It was a beautiful spring evening, the kind that reminds you why you love living in Florida. It was warm, but not hot. The sky was a perfect cornflower blue. And a little breeze was blowing in off the ocean. The sidewalks were alive with a light sort of energy that you get in beach towns. It wasn’t a setting where you’d expect to be jolted with a deep, emotional wake-up call, but I had one coming.
Our time in Jacksonville Beach was coming to a close. Jeni was starting to spend a lot of time back in Tampa, ramping up her new job, and I got to spend a ton of time with Penny. Sometimes it was just her and I for 4 or 5 days. For the most part, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of being her dad, but my head was often elsewhere. I was consumed with thoughts and concerns about what we’d do next. Should we buy a house? Where will I work? Are people disappointed in me? On and on.
Through it all, Penny was a good friend. We went to breakfast together, played at the beach, and covered countless miles in her jogging stroller and bike seat. On this particular night, we were doing our favorite activity, eating frozen custard from Whit’s.
So there we were, walking back to our bike, a sugary smile on Penny’s curious and charming face as she continued what we called her ‘campaign for Mayor of Neptune Beach.’ She waved in all the restaurant windows, jabbered with people on the sidewalk, and picked up every single piece of trash in sight. It was a nice night and I was in a good mood, but almost instinctively, I started to hurry her along. We didn’t have anywhere to be. Nobody was waiting on us. Yet the words just rolled off my tongue like they had a thousand times before, “Come on sweetie, we need to get going.”
Suddenly, I hear a man’s voice calling from behind me, “Sir! Sir!” I turned around to see if he was talking to me and noticed a homeless man sitting on a bench. My gut reaction was one of avoidance. Maybe if I didn’t make eye contact, we could just keep moving along. But it was too late. He looked right at me and again said, “Sir!” Reluctantly, I answered him with a “Hey.”
“You should learn to enjoy going at her pace.”
I was completely caught off guard, and his words completely changed my life.
You see, I had always lived life at my pace. Pushing the pace. Staying on track. Relentlessly pursuing the things that were most important to me. Personality profiles often describe me as an Achiever and Arranger, which can be a highly productive, but dangerous combination. Being obsessed with both accomplishment and efficiency is great for getting shit done. That part seems quite obvious. Less obvious were all the things I was missing while doing so. From life’s simple joys to some pretty significant warning signs, my drive to do more often made me blind to things that were truly important.
I was a pro at writing off my personal agenda as serving the ‘greater good’. After all, who else was going to provide for my family, save us all from terrorism, and re-build the American dream!? It had to be me, right? The hard truth is that most of my pursuits have been pretty selfish. And while my desire to ‘fulfill my potential’ has done some good, it’s often left those closest and most important to me feeling like role players in my life - which is a huge problem, because they are obviously not.
My oldest son Dylan’s life had been at my pace. He was born when I was in the Special Forces Qualification Course. When he was one week old, I had to go to DC for a week. When he was six weeks old I left for for another 5 weeks of training. And on it went. By the time I got home from Afghanistan in 2009, he was more than 3 years old and I’d been away for more than half his life.
Dalton was born just a couple of weeks after I got back from that deployment and he didn’t fair much better. While I was there physically, my mind was mostly just ping-ponging between the recent past and the near future. I was alternately consumed with the grief and guilt of losing four teammates a few months earlier in Afghanistan; and figuring out what I was going to do with my life as I exited the Army just a little later that year.
And then it just got harder. By Dalton’s third birthday, his mother and I were divorced, unable to collectively and harmoniously navigate our post-military transition, and it was time for single dad mode. I certainly tried my best, but was still going 1000 miles per hour. I was leading a startup organization with big dreams and trying to carve out a new life for myself. The boys were troopers and we had a lot of fun, but they were mostly living life on my terms. I dragged them to a million Team RWB events, rushed them off to bed when I had evening conference calls, and had a before-school-pre-launch-sequence that would put a NASCAR pit crew to shame. Raising two little boys had my fully divided attention.
Meeting Jeni, and later having Penny felt like such an amazing opportunity. A second bite at the apple. One of life’s rare second chances to do things right - to be the husband and dad that I have always wanted to be, but hadn’t always been. As my life started to come into focus, I didn’t always like what I saw, but I was grateful to be seeing more clearly. Jeni’s influence was huge. She provided a ton of encouragement and support for my role at Team RWB, but also really helped me to understand how the boys needed me. We talked a lot about building a life that would take some emphasis off of work and place more on our family. And for a while, we pulled it off fairly well. By the end of 2016 we were living what I’d call a truly integrated life. Though it was far from perfect (or easy), we’d managed to settle in to a life that felt full and sustainable. Our careers allowed us to earn a living doing work we cared about. We had a great little house. The kids were in a rhythm. And we had an awesome community of friends. Things were solid and steady, right up until I couldn’t take it any more. Solid and steady felt like stagnant and slow. The ambition monster was in my ear.
“What are we gonna do next? Where do we go from here? How can we keep progressing? Surely, we can’t run this nonprofit forever.” On and on it went. It was all just too comfortable. I was starting to fall off the pace! I had to step it up and make a move.
Fast-forward 18 months and there we were, in a beautiful little beach town, working at an amazing little company, with a great little group of friends, wondering why the hell we were 200 miles from the boys. The move to Jacksonville Beach made a ton of sense professionally, and we made it make sense for our family, until it didn’t. The decision to head back to Tampa was a really hard one, but the right one. We’d created a lot of chaos for ourselves, and at least a little for others. It felt shitty. I was worried. My brain was spinning. And then a homeless man made it all very simple for me. My whole life in one sentence.
“You should LEARN to ENJOY going AT HER PACE.”
He didn’t say that I should go at her pace. He didn’t say that I should enjoy going at her pace. He said that I should learn to enjoy going at her pace. It hit me like a damn bolt of lightning. I had rarely ever gone at anybody else’s pace, and if I had, I probably didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t even sure what that would feel like. My mind just kept flashing to the countless times that I’d shooed the kids along or rushed off to the office or said “not today, honey” when I could have easily said “sure, why not?” It made me feel sick to my stomach. I really did have a lot to learn. Fortunately, our little Penny was a great teacher.
Slowly, but surely I adjusted my pace, and though it felt unnatural, I began to enjoy it. It’s amazing all of the little things you notice by following around a curious toddler. Seeing the world through her eyes made it seem so much richer and more exciting. I started catching myself saying “wow!” more than Owen Wilson.
And here’s the best part: I still felt motivated to work and make a professional contribution. Slowing down and letting go didn’t turn me into to some kind of lazy freeloader. In fact, it gave me the time and space to think hard and do good work.
The hardest part for me was all about identity. I went from being an SF guy to the Team RWB guy to the GORUCK guy and now who was I going to be? Just some guy? It seems a little silly now, but that question really bothered me. Penny showed me that it was ok to start with being “Penny’s Dad” and take it from there.
Going at her pace taught me that my life wasn’t some kind of pie chart that required me to allocate certain amounts of time and energy into various compartments like work, family, hobbies, etc. Instead it could be more like a delicious pizza, with all of the toppings spread out evenly across the whole thing. There was no need to be constantly shifting gears from Work Blayne to Family Blayne to Friend Blayne. Instead I could just be a whole Blayne, all the time. And that was plenty.
I still struggle against my hardwiring. I frequently catch myself running at a breakneck pace in pursuit of I’m-not-sure-what. But I know I’m making progress because I haven’t pretended to miss an interstate exit in years - if somebody in my car has to pee, I’m pulling over no questions asked. If you’re a hardcore pace-keeper like me, you know that’s a big deal!
