#personalessay

Paulit ulit akong nangangako sa sarili ko. Na bukas iba na. Na sa susunod mas matibay na. Na hindi na ako magpapadala. Pero pagdating ng sandali, pareho pa rin ang reaksyon. Pareho pa rin ang pag iwas. Pareho pa rin ang pagkapit sa mga bagay na alam kong hindi naman talaga nakakatulong.

Doon ako naiirita. Hindi dahil mahina ako. Kundi dahil alam ko na dapat mas alam ko na. Ilang beses ko na itong dinaanan. Ilang beses ko na itong sinulat. Ilang beses ko na itong inamin. Pero heto pa rin ako. Umiikot. Parang walang natutunan.

Parang dumaan lang ang lahat. Parang binangga ako ng buhay paulit ulit, pero wala man lang naiwan. Walang aral. Walang marka. Walang dalang kahit ano. Para akong umalis sa giyera na walang sugat pero walang natutunan kung paano umiwas sa bala.

Ang dami ko nang maling desisyon. Ang dami ko nang sinayang na pagkakataon. Ang dami ko nang binayaran. Pero tuwing babalik ako sa simula, para pa rin akong walang karanasan. Walang baong karunungan. Walang dalang babala. Parang hindi ko man lang pinulot ang mga piraso ng sarili ko sa bawat pagbagsak.

Siguro ito yung mas masakit aminin. Hindi lang ako nasaktan. Hindi lang ako nagkamali. Kundi parang wala rin akong nakuha. Parang hindi naging puhunan ang sakit. Parang hindi naging guro ang pagkakamali. Dumaan lang. Tapos iniwan akong pareho pa rin.

Siguro ganito talaga kapag paulit ulit kang nasanay sa sakit. Nagiging ingay na lang siya. Hindi na leksyon. Hindi na paalala. Isang background lang habang nagpapatuloy ka sa parehong direksyon.

Hindi pa ako nagbabago. Totoo. Pero hindi na rin ako yung dati na hindi umaamin. At minsan, sapat na muna iyon para magpatuloy.

For finals week in high school, my school turned the gym into a giant testing room—rows of desks, assigned seats, teachers pacing the aisles, the whole place unnaturally quiet.

During one exam, a student started making short, guttural sounds that echoed through the space. Teachers immediately began scanning the room, trying to find the source of the “disruption,” and a small group closed in on him before another teacher stepped in to stop them.

I later learned the sounds were involuntary tics caused by Tourette’s syndrome.

That memory came rushing back years later as I watched the public backlash toward a Tourette’s advocate whose involuntary vocal tics disrupted a televised awards show. Even though the condition removes choice from the equation, the condemnation was immediate—as if neurological symptoms were the same thing as intentional speech.

As a parent of a daughter diagnosed with Tourette’s and severe autism, I’ve experienced firsthand how society treats neurological disabilities like misbehavior. We’ve been shushed. We’ve gotten the stares. We’ve seen how quickly people decide someone “shouldn’t be here.”

We’ve done a better job removing physical barriers through laws like the ADA. But stigma is still its own kind of barrier—one that can’t be fixed with a ramp.

Full essay here:

There are moments when I find myself holding a fragment the world has forgotten...

Something drifting in the water, polished not by time alone but by a kind of patient truth.

People speak of solitude as if it were a deficit, but I have come to see it as a deep reservoir, a pool where the self settles into its full shape. In the silence, I meet the contours of my thoughts—unrushed, uncorrected, beautifully unshared. This is not the absence of others; it is the presence of myself. And each time I touch that presence, it feels like discovering a subtle grain in wood or the soft shadow beneath a stone: something that has always been there, waiting to be noticed.

The water mirrors everything without judgment. It does not insist on stories of sorrow; instead, it reveals the quiet dignity of being singular. When I place the found piece against my palm, I sense how uniquely it has been shaped—by currents, by time, by its own obstinate journey. I realize the same is true of me. My so-called loneliness is simply the place where my individuality gathers strength.

