Guess what?
A GIRAFFE NAMED FEELINGS IS NOW FOR SALE!
If you've been reading my words for a while, you've watched this book try to exist for a long time. You've seen me reference it, hint at it, and then not talk about it for months. Thank you for staying.
After years of false starts, procrastination binges, overwhelm, self-hatred, disappointment, regret, disbelief, and countless other things, it finally happened.
I finished my book.
What began during COVID as a heart-whispered pipe dream during a meditation session, expanded on a solo retreat in the woods, and then evolved into a memoir utilizing whale evolution as a unifying structural theme, well...
I finally finished.
I feel all the feels. I’m proud of what I’ve done, terrified to share it, and excited to hear what you think. I’m worried you’ll hate it, but also that nobody will read it. I’m torn between discombobulated and awestruck, hope-filled and distraught.
It’s been a journey and a half.
I wrote my way through the valley of the suck, explored childhood traumas, and initiated difficult conversations with loved ones, but now the book is done.
And it’s time to get it into your hands and heart.
More on that in a moment, but first, let me tell you what the book is about and why I wrote it.
Here is a brief description from the Preface: “This is a book about the missteps I encountered during the delicate dance between growing up and growing old.”
It’s about a man who learned to love himself, and how that journey went haywire for a while. It’s a DIY guide to heart compass repair. Said simply, it’s a shame purge shouted from a pain pulpit, a life preserver, an excavation, and a prayer. I share stories from my past, including the childhood moment where I went from living in my heart to staying in my head.
I wrote it for the person I was in my early 20s, the guy who partied too much, avoided his feelings, shut down his soul, and refused to consider alternative perspectives. It deals with love, drugs, betrayal, regret, and loss, but as a collector and purveyor of fine silver linings, I keep things hopeful, too. I’m able to hold levity and gravity in the same hand, and in doing so, I offer a simple idea for what healing looks like — not replacing what was lost, but choosing to shove new seeds in the same soil.
I believe that.
And I wrote a whole book to prove it.