often than I would like to admit, what I would do to your room after it was all said, and done.  Through the years my plans would alter, but the main objective stayed virtually the same.  After eighteen years I was completely ready.  Until I realized I wasn’t.  I walked back into the threshold of what had been our fortress in our years together.  Only I couldn’t have felt less like I was at home.  Like I was in a sanctuary where the outside world whatever it would hold for you on any given day couldn’t penetrate the love and the protection that had been conjured through so many years.  Of course we had our ups and downs, probably more downs than I would like to admit, but we made it.  You taking on the world and myself, doing.. well something.  As a parent you are extremely quick to label your children ungrateful or tell them that they take whatever they have in their life at the moment for granted which a lot of the time is true.  The funny thing is there isn’t anybody around to really witness the realization that we were the biggest culprit of it all.  The nights tending to a screaming, sporadically sleeping infant, thinking about a time where they would be able to tell you with their words what was the cause.  Only to realize when they start walking and talking but rarely listening you long for the days where all they needed to be happy was to be held even if it was in the middle of an already exhausting night.  Fast forward to adolescence when you’re wishing that the child you had just a few short years ago who maybe didn’t always listen, but believed with their entire soul that you were there to make their life the best that it could be.  Without being heavily influenced by the outside world and the child rearing tactics of your parental peers being weighed against yours at every move.  Most people never really get to say goodbye when they know it is going to be permanent in any capacity.  I tried like so many parents before me to reminisce and squeeze a lifetime of memories and laughs into those moments before the chapter closes on this part of our lives.  When I come home to an empty nest, I think about how you would be on the phone and for whatever reason didn’t have any sense of volume when you spoke.  Not to mention that you didn’t think it made sense at all to just drink the rest of any drink that you decided on, but instead to leave a teaspoon of whatever it was for some poor unassuming soul to discover.  The nights you came home late and saw the process laid out over your face when you were debating on whether to lie to me or not.  I’m going to miss it all, but that is only because I didn’t miss it all.  From start to finish, in this phase of your life I got to see it all.  Of course I’m so excited to see what the future holds, but I can be honest when I say I’m afraid not so much for you but for me.  I think that we both have a lot more life to live and when I manage to go a night without sleeping in your old room 

( that I, of course have not touched) I will get right on living it.

There is art in everything. From the tedious strokes that were at the forefront of the American renaissance, to the architects who meticulously worked to design and build the likes of the colosseum, and the Roman Forum. Even something as simple as your favorite fast food restaurant, down to how the food is placed in the bag. There was always something about being able to fold the bag at its corners into itself that made it perfect for transporting. The reason I say this is because recently I took up something that is more closely associated with art in more circles then all that I previously named. I always loved reading growing up, I thought it was such an amazing escape. I remember the first time that someone had to raise their voice to pull my attention out of whatever realm I had entered when I picked up the book and started to read. Sure there were movies and tv shows that could make you feel as if you were transported into some place where anything was possible, good or bad. But so much of the magic comes from the words that are chosen, and how carefully they are placed so that the gravity of their message resonates with its audience. I decided to start writing later in my life than most people, especially the ones who would even consider a career that was even associated with it. Which is scary, I used to tell my sister that if you wanted to be a doctor you should want it from a young age because as you get older, and you start to think about how rigorous all the schooling and the workload would be, it can overwhelm you. Maybe it would scare you, if you actually did decide to go through with it. Of course there are people that want something so badly to be unsuccessful isn’t an option, but that is more rare than the former. I started writing because I had something to say. I think I had always thought about doing something of this nature, but I would talk myself out of it. I think the biggest culprit in my congregation of my fears and doubts was that, how could I ever write something that has never been said. I mean I’m not the smartest person who’s ever lived nor the most intelligent, so how could I after all this time say something that would engulf you in a state of mind where maybe it’s only for a few seconds you feel like your whole world just washes away? Where you’re able to live in the fabric of your own reality, to interpret how you see fit. It is the magic that I felt when I read the first line of a new book, or hear the first line of a movie that will shape how I feel about that moment in my life forever. Of course throughout time different phrases and sayings come and go, and proceed to make their way back in some medium or another, but for the