“Where the Storm Gets Quiet”

Healing isn’t some heroic scene in a movie. There’s no spotlight. No crowd clapping. Most days, it’s just me — facing the same damn storm I’ve faced for years. Quietly.

Anger has followed me like a shadow. It’s cost me things I can never get back. It’s cost me in lawyer fees. It’s cost me trust — real trust — in my relationship with Heidi. And that’s the one that hurts the most. The moment I regret more than anything? It isn’t one blow-up. It’s the years I spent in denial that I even had a problem. The years I thought I could outrun it, bury it, pretend I was fine. But I wasn’t. And while I was busy pretending, it started cutting into the one thing that’s never given up on me — her. Every time I see something on TV that reminds me…Or hear someone else talk about going through it…It hits. That shame. That guilt. That sick feeling in your gut that says, You did that.It makes me want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

But I don’t. I face it. Because hiding didn’t save me.

But photography started to. Behind the camera, I don’t feel shame. I feel still. It’s the one place the storm quiets down. It focuses me — not just on what’s in front of me, but on what’s inside. It says, “Yo… you’ve got to chill.” And somehow, I do. On heavy days, it’s me, my noise-canceling headphones, the click of the shutter, and a quiet song whispering through the noise. It becomes a ritual — not of escape, but of grounding. Of surviving the moment without letting it consume me. Most people will never see that battle. They’ll see the photos. The moments I capture. The smiles. The light. They won’t see the weight I carried to get there. But I do. And I carry it proudly now. Not because I’m proud of who I was — but because I’m proud I didn’t stay there. Healing is messy. It’s slow. It’s full of regret and hard truths and deep breath after deep breath. But every time I lift my camera… That’s me fighting back.

Not just for me. But for Heidi.

For every moment I almost let anger steal.

And for every second I still have left to get it right.