2026-08-17 - Living Letters - My Dad Called
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Transcript:
My dad called me this past weekend.
He had just had surgery. His gallbladder was removed, and I could hear the fatigue in his voice. But there was something else there too—something I didn’t fully understand until later in the conversation.
We started with the usual things. How he was feeling. The weather. The time difference between Las Vegas and where I am in Mexico. Small, ordinary details that make up most of our phone calls.
Then the conversation drifted.
We started talking about family birthdays. My cousin is turning 50. Another cousin just turned 50. I told him I’ll be 40 next year.
And something in him shifted.
He paused and said something like, “A few years ago it was your Mama Pam, your Grandma Minding, and your Grandpa Ingyong.”
My grandparents.
“They were the old people. And now I’m the old person.”
There was a heaviness in his voice when he said it.
Then he said, “It’s all going by so fast. Life is so fast.”
And that landed in me.
I think I’ve carried a story that my dad is only now beginning to realize how quickly life moves. That in his 70s, he’s just starting to feel the urgency of time, the fragility of it, the way it slips through our hands no matter how tightly we try to hold on.
And I’m almost 40.
And I already feel it.
I notice it every week. Friday arrives and I think, “How is it Friday again?” The weekend disappears, and suddenly it’s Monday. Then it’s Friday again.
Time doesn’t just pass—it accelerates.
Today is August 17, which marks seven years since I moved to Mexico from the Bay Area. Seven years gone in what feels like a breath.
Jerry and I just celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary. We’ve now lived in Mexico for most of our relationship. Most of my 30s have happened here.
And still, I find myself constantly surprised by how quickly the days move.
It’s already August, and I can feel the holidays approaching like they always do. Christmas will be here before I know it. Then another year. Then another.
I don’t say that to rush it. I actually love it. I love the rhythm of the seasons, the way time folds into itself.
But I also notice how easy it is to miss it.
To miss the actual living of it.
So I try to practice something different.
I try to slow down enough to actually be here.
Right now, as I write this, I can feel my body in the chair. My feet on the ground. The subtle vibration of my voice as I speak these words. The air in the room. The quiet movement of this moment.
And I realize: this is it.
This is the life I keep waiting for.
Not later. Not when things settle. Not when time slows down.
Now.
Because one day, I’ll be in my 70s like my dad. And I’ll look back and feel how fast it all went.
Maybe the invitation isn’t to wait until then to realize it.
Maybe the invitation is to notice it now.
To choose, again and again, how we want to live.
I’m choosing a slower life.
Not a perfect one. Not an easy one. But a slower one. One where I try to return to presence as often as I can.
Because it’s going to be Friday again.
And Christmas again.
And another birthday again.
And then, one day, it will be the end of it all.
So I practice.
I practice being here.
If you’ve made it this far and you identify as male, I want to invite you to something I host called THE PRACTICE. It’s a one-hour online somatic men’s group.
We sit together. We slow down. We meditate. We feel what’s actually happening in our bodies. And we share from that place.
It’s simple. But it’s powerful.
It’s a space to remember what it feels like to be here.
I hope to see you there.
And I hope you take a few moments today to pause.
To notice this moment.
And then the next one.
And then the one after that.
I hope you have a good week.
