How My Dad Met My Mother

Our inheritances are often inherited before we're around to know it.

Every once in a while, the frontier psychiatrist newsletter does a little bit of creative narrative nonfiction. Today is one of those days..

“No. I don't want to. I don't want to.” Sometimes, however, you have to. A person in my life pointed this out once, when I grumpy:

“you have a gift, Owen, which unfortunately means you have an obligation. There is a verse in a famous Jewish text, pirkei avot/ethics of our fathers that has been made into a song and translates to 

Lo alecha ham'lacha ligmor, V'lo ata ben chorim l'hibatil mimena.

לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לְהִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה.

Translation:

It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

My heart… hurts. It hurts because I let it hurt. Because if you don't let your heart hurt, you don't learn what you need to learn from the things that would hurt it. It hurt for good reasons.

I've lost people people I cared about—over a dozen in two bad years between 2017-2019— to “de…