Then I started with a single day: A letter

Tuesday 2/3/26

Not going to get into the background leading to this, but it's a letter to a young person who is going through something. Their parent has hurt me a great deal when I have always been there for them. I'm trying to keep the feelings I have on that score, and the knowledge thereof, separate. I don't want to not help someone even in some small way if I can. I'd feel guilty and that's not who I want to be. It isn't easy to compartmentalize sometimes. We need mental discipline, and even then we must make sure to keep holding the line.

Dear (),

It's your friend Colin up north. I know you're going through some tough stuff right now, and I just wanted to pass this along as you're someone I admire.

You're so cool and good at things and sometimes when people think that about us they may not realize that things can still be hard.

When we're dealing with something that is hard, it can be easy to think that's how it will always be and there's no way out.

Things we love can feel like they're over, and things we want can feel like they'll never happen or we'll never get to have them.

It's hard to unfeel anything. Especially the more we feel it. And the more we think it. And the more reasons we have or think we have.

It's best to go minute by minute, day by day, week by week.

What feels like only a little progress can be big progress.

Think of it like training for a sport. You practice well, you play well. Do the drills right, and it pays off in the games. You get better. And when you look back, you find that it didn't take so long after all.

Time is...bend-y. We have more of it than we think when we use it well.

I don't know what your dad has shared with you, and I'm not saying it's the same. People are separate, but a separate thing one person deals with can help another person deal with the separate thing they're dealing with.

I used to have a really bad drinking problem. I'd drink so much every day. For many years. Add seven years to your age now, and that's about how many years. I developed serious heart issues.

Then I started with a single day of doing what I could that was best for me. It was an important day. Because then one day became two days. And on it went.

Now it seems like not that long ago that I had this problem, but in reality, it was nearly ten years ago.

Let me tell you one more thing. And I don't know if this is relevant to you, but even if it's not, maybe you'll remember it and you can share it with someone else someday.

We spend so much time and energy caring about and worrying about what others will think of us. What they're thinking about us. Saying about us.

The truth is that very few people in this world are brave and brave enough to be themselves, which is how you lose yourself.

It takes bravery to say how you feel, what you think--I mean, what you really think and feel, not what you think you're supposed to think and feel--and what you're experiencing.

And there's hardly anyone who doesn't admire the hell out of a person who does that.

If I share with someone that I struggled--like I just shared with you--that person doesn't think less of me. Right? You're not thinking, "Ugh, the C-Dawg, what a tool..."

They think more.

That's kind of like a big secret that no one tells anyone else. I don't think many people know, because they're so busy hiding whatever it is they're going through or struggling with.

You got this.

Believing in you in Boston,

Colin