Dear Apollo — A Reflection on 2020

Musing of a soul, who dreamt in 2020 of a better tomorrow, but awoke each day to live out just another day.

It may be of a little surprise but 2020 was like no other year. For goodness sake, this was only your second year in this wild thing we call life. For you, I could easily assume this to be the most strange year you’ve ever experienced… or at least it made it into the top 2.

In the future (or present), I honestly believe I’ll be sitting around some campfire swapping stories of hunting for toilet paper through the shelves of a grocery store as if it were a gazelle on the Serengeti; always just one step ahead of the hunters… but that only scratches the surface of how strange this year was. There’s so much I learned (or relearned) about myself that I wanted to take a little bit of time on the very last day of the year to reflect and think about this year. The hope, of course, is that you find meaning in my failures and take advantage of the lessons to soar higher than I could ever.

Let’s get the highlights of the year out of the way immediately:

• Covid-19 — forced me (and the world) to work from home and finish school… from home.
• Accepted a big job — that provided for my family and can help to give you a better future.
• Graduated from Grad School — finally got that master's I was after… and yet I finished school from my sofa and went to work that same afternoon.
• 5-year wedding anniversary — truth be told I still don’t really know much about marriage, nor why your mothers stuck with me through it all but we’re here.
• Burned out hard and recovered — realizing yet again the futility of working 24/7.
• Political & cultural awakening — A combination of hard questions and even harder thoughts about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Wasted away in isolation — desperately clinging to the idea of community.

So many people around the world experienced the aforementioned “things” during the course of 2020 that there is surely an abundance of literature on the topic that you can discover. So I’ll move this letter along to more personal topics that you can’t find through Google. Written below are a few key things that I learned by surviving in 2020.

I’m extraordinarily blessed. There is no other way to look at it — I’ve been blessed. This is not a pat on my back or an attempt to toot my own horn but simply an acknowledgment of everything I have upfront. Right now as I write this letter my limbs function, my eyes work, my mind is churning, my body is warm and dry and my heart is full.

A few days back I ran a half marathon — absolutely died, but I still made it to the finish like a turtle (one step at a time). It's in moments like that which I’m forced to recognize how blessed I’ve been to have been able to make it to the end when so many others don’t even have the ability to get started.

I’m hopelessly powerless and lack a spine. I watched the world around me spiral into chaos and somehow course correct enough for us to celebrate Christmas in relative peace and quiet. I watched the world impact my life and took it laying down even though my soul wanted to reach out and shake it, yell, and shove it into the right position… but I didn’t.

I found myself powerless to change “fate” as it were.

I found myself lacking a spine.

The voice in my head told me to sit down, shut up, and to try to survive life (one day at a time). When all I wanted to do was dive right in, throw away today and focus on five years down the road. Did I sacrifice your future for a day under the shade of the olive tree that I hadn’t even planted? Only time will tell… and that scares me.

Perhaps it was selfishness that drove me to silence. A fear of shaking the branches of the tree that bears fruit. A fear of upsetting people that care for me or people that I desperately seek approval from. Whatever spine, whatever conviction, whatever voice I thought I had was shoved to the side as I sat on the bench and watched the world spiral.

Did I put you and my family first? Or did I simply tell myself that was what I was doing as an excuse? What actions did I take that defined me and concretely backed up my goal of living in peace while turmoil swirled around me? I’m not sure…

In the immortal words of John Mullaneys father Charles… “when people saw what the Nazis were doing and did nothing were those good people?”

Does anyone know what I truly stand for? Because from my perspective I’m no better than Aaron Burr sitting down to wait to see where others stand.

I’m living with regrets and guilt. I’m still young, but the baggage is piling up. However, I think it’s less to do with an increasing accumulation of baggage and more of a resurfacing of sins from the past that haunts me to this day. Who I am today is the sum of all of the decisions, good and bad, that I made 10 years ago… 5 years ago… yesterday. Who I will be tomorrow, who I will be in 5 years will undoubtedly be defined by decisions that I made this past year… The decisions that I’m making right now.

Taking a step back from a personal retrospective, I wholeheartedly believe that 2020 will be a make or break year for so many people around the world. You’re a bit too young but even still during 2020, you got into trouble and drove your mother to her literal wit's end. There will be entire generations shaped by the adversity of 2020 and the action or inaction that they took.

Personally, I consumed so much Netflix (it’s like a movie/tv entertainment thing — assuming, of course, you need a definition because it no longer exists when you can read this) that it makes me viscerally ill thinking of all my wasted potential and opportunity. I could’ve done more. I should’ve done more.

