Love is blinding
It’s why we smother, cling, obsess
Awareness first
So we can heal, unlearn, relearn
Build a warm nest
One with no bars, traps, or ceilings
Just attraction, yearning, desire to fly back
Direct the love you want so badly inward
Never underestimate the size of an act
Every line written, conversation had, and insight scavenged
Every twig, piece of bark, and leaf neatly intertwined and stacked
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
At dinner tonight celebrating my step mom’s 60th birthday, I witnessed an adorable moment.
It was my step mom’s brother and his wife’s turn to order from the menu.
The waiter asked the wife what she’d like, and just as she realized she had forgotten, the husband ordered what she wanted for her.
The waiter then turned to the husband and asked him what he’d like, and just as he realized he had forgotten, the wife ordered what he wanted for him.
…The best part?
Neither of them thought anything of it. Didn’t so much as smirk or make a single remark.
Just selfless loving, careful listening, intimate partner understanding—business as usual—kind of stuff.
The first time I ever opened up TikTok, I blinked and 2 hours of my life was gone.
I deleted the app.
A few years later and… every. single. app. is. the. same.
I open up Instagram, blink, 2 hours gone.
I open up Facebook, blink, 2 hours gone.
I open up YouTube, blink, 2 hours gone.
Besides that, X feels like a toxic cesspool and Linkedin feels too business-y for me.
None of it feels aligned.
Which is why I haven’t posted to social media in as long as I have. I focus my energy on posting to this blog and have been stubbornly holding back my creative inclinations to post to social media until I found a platform that prioritized content distribution differently..
Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with short video… I just want to blink and find myself still in the same moment… surrounded by words, artistic images, and intriguing dialog—not eyeballs deep down rabbit holes I never asked to be sucked down.
And a new space I’m dipping my big toe into for 2026 is Substack. It feels like a space that finally doesn’t prioritize video shorts but rather prioritizes the written word.
Which is noteworthy because different primary content medium platforms attract different audiences. And a platform that prioritizes actively reading the written word over passive video consumption… is going to attract a much different kind of user.
One that’s maybe more intentional… more thoughtful… more engaged and ready to connect in more authentic ways…
Why? …Because it’s a more demanding and difficult medium to consume.
Which is the point.
Which is where I think my people will be.
Come check it out…?
A childhood friend of mine, who I hadn’t seen or really even spoken to in 15+ years, FaceTimed me yesterday…
…From my mom’s house.
…With my mom!
He said when he got into town, before he did anything else, he wanted to swing by “Mama Hogan’s” house… and could only remember that the street she lived on started with an “L” and that it had a giant tree on the front lawn.
…Well his memory served him well because he found the house, rang the doorbell, and ended up chatting with her for nearly two hours.
…Like it hadn’t even been 15 days.
It was the highlight of both my mom and my’s holiday. And I share it because it was such an inspiring effort—-especially after having lived out of town for 15+ years.
This is the kind of effort that people remember. This is the kind of effort that makes “real ones.” This is the kind of effort that cements friendships, memories, and legacies.
…This is the kind of effort our modern culture so desperately needs.
It would be nice if you could set a boundary once and have it be as good as law.
But it’s worth remembering that even laws need to be monitored, patrolled, and enforced.
The strength of the boundary doesn’t come from the tone of your voice the one time you set it… or in the size of the intentions you have behind it… or in the seriousness of your body language when you talk about it.
The strength of the boundary comes from the strength of the enforcement of said boundary.
For example, driving 5 miles per hour over the speed limit will rarely get you a speeding ticket—it’s rarely enforced. But, running a red light? You’ll almost always get ticketed for. The latter is enforced significantly more than the former.
Now think about how this applies to the boundaries you’re trying to establish and maintain in your life. Are you setting 5 miles per hour over the speed limit boundaries that are only enforced… never? Or are you setting running a red light boundaries that are enforced every time. Think about the boundaries you’re trying to establish with yourself… your loved ones… your co-workers… etc…
People (you included) don’t respond to the announcements… they respond to the level of the enforcement.
Every year, my martial arts team and I do a food drive to support our local food shelter.
One of the most effective initiatives is going door-to-door in our local neighborhoods, dropping off flyers that ask neighbors to leave a bag of food on their porch that Sunday at noon, and then go back and pick up whatever is donated.
The dropping off the flyers door-to-door part can be tedious. Especially in a world where so many of us are used to reaching thousands and thousands with just the push of a button. Going door-to-door lets you reach about one family per minute—and that’s if the flyer even makes it into their hand(s). So after two hours of walking around in the cold, maybe 120ish families will have been reached out to—a number many people would consider inefficient given the digital alternatives.
But I think in a lot of ways, it’s a refreshing perspective resetter.
On social media, people aren’t people—not really at least—they’re numbers, they’re analytics, they’re a part of a glorified game.
When walking house to house—they’re very much people. And the scale of what 100 people really looks like and feels like burns slowly back into perspective. Especially when it involves a lot of walking, in the cold, up and down stairs, one house to the next, one conversation at a time, over the duration of few hours…
I share this in hope that we all—myself included—can continue human-ify our outreach/connection efforts. Pushing a button to reach thousands can certainly work… but face-to-face and in-person might be more of what we need.
Maybe one way to measure relationship importance is to measure it against willingness to be inconvenienced.
In other words: who are you willing to bend over backwards for when you’re busy? Who are you changing plans for in a moment’s notice because they asked? Who are you going out of your way for even when you’re exhausted and don’t feel like it?
The more inconveniences you’re willing to bear for a person, the greater the relationship’s importance. And vice versa.
Does this mean we live our life on another person’s schedule? Or obey another person’s every command like a servant? Or give somebody full access to our energy?
No.
It simply means that certain people have earned time into your schedule—even when it’s packed… that they have earned the right to be served your attention—even when it’s being pulled in a million directions… that they have earned energy access—even when you’re low on stores.
And maybe remembering this can help when people are “inconveniencing you” and you are “inconveniencing” other people.