Lost

Lost.

I tried as hard as possible,

Not to think, Not to feel, Not to be.

I just started running.

1 mile became 2

2 miles became 4

4 miles became 6.

That day was December 8th, 2021.

That was the day my father was pronounced clinically dead on site.

We don’t live in the same state.

I got the phone call around 8-9am, details are fuzzy.

I’m the oldest of three. I heard family crying. I received the news and then I immediately reacted.

I hung up the phone. I put my running shoes on and I left.

I just started running.

I had no direction. I had no intention. I had no strategy.

Completely and desperately,

Lost.

No phone, no AirPods, no hat, no glasses. The only resource I had was an Apple Watch and not on purpose - saved me later.

I clearly wasn’t prepared to be running and squinting into the sun for 6 miles across a busy highway, in traffic, it was chaos.

Those first couple of miles, I was definitely running away.

Lost.

Miles 3 and 4 are completely erased from memory.

Lost.

Mile 5 was weird because runner’s high kicked in, but I was resistant.

Mile 6 I was no longer running away, I was adapting; running towards something ever so slightly.

I just didn’t yet know what it was.

Lost.

Earlier in the year, I had been struggling with a new business venture that was destined to fail.

It started out great, during the wake of the pandemic, we thought we had something special.

But we were doomed.

I knew it. My co-founder knew it. We all knew it.

Lost.

I felt like he was out to get me and he felt the same way.

He acted on that feeling and I let him.

A contract was pushed in front of my face on December 11th.

Three days after my father passed.

I declined it. I pushed him away.

I was furious. I couldn’t believe it.

How could anybody do that to anyone I thought to myself.

Earlier the same year his father passed away, so I thought he would be more understanding.

He was not.

It was a bizarre time period to exist.

I treaded along on autopilot for 90 days.

Lost.

I kept pushing off my co-founder, refusing to sign the one-sided contract and pretending like we had a path forward.

It was easier this way.

It was much harder to think about the end.

Lost.

Everything happens for good reason, so we are taught to believe.

Life is suffering. Acceptance of this will set you free.

Happiness does not exist without suffering.

Kindness does not exist without evil.

Strength does not exist without weakness.

Bad things happen. Good things happen. Both exist in tandem.

Accept this. Embrace this. And let it go.

In order to adapt faster, sometimes you must first get lost.

And this is when our journey begins to take shape…

p.s. shout out to my lovely wife Sara for picking me up half way across Lakeway at mile 6 - I love you irrevocably and I’m extremely grateful for you - glad I was wearing the watch.

—

Midjourney art brought to you by Scarlett, she’s 7

/imagine human man lost in the void of space about to be sucked into a wormhole with green blue pink purple yellow ultra realistic stars sad loneliness scary --ar 2:1