As an artist, I return to this recognition again and again. It touches me every time—that I can stand alone and still be full, still be many. That my inner spaces, far from empty, are rooms echoing with the honest sound of my own becoming. And I understand that the world is not divided into the lonely and the connected, but into those who flee themselves and those willing to stand in their own light.

A dream is a delicate form of future memory.

Something within us already knows where we belong — even if reason hasn’t found the path there yet.

Humans are born with the ability to see, in their mind’s eye, what doesn’t yet exist.

This is the gift of imagination — and the curse of persistence.

For those who dream are also condemned to struggle.

They live between what is and what ought to be.

And that gap… it hurts.

But abandoning the dream is not rest — it is a different kind of death.

A quiet, inward death that comes not suddenly,

but through the slow fading of possibility.

Do not give up on what pulls you forward just because the road is hard.

Difficulty is not proof of failure, but a sign that the dream is worthy.

That you are becoming someone strong enough to hold it.

Remember:

Not everything that moves makes noise.

And not everything silent is standing still.

A dream is not measured by the speed of its fulfillment,

But by the depth of your persistence.

And those who persist — reshape the world,

even if at first, only their own.

And if you’re reading this now, know this is no accident.

Hope still exists.

The future you long for is still waiting.

I am standing at Gate B12, clutching a boarding pass that feels more like a subpoena. 

I’ve survived sepsis, heart failure, and a fiancé who vanished like a ghost in the night, but none of those prepared me for the psychological warfare of Seat 14B.

For a normal person, 14B is just a seat between two other seats.

For me, 14B is a cruel joke designed by an architect who knows I have a small bladder.

I try to stay calm, but my face cannot hide my fear. I look like somebody who just found out their taxes were flagged for an audit — and the auditor was their mother-in-law!

My physical expressions are the least of my worries though as mind begins to self sabotage:

“Adam,” it whispers, “you have the bladder of a ninety year old man. You will annoy everybody around you by getting up. Your better off sleeping in the bathroom!”

I take a deep breath, but it gets stuck in my throat, likely blocked by my internal TSA for containing traces of panic.

My eyes are locked on everyone around me. They all sit calmly, fully prepared with their carry-on bags, ready for the flight.

Me? I’m carrying a backpack full of ten different medications, a portable charger I’ve checked six times to ensure I didn’t forget it, and enough ‘what-if’ scenarios to fill the airport.

Finally, I hear the boarding call over the speakers. I show them my pass and step onto the plane. The air is thick with the scent of jet fuel and collective human misery.

I side shuffle past everyone and arrive at Row-14. At this point, my heart is playing a drum solo that would make Ringo Starr jealous.

14A is already occupied by a boulder of a man, with shoulders that looked like football pads.

14C is a woman who has already deployed her knitting needles, effectively turning her tray table into a workstation.

I am the outcast, the middle-man.

“Excuse me,” I squeak, my voice hitting a frequency that only dogs can hear.

The man doesn’t move his legs; he just tilts them slightly, as if he’s granting me passage through a mountain pass.

I try to step around him, but my foot catches on his expensive leather shoe.

My brain screams: 

'YOU DID IT NOW! HE’S GOING TO THROW YOU OUT THE WINDOW!'

Luckily, I am still alive as he didn’t notice or didn’t care. I sit down, my limbs pinned to my sides like an anxiety-filled burrito.

I spend the first hour of the flight trying to not to breath — convinced that if I inhale too deeply, I will accidentally graze the shoulder of the knitter to my right or be pummeled by the man on my left.

The flight attendant tries to offer me a free drink, but I know this is just a trap to get me up and I wasn’t falling for it.

This is the ‘Adam Logic’ — the beautiful, broken geometry of a mind that treats a flight to Florida like a mission to Mars.

With limited options left, I try to distract myself by watching the inflight movie. Ironically, ‘A Room with a View’ is playing. 

I’d settle for a room with an armrest!

My mind feels equally as uncomfortable as my body–filled with questions that I already know the answers to:

'Did you zip your backpack? Did the medication bottle in the side pocket fall out? Is it rolling down the aisle toward the cockpit?'