God gave me everything that I have to invest and yet I dug a hole in fear and buried it in the ground.

I’m struggling to find meaning. Life needs a plan — or so it is how I see it. Existence is… dare I say it… pointless without an objective direction to aim in with tangible moments of confirmation that the path taken is the correct one. But that’s assuming that there is a black and white reality that I flirt within.

However, if 2020 has taught the world anything it is that life is more than money and power. Life is more than educational attainment. Life is meaningless without people to share it with. Which is impart what made 2020 such a mess… who did I have to share it with? You. Your mother — my wife. Family? Friends? Did I really share 2020 with any of them? Perhaps…

There is no plan that can account for a once in a lifetime global pandemic. Yet there will be another. There is no plan that can account for the random chaos that we exist within where the difference between life and death for millions lays in the hands of a narcissistic toddler clinging to power. Yet there will always be another. Our minds may be free to think and dream, and then just like that *snap*… it’s all washed away by anxiety… worry… stress… and you’re left with nothing more than a crippled dried out husk of what was once a fertile imagination.

At the end of the year, if I’m honest with myself and with you, I’m really struggling to find meaning and purpose. To put to words the reason that I wake up each day. To find the drive to not only live… but thrive beyond my wildest imagination. The combined “things” listed above fill me with fear that my actions in this lifetime are futile and fear that my inaction has already crippled me beyond repair. I fear that the steps I’ve taken aren’t enough. Yet I must press on.

I’m fighting a losing battle with my mind. Yes. I’m losing a battle with my mind. It’s a mess. It’s selfish, power-hungry, and positively pedestrian in its capacity to think through a perspective of recognition. I’d argue that even though 2020 has been a disaster… I still accomplished so much more than I imagined possible. Sure, it may not have been exactly in the way that I pictured it… but how can I be mad or frustrated in a year with so many important milestones? How can I possibly review the year in my mind and forget all of the moments that were worth it?

Easily. Because my mind won’t let me.

My mind… wanders… it lusts… it hungers for more… always more… paraphrasing Maxwell Lord… “What do you wish for… anything… you can have it.”

Yet it is nothing more than an ill-informed toddler prodding and poking, emphatically crying out for more because I somehow “deserve to have it all.” My mind is far too short when it comes to perspective over time. I will age. But then my mind will be ravaged by new demons. Demons of my youth.

I’m finding time to rest. Life is best lived at 220 miles an hour flying down the autobahn in Germany. That’s how I’ve always lived. It’s a thrilling ride when you're clinging to the very edge of the tire's tread. A mere flic of the wrist could send you flying into a pole, or into the ditch. It’s not speed that killed anyone, but more so suddenly stopping.

But your mother insists, and frankly put my peers insist that it’s not healthy. Towards the end of 2020, I found my first opportunity to rest. It’s intoxicating. It’s liberating. It’s joyful.

It’s a trap.

It’s a drug.

Rest is extremely important, but shouldn’t become a binge drinking event that you partake in every two years. Sustainable rest allows you to reach new heights with consistency. Pace yourself, and you can go the distance. Just remember to take one step at a time.

I’m optimistic about the future. I don’t know what tomorrow will hold for me, for your mother, for you. But I’m more optimistic now than I was in the midst of 2020. We’ve survived. We’re okay. We have friends who miraculously care for us. We have a family that sacrifices for us. In many ways, we are drowning in support and blessings from on high.

But there is so much more work to do on our end. We’ve been so very blessed, so very gifted and naturally talented that there’s nothing we cannot do if we put our soul behind it.

Apollo, I’ve watched you age before my very eyes. Watched you learn to solve problems. Watched you develop the most hilarious expressive personality. Watched you thrash in rage and anger when things do not go your way. Watched you slowly walk into the room seeking love and comfort. Watched you run with the purest joy through the fallen autumn leaves and watched you sleep snug in your stary blanket and dream of the sweetest baby things.

Emotions flood me and tears well up in my eyes thinking of the future that you will have. God, I hope I’m there to see it.

I’ve watched you look out at a world that you do not know and seek something that I cannot see with your soul pushing your thoughts further than I knew possible. Just take one step at a time, little man and there won’t any distance too far.

To reflect upon 2020 is to see where I will be in five years. To know the demons that will haunt me and to give them a name so that I might be able to address them in turn. There is no single solution or “fix” to the problems of 2020, but there is a brighter tomorrow… there always is… if only you have the courage to see it.

Dear Apollo, here’s to 2021 may it be the third most exciting year of your life and just one more step along your journey. Never stop dreaming.

With Love,
Your Father.