most part the words we use everyday don’t change. So again I asked myself why would I be the person who will capable of finding a new way to say the same thing? Something that’s been uttered and recycled for decades? But then it hit me, it wasn’t about finding a new way to say the same thing. I mean the writers that I loved didn’t necessarily do it either, but that wasn’t what shaped my thought process. I started to think about why I loved what I do, I mean really think. Why I can watch procedural romantic comedies that honestly have become mad libs with the same template just different people inserted into subject lines. It’s because it wasn’t so much about the words, but the people who are saying them. Everything that they have been through in their lives that led up the “ I love yous” or the “goodbyes”. I cared because I cared about them, the words were just their tool to manifest all their passions and emotions into a tangible place. This could apply to any number of the perceived arts, whether it be music, literature, or actual paint to canvas. The point isn’t to recreate the wheel, it’s about finding ways to manipulate it to your own interpretation because no matter how fast or slow it spins, or which way it goes it is still just a wheel. Words by themselves have no power, that all lies within the ones who wield them. So I write, well as much as I can anyway and yes, sometimes I wish I had never started or that I could just be done. Of course that isn’t possible now, because I’ve felt it. What it feels like to wield something as timeless and as effective as the language we use to navigate our everyday lives. To use them as a weapon in infiltrating whatever impenetrable fortress someone might have up, but without me, without being the renewable energy source that fuels them. They have no power. On its own there is no single article that can dig so deep that it pokes whatever it is inside of us that makes us want to rise up and touch greatness the way that true art does, whatever it may be. Art isn’t an object, or sound, or even words. We’re the art.

Sir Isaac Newton once said, “an object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest”. Now when he came to that conclusion I’m pretty sure he didn’t have the same concept in mind, as I do now. Growing up I was fortunate enough to not have much death around me. There were a few that were shocks to my entire system, but thankfully I had time to heal properly without them compounding. Not everybody is so lucky though, and it got me thinking, about how more and more as I got older my friends would joke about wanting to die because of whatever was currently the bane of their existence at the moment. I would be lying if I said I was innocent of doing this, and I’m not sure exactly when but I have been conscious of trying to stop. I want to stop because when I really think about it, I most definitely don’t want to die. Maybe I thought it was because of not wanting to leave my family or friends and that is true. But I realized it was more for myself than anything, not to sound like one of those people but, life is beautiful. Everything about it, from when the sun rises to when the moon takes its place it is happening to us and all around us. Even if we don’t want it to, it is out of our hands, and we don’t live forever. For a while that really scared me, because it is so final. I have heard people boast about not being afraid to die, and I used to as well. But honestly I can’t think of a world where that is true in its entirety. I can completely understand that you shouldn’t walk on eggshells so that you minimize the chances of it. But to not be afraid? It really does scare me honestly. When I think about how many of the things in our world that don’t last forever, and how we cherish them because of that very reason. While at the same time we are mad or afraid, even annoyed at what It seems could be ending in that moment. Everyday ventures like Traffic, finals, even something like a headache. In no world would I wish a perpetual sentence of any of those three amongst many others, on anybody. But if they lasted forever that breeds an air of finality and nobody wants that. Death like the aforementioned is along the same lines, in the sense that It is final. It is on a list that is a party of two that pertains to our life’s limited guarantees, so why would anybody even joke about it? Claim to not be afraid of dying, when it means losing everything that you have worked for? Leaving everybody that you have ever loved? That would suck, for lack of a better word, but we embrace it? Even welcome it in certain situations? Whether you’re serious or not, I honestly can’t wrap my head around the notion of it being okay anymore. Life is precious, and its ending is also the second and final item on a list of guarantees we have in this world. When your life starts, it takes off with a full head of steam. The good, the bad and the ugly, no matter what you do and it waits for no one. When death becomes you, that’s it. Of course different belief systems and ideologies give people comfort about it, and that’s great. It just isn’t a reason to not understand the gravity of what death is nor is it a reason to dismiss the significance of a life well loved and lived. I believe Sir Isaac Newton was talking about motion in its finite sense, and obviously was brilliant. But it applies to a multitude of topics, and this is one of them. I don’t know everything and I would never claim to, but I do know that Objects in motion stay in motion, and an object at rest stays at rest. You will be both in life at some point, just be sure you’re putting on the emphasis on the part that you can enjoy. Because when you are at rest, you stay at rest.

