The Foundation

What do you like to do for fun?

I’ve sat across from many different styles of Therapists and Psychologist throughout my nearly 40 years of life, and in our first conversation they all started with the same question. What do you like to do for fun?

The interesting thing about this question is, I could never answer it. This very day, it’s still a hard question to articulate into a true answer. I would often get discouraged at the inability to answer this question even though I was prepared for them to ask it. The first time I was faced with this question was after my first deployment in 2005. What an interesting time? My new wife was pregnant, I was a young twenty something from rural South Georgia, and here I was on the other side of the world, in the middle of a damn war! That deployment was hard. Not physically strenuous, but mentally I started to go through things I had never even once thought of. I questioned life. I questioned my reasons for being away from my family. I for one questioned my role as a provider, and as a husband. Why the hell did I willingly sign up for this shit? I was miserable on that deployment. I was angry all the time. I personally drank too much to cope with all these emotions which only made things worse. After my first panic attack, which at first thought to be a heart attack, I started visiting my first Psychologist. Fifteen years ago, I was first confronted with the question, “What do you like to do for fun”?

See, my initial thoughts were, Man, I don’t fucking know. I just now I’m angry, sad, and miserable all the time. Truth be told, I hated being in the Military. I hated most of the people I worked with because they were all miserable too. It was an adopted way of life. Military friendships are a peculiar one. Take all these folks, from all walks of life, differing backgrounds, put them all in one place together where they don’t know anyone and say go! You latch onto people and become more than friends at times. It's all you have. You have no family. Military friends become your family. So, what happens when that family becomes a prime source of frustration?

I grew up an athlete. I was the second of four boys to a teenage mother. She kept us in sports to keep us preoccupied. I played baseball with a stick, tennis ball, no glove in the southern country of Southeast Georgia. Those were good times. I didn’t think so then cause all I ever wanted to do back then was get as far away from there and those people as quickly as I could. I wasn’t that great of an athlete, but I could hold my own. I was your typical utility player, your ten-day contract NBA guy. Mostly, here, hold down this spot until we find someone better. But I always loved sports. I loved to compete. I competed at everything. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the second of four boys, and your older brother is the Al Bundy of your hometown. He's a cop now so at least he doesn't sell women shoes. Not that there is anything wrong with selling women shoes, but come on man, that shit made Al miserable. Growing up, he absolutely relished in the thought of going somewhere, and some random old guy bringing up his performance from that week’s game. It was cool for a while, but imagine sitting in a hot car, with no air condition running, in that South Georgia heat. And, this is before it was frowned upon to leave kids in a hot box death on wheels. I might have brain damage from sitting in that hot ass car listening to old men stroke my older brothers’ ego, all while he glared at me from the corner of his eye, like, yeah, you hear that? But sports were always my passion. I longed to be a great sports reporter one day. But you know how it goes. Women! I liked women and was often distracted in the pursuit of said women and never really got focused on my most passionate desires to be in sports broadcasting.

As the years went by, I settled into what many would consider a very successful life. I had a career, I had a beautiful young family, and I had purchased my first home. But I was miserable. I didn’t know why. I just couldn’t understand how I could be unhappy. Back to the therapist. Ugh! Again, “What do you like to do for fun”? Again, I answered, I don’t know! I carried on with my therapy here and there until I was forced to retire from the military due to health reasons. The next phase of my life presented many obstacles as I tried to figure out what was next. I started a semi successful barbering career, but that wasn’t it. Got very into fitness, powerlifting and bodybuilding, and nearly three quarters through a Physical Therapy program but, again, that wasn’t it. What was it? Again, back to the therapist. This time as a civilian, and, again, he asked, “What do you like to do for fun”? Now, this time I realized it was probably time I tried to answer this question. But, I didn’t! I kept my head down, plodded through life with a fake smile; laugh here and there and made it seem as if everything was ok. Throughout this time, I started to listen to more and more podcasts and often fantasized about starting my own someday. At first, it was a debate type show centered around me and my youngest son called the Dad and the Kid. Some of you might remember that hashtag from a few years back. I like to build momentum for my projects so, I was building up for that one but he became uninterested and left me on my OWN. Teenagers, man. I began to bounce ideas off friends and family, but that was often ignored or refuted as “who do you think you are”? Most of these so-called friends and family would make snide remarks like, “fake ass Stephen A.” Then sometimes just outright ignore me without any feedback or response. See, back then I would become frustrated with this, but as I grew older, I began to realize that these people would never see my passion the way that I did. They only saw my passion for sports as anger. An attack on their own opinions. After distancing myself from those groups of people, I began to realize that I had been looking for validation that I never needed to begin with. I finally began to think about what I liked to do for fun, and it was empathically talking sports. So, how do I do this? Do I go back to school? AGAIN? As I planned to launch my next venture, something unprecedented happened. A DAMN PANDEMIC SHUTDOWN THE WORLD! The WORLD, Craig!! The sports world was upended along with everything else. Studios' closing created an environment where podcasts began to pop up everywhere. Again, feeling defeated but ultimately deciding to carry on with my new found goal in hand. Then, after seemingly adjusting to quarantine life, I was hit with another unexpected haymaker. I woke up one night and couldn’t see.