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Pops.

This isn’t something I was intending to write yet. I’m going to be honest though, I was drinking and I got to thinking about him so couldn’t help myself. Don’t worry. I don’t write inebriated for the most part — I will start a draft, close it, and finish it another time as I am now.

My Pops, my Dad, my Father, my Hero, my Man, my Idol, my Map; has saved my life.

Probably more than I can recall. I’m sure he knows more than I do. This is about the one time, though. The one time he had a conversation with me that I know he remembers maybe more than any other.

I’ve heard it a lot of times from his perspective, but I’m not sure yet I’ve shared it from mine. This will be the closest in the timeline yet that I have written about — to when I lost my mind.

Kahi Mohala
The courtyard my family and I threw a football together in, at Kahi Mohala. Photographer unknown.

I was still in the mental hospital at this point, Kahi Mohala. It is a facility that I volunteered (was deftly convinced) to put myself in after being bailed out of jail, in tow of my Mother. I remember trying to hide from the “Yakuza” in the car seat — backed all the way down so nobody could see me, on the way there. It wasn’t even just on the way there. We stopped at another facility beforehand that didn’t have the capacity? Or something. Before that we went to the Punchbowl memorial. That is when I remember realizing I was being “followed”, though it wasn’t even the tenth time I’d made that realization in the preceding few days.

If you go to the memorial today, I remember signing the guest book. It was 2008. If the page is still there I may have signed it Trevor, Trayber, Travor, Trebor, or otherwise. It would have been December 24th.

That and my soap totem are a story for another day, though.

I remember my Pops and I sitting in some furniture. It was on the other side of some glass, with an enclosed garden beyond it. There was a, if I remember, budless tree surrounded by rocks within the garden.

I sat in the chair, facing parallel with the glass on its right side. I cannot remember the color — but the pattern was raised, and consistent. It created a sense of comfort.

Pops sat nearest to me in the corner of a sofa. The sofa was placed in a ninety-degree rotation of the chair, facing to view out the glass. It was of the same fabric. I need to place the scene very deliberately because that is the last I can remember of it.

Everything else I can remember is the pure intensity in his eyes.

I wrote earlier that I was deftly convinced to volunteer myself unto this place. It couldn’t have been seventy-two hours after that — I decided I was perfectly sane and should be released. Pops’ entire mission was to convince me not only to stay, but that I wanted to stay, and he succeeded.

He remembers the exact words he used with much more lucidity than I. What is in my memory though is that he made me feel like I needed the people in that place. Not only for my future as a functioning adult in society, but as a person.

Pops remembers convincing me to stay because I needed the doctors to tell the lawyers and the judge that I was just some kid that made a mistake and needed to learn from it. I remember him convincing me that those doctors, and those nurses, actually had my best interests in heart.

That I was safe. That I was where I should be and that I wasn’t okay.

It was like a pinhole camera. My Dad was the light and he found his focus, holding on for dear life — my dear life. I was not at this time capable of looking outside my insanity. I was still bopping to random Beyonce songs on the radio and drawing really uninteresting tribal shapes thinking I was some sort of messiah.

He broke through, though. I can only explain how by the intensity of the love that he had within his eyes when he spoke to me. I’m not sure I have ever seen so much concern and care in a man’s eyes before. It makes me feel like a better person just thinking about it now. The connection he made with me, and with his eyes in that time — legitimately brought me into a moment of true, realistic, clarity.

I don’t remember what it looked like, but I know he does. He’s told me about it. That he could see my body language, facial expression, and own eye contact — return to normal for just the slightest of moments. Enough for it to register.

It wasn’t shortly after I went into an existential conversation about how the Devil & Angels live among us and I am a combination of them both realized — or some such nonsense of the like.

I stayed, though. Without much more complaint or argument.

Details of my time in there are still rather fuzzy for me, but I did stay, and did behave; as well as have a number of the patients enjoy spending time with me. I did the activities and talked about my feelings and must have balanced out a bit — because I was out a week or so later.

