Play Until The Street Lamps Glow.

You'll be called home soon enough.

I’m turning 50 tomorrow.

The days so perfectly captured in the below picture - the days of being young, being taken care of, and being curious with an entire world to explore?

Well, they’re long gone.

Me and Dad on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1980. I was 5.

If I could go back, knowing what I know now? I don’t think I would. I’d rather leave that childhood version of me undisturbed with that wide-eyed innocence.

Before everything got so fucking complicated.

My biggest daily decision back then was Fruity Pebbles or Captain Crunch.

My biggest worry was having to come home when the street lights came on.

My biggest fear was my Dad’s temper.

My biggest dream was landing rad jumps with my Huffy bicycle.

It was so … simple. And people told me it was the best time of my life - like every other kid, I didn’t listen, and I didn’t appreciate it until much, much later.

These days I’m older. I’m more experienced. Jaded, cynical, at times deeply depressed and at times more joyous than I’ve ever been.

I’ve experienced love and loss. I’ve experienced having kids - the brief re-lived joy of seeing the world through their eyes as if I was 7 years old again - and the hurt of them reaching teens and twenties, going their own way.

I’ve had money. I’ve been in debt. I was homeless for a stretch of about six months. I’ve lived out of my car. I’ve slept on the floor of abandoned buildings. I’ve broken bones, broken down, and survived. I’ve had my heart broken numerous times, and in the bleakest moments, my mind pondered some of the bleakest escapes.

These days, my kids stop by less. We talk less frequently. It’s all jobs and girlfriends and setting up for life and their own path and future. I’m basically BatDad, here to hand my life over for whenever one of them shines the light in the sky, but most of the time in my cave, doing my own thing as they figure it out and humor any advice I may issue.

I’m in a beautiful relationship with a woman unlike any other - one who has had her share of broken times and broken moments - equally as dark as my darkest. We never intended to be in this together, it just happened after we ended up realizing that we understand each other’s darkness, and to me that’s worth the world.

I’m not happiest when someone is trying to cheer me up. I’m happiest when someone understands why I’m in a rough state, and stays with me until I can find my way out.

Plus, she’s hot af. I’m a lucky guy.

It’s easy to get lost in the past. In memories, the things that used to be, and what life was like. I get locked into these moments of deep introspection often. I think about the things I once had, and sometimes get caught wishing for stuff again. Stuff I don’t need. Damn you, dopamine hit.

Nihilism, or Freedom?

This is the question right here? See, with all of those past experiences and lessons, I learned something critical along my journey.

None of this matters.

In the end, the only thing that’s going to exist is a conversation between you, and God. That cool convertible you had when you were 35? Doesn’t matter. The Huffy Bicycle you wanted so desperately when you were 12? Fleeting. Everything in your life - the homes, the great food, the worst heartbreak, the most incredible successes - they’re all going to be gone, and so will you.

And it’s fucking fantastic.

Not because we celebrate death or wish for it, but because of the freedom that very thought produces.

Nothing. Actually. Matters.

So if you want to write a book called, “HOW TO EXPOSE YOURSELF TO WOMEN?”

Go for it! What is someone going to do? Be mad? And? What does that actually do, or mean?

What are the stakes? Think about it deeply because I guarantee you whatever lame-ass answer you come up with can easily be countered with, “It doesn’t matter.”

Not because of nihilism. But because it truly doesn’t.

That’s freedom. The kind of true, absolute, unshakable, THE-WORLD-IS-MY-OYSTER freedom that nobody and nothing can take away from you, until that day where you and your Maker are face-to-face.

There’s no scoreboard or scorecard. That’s something for random people caught up in the meaningless competition of life to debate. It’s the fantasy football of mortality.

What matters? What truly matters outside of experiencing this ride - all of the brilliant highs, and magical lows - in full?

What Does This All Mean?

It means be free. Like everyone else on this space rock you’re going to be gone in 100 years, the entire world population will be anew, and all of those petty, simple, and silly things you spent so much time worrying about won’t exist anymore.

So, create.

Honor the time you have left on this space rock by opening your heart, opening your mind, and being free to do whatever it is your soul calls to you to do. Appreciate life as it is - peaks and valleys everywhere - by having reverence for the time you have during existence.

You are here, in this very moment, right now. It’s truly magic.

Remember when you were a kid, riding your bicycle through the neighborhood, watching as the sun began to set? Remember maximizing every single second you had, carefree with friends, before the street lights came on and you had to bolt back home?

Even at 50, I feel like I’m there again. I’m still spending days in the neighborhood. Yeah, the neighborhood is bigger. Yeah, there have been more scrapes, cuts, and bruises on me from all that I’ve been through.

But we’re both here, you and I.

Those street lights may light up at any moment.

But until they do …

We’re free to play!

<3