On Turning Five

There are certainly days when I do MORE deep thinking than other days, but as a general rule I am always in some level of deep contemplative thought. In many ways it’s my superpower. In other ways it’s an incredible load to bear. My brain is always thinking, always planning and always considering every possibility even when I am trying to sit in my most meditative states.

In fact this is where I feel that most people get tripped up in their own efforts to meditate. They tell themselves that they are no good at meditating because they can’t stop their mind from wandering. The way I see it, the wandering mind is the very essence of meditation itself. It’s not the act of control of the mind that takes us to the places we seek to find in meditation, but rather it’s the act of total surrender into the mind field that opens up the doors to all the possibilities. 

So what am I actively thinking about on this day?

I’m thinking about the fact that tomorrow my daughter Emma turns five and like nearly every parent I know, I find myself thinking, “I can’t believe how fast we got here…”

As I sit here today, I find myself overwhelmed in every possible way. I’m overwhelmed with joy. I’m overwhelmed with fear. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. I’m overwhelmed with the magnitude of all of it and the thing I do best when I’m overwhelmed is to write, so here are the contents of my head on this the eve of the 5th birthday of my daughter Emma. Putting them down on paper will not only help me feel more fully into the moment, but it will also preserve my thoughts for years to come should she ever want to revisit them at various mileposts down the path of life. Here we go…

"My Dearest Emma,

Today you are five. I can hardly believe it. To say that you were a dream come true is an understatement of epic proportion. I never could have dreamed up a dream so vivid and so intense even if I had Beethoven’s ear for composition and Kubrick’s eye for dramatic visuals. I promise someday (probably sooner rather than later) you’ll understand those metaphors, but for now take me at my word that you are a magical force in my life that helps me remember to believe in magic even when I am facing my greatest doubts. 

Almost every night even five years later, I still walk into your room and watch you sleeping for a moment or two so that I can end my day being reminded of the infinite power of faith and unconditional love. 

There hasn’t been one single day in five years that  you haven’t taught me something about myself and about life in general. In many ways I had been waiting my entire life to meet my master teacher until you came. The reason I never found my teacher before you came is because I was always looking and waiting for somebody outside myself, but you have continued to help to remind me that all of the teachings I will ever need to learn already exist inside me if I have the courage and the determination to continue to turn the gaze inward. 

Your teachings started on the very first day you were born after your mommy finally dozed off and you and I were alone for the first time. I picked you up and put you on my chest. I started to do some breath work and began to dream and journey. After a few minutes I felt a tremendous wave of peace and joy come over me like I had never previously known in this lifetime. I started to think about how much fun it was going to be to teach you about all the unseen things in our Universe that so many people never even take note of. It didn’t take long for me to realize it was actually you who was teaching me about the unseen. After all you had just come from the God frequency and I’ve been spending the last five decades trying to figure out how to remember what it feels like to be one with it All. Right then and there I knew I had found the teacher I had been waiting for. 

Speaking about waiting, there will be times now and in the future where people will ask you why your daddy looks to be older than their own daddy. The simple answer is because I am older. There was actually a pretty good chunk of time in my life where I never thought I was going to be able to realize the dream of becoming a parent. As it turns out, I just needed to wait for everything to come into alignment for me, in order to become the parent that I always hoped I could be. Fortunately it happened at a time when I was better prepared and resourced to live up to the task. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but together I think we are doing a pretty good job of figuring things out along the way.

The other day you asked to see a picture of me when I was five years old. I dug out an old picture of me on my first day of kindergarten and you asked me if I remembered what it was like to be five and to go to kindergarten. I told you that I remembered some of it but not all of it. After that you asked me if I missed being five years old. The answer I gave you at the time was that I didn’t miss being five because if I were still five, I wouldn’t be able to be old enough to be your daddy. Now that I think about it further there is something that I do miss about being five. I miss the simplicity of it all. I’m sure It didn’t feel like it was simple when I was five,  but  I can assure you that I hadn’t yet learned how to overcomplicate things like I do now. 

The most complicated aspects of life are the stories we create inside our own head. The messes we make that really don’t need to be avoided just so we don’t have to clean them up. The false deadlines we create to stay ahead of the schedules in our heads. The overblown catastrophizing of things that really don’t matter.  

The reality of it all is that the simple things are what life is all about. Like the simple moments we share each morning sitting on the couch instead of at the kitchen table eating our cereal from a hungry caterpillar bowl while pouring our milk from my now retired whiskey glass. Or staying in the park for an extra ten minutes after school even though we know that dinner will start too late and one or both of us will be too hungry by the time we actually to eat it. Or lying on your bedroom floor chanting and singing for you while you fall asleep even though I’ve got more “work” to do and I want to get to bed at a reasonable hour myself. 

I realize that things are going to continue to shift and change more rapidly with each passing year. You are already way more independent than you were even six months ago when you first turned four and a half. There are times when you spend hours playing on your own and creating dreams inside your own head with your thoughts just like I did when I was five years old. Our days of eating cereal together every morning, swinging in the park or falling asleep holding hands won’t last forever, but the life we have built and the love we share will live on even as the circumstances of life change. 

Each night when we pray we give thanks to all those who watch over us. Included in that list every night is Grandpa Jim, my daddy. The other night you asked me why Grandpa Jim had to die and leave his body. You also asked me if I still miss him. From very early on you have had questions about the nature of reality and life much earlier than I ever would have suspected. Just in case you don’t remember what I said that night, I’m going to write it down here so you can remember it and hopefully find comfort from it just like you do from that purple ball that you keep in your bed at night in case there are times you wake up lonely or sad. 

I’ll always miss my daddy Emma, but I never feel like he is apart from me. From the very first day after he left his body I could feel and see his spirit everywhere I looked. He came to me during the marathon I ran two days after he died. I feel his face in the sun every time I lift my own face to see its glowing rays. I talk to him every time I need to feel his presence and he always finds a way to make me feel seen and heard and just when I think that I’m making it all up in my head, he does something to convince me that he’s really there and that I’m never alone. Like I said Emma, it was you that helped me remember to believe in the magic of life so please don’t ever forget to believe in the eternal nature of  life yourself. 

I love you with all my heart today and forever. Happy Fifth Birthday, 

Daddy"



Thanks as always for taking the time to read today's musings. I'm grateful for your loving support. Until next time, 

Jim