Another powerful memory I have about that place was leaving it. I can remember how satisfying it was to finally smoke a cigarette again. To smoke it just outside the premises before getting in the car with my Mom to a hotel room. It gave the experience such finality to me, at least the Kahi Mohala portion of it.

I still wasn’t right for a long time, and I’m not sure if I ever will be. There’s definitely a lot less wrong with me today maybe than ever before in my life. I owe a lot of that to all the support I got from everyone throughout the ordeal.

In this piece though, in this moment in time, I owe it all to Pops.

Thanks for being there for me, Dad. Thank you for finding a way to get through to me that day. I’m not sure anyone else could have.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photograph taken by Derek Lofgreen ©2013
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Jury.

If you have been reading my writing of late I am sure you have noticed a theme. I am often tip-toeing around a very particular time in my life. Bringing a lot of my experiences back around to it, but not specifically writing about it.

Not yet.

People who know me closely know my recollection in person, but I am not ready to write what I remember of my insanity yet. Often when I write something it is released from me. I feel a weight lift up and outside of me. Or at least, the burden of that experience and those thoughts lessens.

I think through life we are constantly gaining more burdens and finding more strength to carry them. I am not ready for that burden to be any lighter yet. It’s something that keeps me in check every day.

So this will be the story of how I got to be a jury member on a murder trial, and how seriously I took it.

I want to say this was five or six years ago now. So a year or two into my probationary period. I got called into jury duty like any normal person, but figured I was Scot-free because they would tell me to get out as I walked in.

I was on probation for five felonies, plus some. Multiple burglary and robbery charges, multiple breaking & entering charges, assault on a police officer (which thankfully was reduced, because of a guilty plea). It was on a deferred sentence, so I didn’t have to admit to it on job applications and only the court system could pull it up.

If you did a background check on me today I would come up squeaky clean. I’ve checked.

Though I and my family have the paperwork to prove otherwise. This is nothing I am proud of, it’s just a fact. I have a criminal past that even though it was expunged and there are no state records of it any longer, I will live with for the rest of my life. If I did not admit this and did not carry it with me, I would not be who I am today. Who I was is proof positive for me of what and who I never want to be again.

Back to jury duty.

It started innocently enough, I just walked into the Adams county justice center and sat in a room with I want to say a couple hundred — maybe a hundred and fifty very unhappy people.

This was like a snow day for me, though. I was able to get out of work for the day and my boss at that time couldn’t find a way to get me out of it. He did try to tell me to figure out any way I could, but I was so stoked I got a letter from the State saying I could do something that every American citizen has a right to do — that wiggling a way out wasn’t in the cards for me. I was really hoping I had a real shot.

I very nearly sat in front of a jury of my peers, awaiting their judgement. So I really wanted to take this seriously.

When the clerk came in maybe a half an hour after signing in, she made an announcement:

“Alright everyone, we have a few civil suits and a murder trial today. Please be patient and we will get the jurors called. Once that happens everyone else can leave. We will have a short orientation video to watch and form to fill out before we get you to your courtroom.”

There was a collective gasp throughout the room when the word “murder” was mentioned. This seriously only made me more excited. If I had the chance to be on any kind of trial and try to do my best as an American citizen, I wanted a murder trial. That is something that I would take even more seriously just based on its gravity as an act.

Be careful what you wish for.

Looking back on it, it’s almost like fate or something — the way it all worked out. I was put in the group for the murder trial, the exact one I wanted. Then when it came to the questionnaire I filled it out more seriously than any test I have ever taken in school, or otherwise.

I answered every question 100% truthfully and with so much information that I ran out of paper. I admitted my criminal past and how the thought of being a juror really hit home with me. How I felt it was my duty as an American citizen and recovering criminal to give back, to do something right. To try and make it right.

When all was said and done and the voir dire process was complete, I was the 13th, alternate juror. By the end of the following day I was locked in as the 12th juror. I was in. I was going to be a part of something and make a difference of some sort that would mean something to me.

I know Bill Curren was a murderer but we had to let him walk.

