I had plans for this fall.

Workshops I wanted to launch. Projects I wanted to move forward. Meetings on the calendar. This newsletter.

I had planned for fall. I hadn't planned for a fall. (I should have chosen my words more carefully.)

A few weeks ago, my dad fell and fractured his back. For the past month, much of my attention has gone toward my family.

Five years ago, my dad was diagnosed with PML, a rare brain infection, and given three to six months to live. Five years later, he's still here.

When he was first diagnosed, we were coming off the heels of COVID. The entertainment industry had essentially shut down, I was trying to figure out what was next for me professionally, and suddenly I had a very different job: caregiver.

For almost two years, that was largely my life.

Eventually, we found a new rhythm. I found my way back into my work. Life expanded again.

And then the fracture changed that rhythm. For the first couple of weeks, moving was excruciating for him. Then, earlier this week, something else changed.

He couldn't find his balance.

At first, I did what I tend to do: I tried to make it happen. I tried to muscle him out of bed and into his wheelchair.

By Wednesday, I couldn’t hold him up.

We called for a lift assist. The EMTs arrived, assessed the situation, and one of them asked us a pretty simple question:

"We can help you get him up. But then what?"

Good question. Hadn’t gotten that far.

We followed their advice and went to the ER.

He's still in the hospital as I write this. There is more going on than we originally realized, and at the same time my mother has some medical procedures of her own coming up.

So the fall I planned isn't looking much like the fall I'm living.

And I'm noticing how hard that is for me. Not just because of the logistics. Because of who I think I'm supposed to be.

Showing up is one of my values. If I tell you I'm going to be somewhere, I want to be there. If I say I'm going to do something, I want to do it.

My parents taught me that. They showed up for me. Now I want to show up for them.

But lately, showing up for one part of my life has meant not showing up somewhere else. I've canceled meetings. I've moved things. Things I was certain I'd launch this fall may not happen this fall.

And I don't like it.

Showing up is so deeply embedded in my identity that when circumstances prevent me from showing up somewhere, it doesn't just inconvenience me… it challenges my idea of who I am.

Because underneath all of that, I've started noticing something else:

Ego.

I've spent a large portion of my life as a performer. Literally, as an actor for years. But I'm realizing there are lots of ways to perform that have nothing to do with standing on a stage.

I've got this.
I'm dependable.
I'm productive.
I'm moving forward.
I know what's next.

There's an identity in there. And lately I've been catching myself performing it.

Who am I if I'm not producing?
Who am I if the workshop doesn't launch this fall?
Who am I if the plan gets pushed three months?
Who am I if, for a while, success looks like getting my father safely out of bed?

I don't have a neat answer to that. And strangely, I'm becoming more okay with not having one.

I've been listening to A Happy Pocket Full of Money, which talks about wealth as something much larger than money. Somewhere in all of this I've started thinking about presence that way. As a way of sharing something of value that is always available to me.

There are things happening right now that I cannot fix. I can't make my father's body cooperate. I can't manufacture more hours. I can't simultaneously be at the hospital, at a meeting, with my partner, working on my business, and taking care of myself.

I have to choose.

And sometimes the most valuable thing I can give is simply to be where I've chosen to be.

The other day, I was leaving the hospital when I ran into my father's former business partner who had just lost a close friend.

He didn't even know my dad was upstairs.

Life and death, almost passing each other in a hospital hallway. All of us walking around carrying things other people know nothing about.

Maybe that's also why I'm feeling this shift in myself.

Less interested in proving that I've got everything handled.
Less certain that every interruption needs to be overcome.
Less willing to measure a season of my life solely by what I produced during it.

I'm not there yet. I still want to perform. I still want to get everything done. I still look at the fall I planned and think, Come on, Kevin. MSH (Make SH$T Happen)

But I keep coming back to the question that EMT asked us.

We can get him up. But then what?

I've spent a lot of my life getting up. Getting moving. Figuring out the next thing.

Right now, I'm sitting with a different question:

Where does my presence matter most right now?

Maybe you can relate.

Until next time,

Kevin

P.S. Maybe the fall you planned isn't quite the fall you're living either. If something has shifted with work, family, identity, priorities, or simply your sense of what's next, I'm opening a few conversations later this month. If that sounds like you, hit reply and tell me what's changed.