The other day I was at work, as I am most days and a song came on the radio. I don’t really believe that the particular song had any kind of significance to anybody else in my vicinity, or if it did they didn’t react as I had. The song reminded me of my little sister who I haven’t seen in over a year, but in that moment it was as if she was right there with me. It got me thinking about all these moments in our life that have been engraved in our brains because of a song, or movie that was playing when these moments occurred. Although I was grateful to have that kind of association it made me think about when I was younger. How I didn’t have access to music whenever I liked growing up, or being able to click to “ Season 10 episode 17” of friends to feel what I felt when I was watching for the first time. Even if it was years after the original date. I’ve grown accustomed to being able to bend these sorts of situations to my will sorta speak, but what about when I couldn’t? How now we use sight and sound a lot more frequently because in comparison they’re more easily recreated than the others. I thought about 200 years ago when you went and saw a star perform and it might be the first and last time in your life that you ever hear them sing that song, or say those last words again. Would I reverse engineer the process in my head? Maybe then I would have thought about how the air smelled when the last note came to an end. Is it possible that when I hear the deafening silence of the night, that I remember the last scene of something that will never been seen or remembered by anybody in attendance the same way ever again. That could be sad, how something moves you so deeply, but you never see it the same way you did again. Or maybe that’s what makes it so beautiful, that the moment is entirely ours, to manipulate and mold to how ever we are feeling in that moment. It wasn’t because it’s kept alive to refer to whenever you see fit, but because it lived inside of you only for you. I’ve never been married but I know that the bride and groom select a wedding song that culminates the best day of their lives when they have their first dance. I imagine the purpose is so that the song will always be something sacred to them, barring how the marriage turns out down the road that song will always mean something when it comes on. But what if instead of hearing it, it was sight? Or maybe it is touch, or smell? How her dress felt the moment you first embraced, the way the sun was setting when you were beginning the rest of your life? There are a multitude of examples that could be interchangeable, but I guess I think my question is: Have we neglected our senses, due to the fact we have opportunities to make these memories extremely tangible? And if so: does that take away the significance of it all? That we have it on stand by whenever we need it. I promise you I’m not complaining because I love that I can feel so close to my family wherever I am as I’m sure most people are. I just don’t want to neglect all other senses just because it is easier to. When I was a kid I swore by the logical fact that any more than one is simply better. I think that kid might have been on to something, maybe five is better than two.

I don’t hate you. I think it’s funny that any father would start a letter to his son with those words, as if it shouldn’t go without saying. How the world sees you, or your mother treats you, hell even how you look at yourself. That doesn’t matter to me nearly as much as seeing you be who you’re meant to be. You come from greatness son, and the only route to rising above is a road riddled with opportunity, but the threat to you seizing everything that is yours is complacency. To become too comfortable in such a fashion where you believe it is all coming to fruition without the kind of work that is coupled with that of seizing your throne. It would be like expecting to have a passive income with no money invested. No matter how many people gravitate to the kind of natural charm or Charisma that you could possess, it is nothing without the work. It’s hard, going to be harder than anything you’ve ever done, and that is the kind of man I’m building. I got the impression when you were growing up that you were scared of me, or maybe that you hated me. If I’m being honest I care more about that now than I could have then. Not that I didn’t want to, but my life was never about me no matter how it might have seemed. I treated you the way I treated you because I was building a soldier, somebody worthy of greatness. So many children grow up nurtured in the more traditional sense, being pampered and showered with compliments and praise. This happens with such frequency that it becomes the equivalent