One of the very first things the judge told us as jurors when he introduced himself is that all the information we hear and see needs to be put into context of the law. That the law is black and white and cannot be interpreted. We must take the law at 100% face value if we want the system to work how it is supposed to.

This doesn’t mean that the system is always 100% correct. Like anything there will be mistakes, but hopefully if taken in this fashion less mistakes overall will be made. That’s why I am still upset that I have to live with letting a murderer walk because the prosecution decided to charge him incorrectly.

I can’t remember the exact degree he was charged with but it broke down into “Defendant went to willingly rob victim and victim lost life in process”.

This man went to murder the victims first, and robbing was just icing on the cake.

That may seem like a small distinction, but it’s not. The entire prosecution was all about how Bill among others treated the victims — torturing them and then killing them, before taking the pounds of Marijuana in reward. Which was in an entirely separate location as well. There was even evidence of a meeting beforehand about murdering them and then robbing the drugs — at Shotgun Willie’s, a strip club in Denver. The case was a fourteen or so year old one that happened in the late 90s. I can’t remember why it took them so long to get a jury on it.

The trial went on for two and a half weeks or so and I was only paid $50 a day by the state, while still having to provide/purchase my own lunch. I’m lucky that I misunderstood how the whole thing works with companies legally and told my boss he had to pay me like I was working. He definitely wouldn’t have if I hadn’t, and he admitted as such.

During this trial I got to see and hear about things that I had some experience with, but these people went much farther, and lost themselves far more than I did. I can still see the maggots crawling throughout the victims’ faces after they were pulled out from under a ditch overpass on a county road — where they were disrespectfully and unceremoniously dumped.

I can still see the layout of the backyard where they pulled in an Atlas moving truck. Which was then used to transport the bodies to the disposal site. I can still see the shoes, duct tape, trash bags, and blood.

I can still remember being one of two or three jurors at the start trying to convince the entire deliberation that we didn’t wan’t him to walk, but the law stated he HAD to walk.

There’s such a dichotomy of emotions for me when it comes to this experience. Because there is a part of me that is so proud that I really stood for something I believed in, with a small group of others, and we made a difference.

Then there’s the fact that what we stood for was letting a man that all the evidence pointed to — was a murderer. A 100% arrogant, sociopath, scum of the Earth human with total lack of remorse.

Regardless, he was charged incorrectly.

It was not our duty as jurors to tell the prosecution what they should have done and then decide to find Bill guilty because that’s what we felt should happen. We needed to take this seriously, so maybe in the future the prosecution would think a bit more about what they were doing the next time.

Even during the trial itself it was interesting to me. I really felt like the prosecution thought they had the thing hook, line, & sinker before the horse was even let out of the gate.

The defense was made up of two older gentleman. One who was portly, sweaty, and often couldn’t tuck his shirt in to completion. The other looked of an aged crane, very tall and lithe with the most glorious beak of a nose you will find. Mr. Crane mostly took the lead in the proceedings and would often lose his place in his notes or his train of thought.

I believe this made the prosecution very complacent and they forgot exactly what they were supposed to be arguing for, because otherwise I am not sure how they could have chosen the course they did with the charge they went with. As I stated previously the entire prosecution was all about the abundance of evidence against Bill that his whole mission was to kill these people and then take their stash too.

So why charge the murder as if it was happenstance?

It just baffles me, still. The worst part is that the memory most emblazoned in my mind is Bill’s family walking out of the courtroom thanking us profusely. As if we had just saved their relative’s life, and that we did it from the kindness in our hearts.

Nothing about me felt kind, happy, or even correct. I think that might be what justice is supposed to feel like. I’m not sure justice is supposed to be something you feel good about. I do think it is something that is supposed to stick with you, though. Now when I hear or see about any kind of court proceeding with a jury I know what they are going through.

I have been both a criminal with the fear of a jury, and a juror with a criminal’s fear in my hand. Neither is something I want to recommend, but I do think that being a juror is a privilege, honor, and duty as an American citizen.

