Books, Horses, and Boob Bags

Check on your friends who love to buy books, but never read.

Not me though.

I’m on page 2 of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer! Thank you very much.

Let’s get into it:

[Don’t Touch The Horses]

I’m laying in bed on the bottom floor of a log cabin surrounded by horses in Canton, Ohio¹.

I can’t sleep. I need to sleep. But I can’t stop thinking about this one time in 9th grade when I was absolutely terrified to start my social life over from scratch.

My parents were recently divorced. I had just moved towns and houses and started a new school. I was 13, shy, and afraid of everything at this point in my life² . And on this particular day, it was a weekend with my dad and he was dropping me off for some event that I was “supposed to” attend so I could “meet people”.

I never talked much about my feelings with my dad. I was still bitter about their divorce in the most angsty-teenagery-way ever. I was mad about how their dissolved marriage had affected me in the most selfish-teenagery-way ever. I had to leave my friends. I had to start over. And I surely didn’t want to confess to my dad that I was scared and nervous about this transition.

But he must have sensed it. I just remember him looking over at me from the driver’s side of his big red truck. Looking through his embarrassing eye glasses that turned dark in the sun. His grease-stained hands on the wheel. His steel-toed boot on the brake. AC/DC or Aerosmith or Brooks and Dunn on the radio. And he just blankly said, “Do you want to do this?”

I did not.

But I was ashamed to admit it. I didn’t want to be nervous or weak or scared. But I was.

Without me saying a word, he took his foot off of the brake, pulled out from the line of traffic and just said, “Alright. Where do you want to go eat?”

That was that. Instantly my fear dissolved.

There was no discussion, we just left. Just a simple, “If your mom gets mad, I’ll handle it.”

I never thanked him for that day, but I think about it often.

Once my parents divorced, my dad only had so much time with my sister and I. First it was cut in half. Weekends. Every other Tuesday and Thursday. But we quickly grew older and more selfish. We soon spent those weekends scheduled for him out with our friends.

And he never once complained.

But he also never got to do a lot of the little things that many dads get to do. Our time apart stole that from him. So I think that moment in the truck was just as important for him as it was for me.

Sure, I got to escape this monumentally overwhelming adolescent experience. But he… Well, he got to be the one who saved me from it.

/

But here I am. 2 am. Sleepless in a log cabin surrounded by horses in Canton, Ohio. And I just spent an entire weekend meeting strangers from the internet.

Strangers who ate half of my quesadillas.

Strangers who ran together through the streets of Canton in the rain as thunder cracked above our heads. Strangers who have always felt like old friends.

Strangers who passed around “trunk beers” when we got caught in a downpour outside of a football stadium while waiting to see Dez Bryant throw a football.

Strangers who used Busch Light boxes as mouse pads. At 7am. While writing fantasy articles inside of a log cabin surrounded by horses in Canton, Ohio.

I didn’t travel to Ohio to draft fantasy football leagues. I came to prove to myself that all of the friendships I’ve made on this weird little bird app³ were real.

But right now, I just wish I could call my dad, show him that his little girl is not scared of strangers any more⁴, and tell him thank you for that one time in highschool when he got to be my super hero for a day.

^{1 . Allegedly surrounded. I only saw one, but our air bnb specifically stated that the horses were off limits.
2 . Some things never change.
3 . I’ll never call it X.
4 . Sike. Context matters, bffr.}

Step outside of your comfort zone for once.

Until next time. - cd