of saying a word multiple times until it ceases to have the same meaning, or until it doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t do that with you because I’d hoped there would come a time in your life when I saw the paradigm shift inside you and I did. You didn’t look for my praise, you didn’t care for my compliments because you were going to be better than me, better than anybody ever knew. It isn’t lost on me that you did everything that I had asked of you, and that I made it evident that it wasn’t going to be enough. The worst, and the best thing that happened to you in those years was meeting my expectations, because when you did the bar was just raised. Again, and again until it was no longer within my capacity to be the judge of your triumphs. Everything I ever did was for you even if it was at the expense of our relationship, I don’t want you to need me in your life, I never have, but I need you to want me there. Everything that I can do for you should be icing on the cake but nothing to do with how it will continue to be made. You won’t believe this, when you read it, maybe you won’t until after I’m gone, but that is okay. I didn’t build you in my image because that would be selfish, and it would have stifled your ascension. Not everybody is built to be the change that they want to see in the world and that’s okay too, because everybody has their place in the world. It wouldn’t work any other way. You epitomize greatness, and if I was ever afraid of anything in my life, it would probably be that you would get detoured on your road to glory, because you were born to be great, I did what I thought I had to give you the tools so that when it was your time to grab everything you could ever want, you can. I love you son, and maybe it was selfish of me to “rob” or “deprive” you of the typical childhood and for that I do apologize, but the ultimate act of selfishness would have been to ignore the fact that your greatness is once in a lifetime. I heard this quote one day years back , and it was like it was made for you, son. It talked about how “some men are meant to be happy, others are meant to be great”, and I’m so sorry that you aren’t the latter. Son I really am, but this is your lifetime, so go and get it.

I only ever did what you asked of me. For the longest time I would look at you and I would watch you work. So meticulous, and methodical that there was no word that even scratches the surface of being synonymous. You were my hero, if hero’s were dick heads who told you that you were never going to be good enough. With your actions, and your words, you were so thorough in robbing me of everything that could have made me a normal child. It was the same qualities that I admired in you, that were integral in you conceiving whatever it is in me that makes me this way. The way you analyzed everything that I did, what I said, how I walked, the way I talked. It caused me to be the same way, only worse because I was doing it out of survival, I don’t even know if I’m capable of being like everybody else anymore because of the way I read people like the subtitles of a foreign movie. Almost to the point where if I’m not doing it I can’t understand what is really going on. You cursed me, because everybody shows you who they are and I see it from miles away. It would be amazing to be able to just be like everybody else, to not have to be three steps ahead instinctively. I honestly just want to know why? Why did you hate me so much that I had to be perfect, that I had to be everything that you weren’t? The trophies, the awards, praise from everybody except you, pail in comparison to what I would have felt if a fraction of all of that had come from you. You know what though? I don’t know exactly when It happened, but I don’t care about what you think, not anymore. I’m off the treadmill that was the road to your approval, because it doesn’t matter, I’m not going to be like you. Everything that you “taught” me all the “skills” that I acquired from your version of child rearing I can’t unlearn them. They are a part of me, but I promise it is what will make me great. How you used it to have a choke hold on my attempts at a normal life, is exactly the opposite of how I’m going to use it. To be better than you, I can’t change the past, something that you so graciously taught me. It’s funny, I used to watch you when I was younger, try to imitate and emulate you every way. I figured that If I could even mirror you in any way, that there was no way you couldn’t be proud of me. I sure am glad that I grew out of that. My future is mine, I hope for your sake you are behind me though, because I could care less if you hated me or still do. But I’ll be damned if you get in my way.