The larger meaning in this piece for me is that I am going to take it seriously every time. Whether it’s a traffic dispute or a murder, I want to treat it in the same way I would want my jurors to treat it if I was a part of the proceedings.

I hope you do too.

We could have just interpreted the law the way we wanted to, and given a guilty verdict. Philosophically though, where does that stop? How else could things be re-interpreted and looked at as a means to an end? I feel that’s a bit of a slippery slope to go down.

This is my burden. I may have let a murderer walk, but I didn’t compromise my values as an American citizen.

I’m pretty proud of that.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Katie Wood, ©2016

 

Posted on by Trevor Elms

Don’t Run.

A piece I wrote October 2nd, 2008. I think I wrote this after a disagreement with my parents about something. I got super upset and was called “angry man” again.

For the longest time I thought the way I was expressing myself was okay, and this poem is proof of that. There’s an idea within this poem that is good — but there is still a level of health and safety when it comes to expressing ourselves that I was not capable of at the time.

It’s interesting to look back and literally see me writing about my bi-polar without being able to understand or accept its existence.

Don’t Run.

Emotions ebb and flow, you can’t control where they go —
depression, anger, sadness, they flip flop to and fro.

Frustration fails to forest freedom frequently,
fundamentally factualizing my frequency.

Killin’ and fillin’ me with doubts,
sometimes it feels I got a good-day drought.

But I won’t pout.

I may be drunk, trippin’, or in a six-round bout,

’cause I live life to the fullest, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

I have my morals my friends and my brain,
shit one day I may have some fame.

But as I stand now not every day is the same.

I live, love, and have fun.
And these emotions of mine, I don’t run from.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 2 Comments

Music.

Music is something I have a very personal relationship with. So personal I very rarely share my music interests with others. So personal that I have stopped listening to entire genres of music because I could not control my emotions or desired actions while listening.

Music is so personal to me I literally feel it inside of me. My favorite thing to do during my substance abuse days was to sit by myself in nature, on LSD, and listen to music. To let it absolutely consume me. My every atom. That is, to this day, my favorite experience in life. I don’t know if that will ever change.

I’m starting to finally be able to feel music again. I can listen to Metal again which is fantastic. I’m actually going to a Slayer & Lamb of God concert this summer with my cousin, Ryan. Well, Megan’s cousin, but he’s mine now too. I don’t think of him as anyone but my cousin, and family. That’s why I am comfortable with going to this concert with him. This concert in this genre of music that means so much to me.

After I went crazy music was dead to me.

Completely, utterly, unquestionably, dead. I could not feel it inside of me. It gave me no pleasure. People would try to share their music with me and I would pretend to care. I couldn’t listen to anything. Not the Rolling Stones, Faith No More, Metallica, Tech, Rage, Queen, Tribe, Common, Zep, and on and on and on.

It’s one of the worst experiences I have dealt with — and it lasted years. It really wasn’t until the last few months where music made me really want to move around again. I’ll never be much of a dancer, but I’m saying that I wouldn’t even tap my foot to a beat at this time.

There were spurts, surely. But it wasn’t as deep or as consistent as it is right now. I’m open to and discovering new music. Something I haven’t done again until recently. For the longest time I was either listening to sports radio or film scores — as I never lost my love and emotion for film, so their scores were a form of music I was still capable of connecting with. Kind of a funky roundabout, but it really helped me cope with the issue for a long time.

It’s Metal and my love for Paul Perkins that has brought music back to me.

My cousins Kevin & Paul are the biggest metal heads I know. They were just finally getting myself and my brother into it right before I went insane. Alan went on to become just as big of a metal head as the both of them. I, on the other hand, could not listen to it any longer. I was too angry and it put me in even more of an angry place. Even when the songs weren’t inherently angry! Something like Amon Amarth’s Live Without Regrets is just super optimistic and inspiring.

Unfortunately Paul is no longer with us, but I like to think that part of the reason I am able to really connect with music again is because of that loss.

The journey of me being able to connect with music again can be traced back to a trip myself, Alan, & Kevin took to a record store in San Francisco while visiting Alan together — not very long after Paul’s passing.