I know I zipped it. I felt the teeth of the zipper click, but that wasn’t enough for my mind in this moment.

Suddenly, the plane hit some turbulence and my brain interprets this as a sign that my pills are now sitting at some kids feet in Row-22.

I reach down to check, but my tray table is locked, and my seatbelt feels like a python that has decided I’m its final meal.

The seat begins to feel like it’s on fire as my anxiety heats up. I start to sweat — the kind of cold, prickly sweat that usually precedes a medical ‘event’.

The knitter looks at me, holding her needles tightly.

Oh no, here it comes. I am about to become a human shish kebab. I prepare for her to call the flight attendant and report the man leaking in seat 14B.

“You okay, dear?” she asks.

She doesn’t sound annoyed. She sounds like a mother, concerned for her child.

“Just a little flight anxiety.” I say, hoping that would end the interrogation.

She smiles, and it’s a real one. Not the ‘customer service’ smile, but a genuine human connection.

“My husband is afraid of flying too.” she says. “He’s driving to Florida and I will meet him there.”

Suddenly, the spotlight turns off. The dragon in my head loses its fire and turns back into a lizard.

I realize that the boulder-man to my left isn’t fighting me for elbow room; he’s actually fast asleep and snoring like a chainsaw.

The knitter isn’t worried about her stitches either; she’s just happy to have a captive audience for a second.

We spend the next hour talking about her Florida vacation and how excited her grandkids are to go to Disneyland. I end up telling her the truth, and open up that I was afraid to disturb her needle work.

She laughs so hard she actually does drop a stitch, and believe it or not — she had the same fear.

In this moment, I realize that I’ve been treating the world like a game of hide and seek. Except my version is always hiding and rarely seeking.

But the world isn’t out to get me. It’s not filled with people looking to make my life difficult.

Honestly, it’s just a collection of people in their own middle seats, all of them a little uncomfortable and struggling to find their place in the world.

When the plane finally touches down, I stand up and realize my legs aren’t wet noodles anymore. I reach down to grab my carry-on bag from the floor, accidentally bumping the mountain man in the process.

I flinch, fearing my life is about to end, but not today. Instead I am met with a sleepy, “My bad, man, sorry.”

Not only did he not crush me into dust, but instead he apologized to me.

I walk off that plane with a smile, feeling lighter than when I came on.

As I grab my check-in bag from the carousel, my brain tries one last-ditch effort to ruin my day:

'Adam! You didn’t say goodbye to the knitter! She’s going to think you’re a typical middle-seat sociopath!'

I ignore it. She’s probably already in the parking lot, telling her husband about the vibrating man who was terrified of a knitting needle.

As I make my way out of the airport, I notice my reflection on exit door window. I look like I need some water and a nap, but I don’t see a man who just survived a mission to Mars.

The ‘Adam Logic’ has finally shifted. It turns out that when you’re pinned between a boulder and a needlepoint enthusiast, the only thing that actually catches fire is your ego.

My whole life, I’ve been bracing for impact on a flight that has never left the ground. Always protecting my armrests, when there is plenty of room for two. 

So here I am, in the blistering Florida heat, forty years old and still possessing the bladder of a toddler. 

However, I’m not an outcast anymore. I’m just a man in the world, finally brave enough to take up exactly as much space as I need.

So, if you ever find yourself in seat 14B, don’t hold your breath.

Look at the people around you and remember: we’re all just terrified passengers trying to weather the turbulence of the world.

Life is too short to play hide and seek with a world that’s already found you.

Take a deep breath, claim your armrest, and for heaven’s sake — use the bathroom before boarding!

Love always,

The Depths to Which We Go

For Longreads, Maddy Frank writes about memory, absence, and the karst of Missouri:

“There was something, and then, unbearably slowly, there is nothing. A cave is an absence. “

“Even the recent past eludes me. I can remember crying last week, for example, but not what the crying was about. I can remember around a memory, but rarely the memory itself. Nothing is medically wrong with me, at least not as far as I can tell. It has always been this way.“