I’m gathering wins, even the smallest ones.

(my son Max graduating High school with honors, and the proud women in his life, his mom and his sister)

The kind that slip through your fingers like grains of sand, but still count because they’re yours.

Yet this unease won’t loosen its grip. It lingers like a shadow that doesn’t need sunlight to exist, following me even when I stand in places where light is scarce.

I tally up the good moments as if they were drops of water, hoping they’ll douse this fire churning in my gut. But the flame stays, low and steady, refusing to be snuffed out by simple arithmetic.

Gratitude hovers close. I feel her presence like a soft lantern trying to brighten a cavernous room, but she never quite reaches the corners where the doubt hides. I whisper thanks a thousand times a day, as though gratitude itself might be the spell to break the darkness. But the spell only flickers.

I have always been the one to find light in the pitch-black, always the internal optimist, lighting matches in rooms no one else would enter. But now every intrusive thought arrives already dressed in the heavy cloak of disaster. I search for a balm, a cream, some sacred salve to soothe it, and come up empty-handed.

I try to walk in trust and faith as I always have, but lately each step feels like crossing a rope bridge with fraying cords. The ground quivers beneath me, and I wonder if it can hold the weight of what I’m carrying.

Some of this heaviness is bigger than me… a deep, collective grief for this world. A world that feels like it should know better by now. I watch my children, and all the children, and feel a quiet rage that they have inherited chaos when they deserve wonder.

Some of it is closer, sharper: the uncertainty of my own future when I can’t plan more than a few steps ahead. The bitter taste of a society that hands single mothers the bill and then blames them for needing help to pay it. And beneath it all, this layered guilt, because I am grateful, I am one of the lucky ones, so who am I to feel fear or anger? But I do. I do, because even in gratitude there’s a tender ache, the ache of wanting to give my children everything they’ve fought for, even when I’m not sure if I can.

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I know there’s a lot of noise right now about where our dollars should go, and honestly, many of us would rather not spend at all, we’re all trying to save for that inevitable rainy day.

But if you happen to have a little room to give, I’d be so grateful if you considered becoming a paid subscriber. Every bit of support from this Substack goes directly toward helping me pay for my son’s college. Even with grants and scholarships, there’s still a gap, and I truly believe the world could use more young men like Max out there making a difference.

Every contribution, no matter the size, means the world to us. If becoming a paid subscriber isn’t your thing, you can also support through Venmo or Zelle. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for even considering, it truly makes a difference.