This was the first exclusively vinyl store I have ever been into. My brother is hugely into collecting vinyl records like I am with physical movies, so he was super excited to show us his digs. There was a great smell in there. Like the kind you get when opening a brand new paperback book. It just wafts of creativity awaiting consumption.

Rows of boxes with hand-written cardboard signs denoting genres, sales, & price ranges. Records just littered in organized chaos, awaiting fingers to eagerly rifle through them. It’s here that I just went off on my own and started looking around. Alan wanted Kevin and I to each pick out something so we could listen to it together. Alan, Paul, Kevin, & I spent many hours solely listening to music together. Music was our language. I just wasn’t feeling it, though. I didn’t know what I was interested in picking up — because I wasn’t interested at all. I just wanted to get out of there.

Then I watched them look through the Metal section, and walk away from it without anything in hand.

I thought to myself “Well, if there’s nothing interesting for them, maybe I can find something.”

That’s all it took. I walked over to the left most box in the section that was facing the wall and started flipping through each record. I’m the kind of person that loves to judge a piece of artwork by the cover chosen for it. If you don’t put effort into your presentation then don’t expect me to put effort into what is behind it. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” has been far more relevant to me in life when it comes to people than when it comes to actual books.

Tempest
The album artwork for Tempest, by Lycus. ©2011

And then I saw it, Tempest, by Lycus. There was something about the album artwork that just spoke to me. It felt like something that if showed to Paul he would not allow me to put down. He would grab my shoulder vigorously and bring his head close to my ear with a “Duuuuuuude! That’s wicked!” So I called Kevin & my brother over and they did something really similar. It was everything I wanted it to be.

Lycus is a specific kind of Metal, Doom Metal. It’s very melodic, deliberate, and patient. There’s  a lot of chanting, and it just had a way of worming into my bones when we listened to it. It’s a kind of music that really allowed me to embrace my torture and grow with it rather than fight it.

Since the three of us first listened to that album my connection with music has been like a tarp full of water with a small tear in it. It starts as a small drip, but as it continues to rain, and slowly drops — that rip ever grows.

I realized today after having reconnected myself with music like Bullets & Octane, Coheed & Cambria, and even the original World of Warcraft scores — the tarp is almost entirely gone now.

I can bask in the rains of music again.

It’s a really liberating thing to be honest. I missed it quite a bit. I’m pretty sure human beings as a species in general share this same connection with music that I have. So you can understand when I tell you that having music dead to me is maybe the worst thing out of this journey that I have experienced.

This is the thing I am talking about when I say that everything happens for a reason.

The greatest gift I can give Paul in his passing is what I am doing now. I am using his loss, and my heartbreak from it to make me a more complete person again. It’s what he would want. He would be so excited to hear that I am going to the concert this summer. I only wish I didn’t have to carry him with me and that I could actually have him there next to me.

Thank you for inspiring me, Paul. Thank you for bringing music back to me. I miss you.

Music 2
From left to right: Paul Perkins, Trevor Elms, Kevin Perkins. ©2008 – Self Portrait

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2015, Pictured from left to right: Kevin Perkins, Alan Elms
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Friggin’ Chicks.

December 14th, 2008. Ugh. This is one of those things I look back on and go — “Well, sure, it’s written decently, but damn. I was really angry at something, and someone.”

I scared a lot of girls away growing up, and I think I got tired of it. I honestly don’t know why I wrote this though. This was written legitimately days before I went crazy.

I honestly have no clue who specifically caused me to write this, but I was clearly upset at her. There is some explicit language in there.

Friggin’ Chicks.

Okay, to the girls, not women who don’t understand.

Instead of cutting me off, ask me why I don’t act how you plan.

I’m a caring person, I like my relationships.

So when it comes to spittin’ game, I got none unless I’m interested.

 

You need to be straight up, and not out of touch.

Ask me, what do you mean? by she talks too much.

This doesn’t mean I need a girl, by no contrary.