So you know how we watch movies and tv shows and see the group dynamics and how obviously they all have to fall for each other because ultimately the “will they? Won’t they” is like a drug that every adolescent human male or female, subconsciously lives for? The Type of emotional rollercoaster that comes with the chase. To see two people circle each other like prized fighters, when you know that there are underlying emotions in every word, and every action carries the weight of the world. I love that, I’ve always loved it because I love when the words people say mean everything. Like most things we see when it isn’t happening to us it’s exponentially entertaining, but god forbid you actually know what it feels like to be caught in that kind of turmoil. Where you can’t ever go back to being what you were because now, your best friend who would tell you everything from when she forgets her charger to when the guy she’s been seeing breaks it off, can’t anymore. Even though it’s entirely your fault, her caring about you is the sole reason she spares your emotions. Now when you talk to her you over analyze everything and for the person that knows you the best in the world it’s easy to tell. Now when she tells you she forgets her charger, is she maybe complaining about it because she doesn’t want to be unable to talk to whoever it is that is garnering her attention? When you shoot a text and its back and forth back and forth, boom, boom, boom. Then, nothing. There is no possible way that the thought of her being with someone else isn’t creeping into your mind to make a home for the time being. Especially recently with all the mediums in which we can communicate, which is brilliant in the sense that we can be as connected as ever. That still doesn’t change the fact that it drives me crazy when she will post on her snap chat story but not message me back, and I know I can’t be the only one who has felt this kind of anger/annoyance/I don’t know honestly. It can make you crazy. On the flip side though, you can be made equally as crazy seeing something where there is nothing. A touch that to anybody else maybe is just an act of endearment for a good friend. To me feels like the legitimate meaning of actions speaking louder than words, you telling me that now after all this time you’re ready to be loved by someone who wants to give you the world. When you text me first thing in the morning or call me at midnight to talk about a movie you just finished, or someone who pissed you off at work that day. To me it means that when everything is said and done and you have the time to just be in the moment. I’m the first person you want to tell anything and everything, and that very well might be true but not for the same reason that I think you do. I don’t want to drag this on, so all in all I’m pretty much living in torture and will until how I feel about you subsides if it ever does. It will always be worth it though, I mean whether it’s because I’m waiting for the day where all my fantasies become realities, or maybe it’s because being in your life and being on this roller coaster of emotions is worth the ride because it’s with you. I’ll always be there.

You have always been, and today in this moment my hero. Dad, everything that you have ever done whether I agreed with it or not was in the pursuit of making me somebody who could conquer the world. Somebody whose passion was so intensely personified in everything that I do, to make passion and compassion infectious. I don’t want to leave you or my home and I think that you’re under the impression that I just am chasing what I don’t know, or what I think I want. Of course I could stay and honestly I could be happy with the girl next door, the face that occupied all of my fantasies late at night or in the movies that you know that I love. A big part of the reason I love them so much is because of the possibility of love everywhere you look. That when I wake up in the morning in a new place I don’t know what is going to happen, it’s one of the closest feelings to magic that we can get in our lives. To be blessed with the opportunity of something new and exciting to happen at any moment. I think about how it was for us growing up, how you and mom moved from everything you knew and built something brilliant: a network of people who respect our name and undoubtedly made life more accessible for us. Going to restaurants, stores, or just being in public. Having people stop me or ask me if I was your son, it gave me such a sense of pride. That my parents were the architect of something beautiful and it was for us more than it was for them. I will always appreciate the sacrifice you made, and I think for all the reasons that I could stay. Are the very reasons why I have to leave. You made me believe that I could always be bigger than myself, but that I also rise to my surroundings. A place that treats some of it’s inhabitants like royalty only just adds the notion that we hit our ceiling. But because the roof is transparent we believe that we are in the clouds solely based on the fact that we can see them so clearly. I want to be looking down at them, not eye level and most definitely not up at them. You talked about my kids and how if I’m far away you won’t be prevalent in their lives, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I have maybe seen my grandparents 20 Times in eighteen years, and after I leave them I see them more and more in you and mom. They live in you just like you live in me. Dad, I’m not leaving my home, I can never actually leave because home is who made who I am, and I know who I am. So wherever I go you and mom, my home, will always be with me. So after everything that you said which was all the right things, not that I expected anything less. After the weeks of going back and forth and imagining and reimagining my life. I have to leave, but I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving for you. So that somebody somewhere else has the chance to even get a glimpse of all that you’ve shown me. All that you’ve taught me, it would be so selfish to keep it to myself. No matter how much I want to. So this is goodbye, but only because you did way too good of a job for me not to share it with the world. I love you dad, and mom you’re my home, and I’ll make you proud.