I’m perfectly fine, with fuckin’ and strawberries.

But I want a girl who knows how to do it.

My teacher said, the cock never lies.

So no need to get cocked, and wake up with surprise.

 

Damn girls look in my friggin’ eyes.

When I tell you, these ain’t no lies.

 

 

I went crazy, and then I met Megan. So this is probably the last time anything like this will be written.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2016
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Why Do I Hate Mondays?

From a 5-minute writing prompt in my college English class about why we hated Mondays. Written September 22nd, 2008. I think a Sunday is as good as any other to get this one posted. I don’t distaste Mondays nearly as much any more, but this one was a particularly frustrating one. I was a pretty angry person in general at this time as well.

Why Do I Hate Mondays?

Because I have a case of the Mondays.

My anti-Christ alarm clock makes my hungover head bleed!

I smash it over and over to shut the fuck up but eventually am forced to stumble out of bed,

to fulfill my Dumbday obligations.

I shuffle out of my boiling-hot dorm room to take a shower,

I forgot the friggin’ key!

Now I have to trudge downstairs in my boxers, shampoo, towel, with freakin’ luffa in hand to grab a spare.

When I finally get into the bathroom,

the same asshole has left his stuff everywhere again!

Sucks to be him, I’m pissed so his shit gets thrown,
maybe it broke, I don’t care.

When I finally get out of the shower refreshed and calm…

I realize I’ve smoked all my green the nights before.

No wake and bake?
Fuck Mondays!

Finally have everything ready, headed to class on the moped,
and the damn thing breaks down half-way.

Seriously! What kind of bad karma could I have attracted for this day to go ANY better!

 

 

I still remember scribbling this down furiously in my class. I couldn’t wait to boisterously recite it. It made me feel much better, as did my friends later that day. My friend, Gavin, got to hear this in person the day of.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken 8 days after writing this poem. Photo by Kisa Vanderford ©2008
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Homesick.

Keeping right in theme of my School piece posted this morning — I present a poem I wrote in September, 2008. I believe this is the very first thing I wrote when I first got to Hawai’i.

The impact of this poem is still there with me. I wish I had better kept in touch like I planned, but such is life.

Homesick.

Where I found myself, is not where I am now.

Where I am now, is not what it was then.

I am happy here, maybe moreso.
But I can still look over my shoulder,
and hope there’s one of you there.

We rise in September,
And don’t fall in the summer.

I love the weather, my new friendships, and my school.
And in the end, as the sun creeps slowly down the horizon.

My mind loves to wander towards every little moment,

I spent in the alley,
I spent at the 19th street hill,
I spent in Thailand,
Mexico,

School.

I miss all of you,

And every moment you spent helping me find myself.

I love you Sep kids.
And can’t wait to visit.

 

Looking back, I think this is a fairly positive and calming piece. This was a good time before I began my real descent into madness. The featured photo in this post is the first photo of me in Hawai’i I can find.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo taken by Kisa Vanderford, ©2008
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 6 Comments

Thoughts.

This was something I wrote August, 2008. I remember sitting in the shade of a tree with the moleskine my group teacher, Leslie, from high school gifted me. One of the greatest gifts ever given to me today.

When she gifted it to me, she told me that I reminded her of Ernest Hemingway. That may be the highest compliment anyone has even given me.

I just sat down to write something, anything, and it ended up being about a girl in the dorms I had a crush on. I can’t remember her name, and she never heard it.

I was feeling very alone and scared at this time. I had just recently moved to Hawai’i and I am a fairly strong introvert. I had not yet met the people who were to become my close friends.

Thoughts.

I plan to finish this whole notebook.

As I sit here writing in the fine lines that fabricate recorded thoughts.
On pre-cognitive set pathways that lead to nowhere.

And nowhere?
Led me somehow through all these pages of turmoil, to you.
Why you?

Because the mind tends to wander to those emotions,
that incite feedom,
and hope.

The burning fire…
colorless,
but with untamed form.

A full frontal force that fascinates the multifaceted shatters,
that are my feelings.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo by Trevor Elms ©2008
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 9 Comments

Kids.

I was feeling a little worn out again today. I thought, let’s take a break — it’s been over a week of me consistently putting out a good 1000 words. Legitimately the most consistent amount of writing I have been able to accomplish in my life. But it’s also not the first time I have been able to write approximately this many words in this amount of time.

I decided to go into my drafts and saw this picture. One of my very favorites.

My wife and I cannot have children in the traditional fashion.

I will not be going into the reasons why because those do not matter. What I am going to do today is write about what that loss means to me.

You see, I have never known what I have wanted to be when I grow up — except for a father. Since as early as five years old I can remember looking up to my Dad, wanting to be just like him, and wanting to raise a family.

My Dad has given me memories like lifting me above his head, just by his thumb.

I am also a very scientifically driven person when it comes to my intellectual beliefs about this existence and this lifetime. So I have spent my whole life wanting to continue the genes of my family and continue our line.

I was always either consciously or sub-consciously growing up looking for the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life, and pro-create with. When I finally met Megan I knew I’d found her. Megan and I had a long journey together before even being official, but I knew from early on that I wanted my kids to be drenched in everything about her personality — and her physical traits as a human being.

So to find out that our child in no way will be 100% the both of us, no matter the path we choose — is the worst heartbreak I have ever felt in my life.

Sure, there is a chance for a miracle — with an almost scientific certainty it won’t because that number has so many zeros in front of it I could hit my word quota just by typing it out. This was the one thing I always knew I wanted. Through all my troubles and my confusion. It was constant — even when I thought I was Jesus Christ who had lived for 1000 years in some poor tenants house, I knew I wasn’t a father yet and wanted to be.

I now know I am completely capable of love no matter where the child comes from.

The picture featured in this post is part of the proof for me. I have been around my nephews and nieces for long enough now for me to consider them mine. I care about who they grow to become and care about being the best example I can be for them.

I would do anything, and everything for them to keep them safe and happy. And I know that I can do this for whatever child comes our way in the future too.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.

One of the first things my psychologist told me when I first met him is that I deal terribly with loss. Insofar being that when I met him… I really didn’t deal with it at all. I thought I did, but much like a lot of things I was doing with emotions at the time I was just letting them be and putting them somewhere where they couldn’t “affect” me.

This is still a loss that I am having difficulty with, and it is why I am happy that Megan and I are taking until 2020 before we decide what to do moving forward. I’d rather now spend this time appreciating time with her, and the time and money that we have, without a child — since we cannot so easily have one right now.

I am a strong believer that everything happens for a reason.

Not that the reason comes from some divine force or third party with a plan, I believe that we find reason within the things that happen to us so that we can grow and push forward as people.

There’s a large part of me thinking in this moment that had Megan and I been able to have a child that I would not have started this website — and would not be accomplishing a dream of mine. I would be too busy being a dad, dedicating myself to a child and already working my fairly time and attention consuming career.

Many times in my life now I have been hit with something that isn’t fun. Every time I have picked myself back up from it and gotten stronger because of it. There’s a really cliché saying in there about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger; what I have begun to learn is that these clichés exist for a reason.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

Megan and I have been making a lot of really good lemonade lately. Like the best kind. We have all sorts of travel plans for this year, tattoos, expensive dinners, buying cool things on a whim.

We’re just enjoying the things we have now — and not the things that we can’t have at this moment. We’re enjoying each other, and what we bring forth from one another. At this point, I’m not sure I’d even have it any other way. We can take this time to be as selfish as we absolutely want to. So when it comes time to do the most selfless thing any one can do,

We will be ready.

I think the larger meaning in this piece is that finding a purpose, and a meaning within the things that happen to us is in my experience what helps us grow more and become stronger as people.

I do not know how our child will come to us, but I do know that child will have more love than they know what to do with. That is a pretty cool thing to think about.

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms.
Pictured from left to right: Trevor Elms, Lucas Miller, Derrick Miller
Featured photo taken by Megan Elms ©2014