I sobbed today.
Don't worry. I'm fine. Better than fine. But you're going to have to sit with me for a minute before I tell you why those tears felt so good.
For most of my life, your dear uncle Nick was not well thought of.
A penchant for the game of drink. Fast women. Much faster drugs. A learning disability or two. I was an enigma, mostly to myself.
It started early. When I wasn't being told I couldn't do a thing, I was being pulled out of class and parked with the "special kids" for remedial this and one-on-one that. Never challenged. Never handed a chance to shine. So I did what any kid does when the world keeps telling him the same story.
I believed it. I wasn't destined for much.
The drinking started at 14. I'd run off to a lake with friends for the summer. Or, more honestly, I'd been sent away for reasons that escape me to this day. I smoked then, like I still do sometimes, when the mood is right and the campfire's going on a dark beach. I digress.
For years it went the same way. Fail. Thrive. Fail again. And every time, the same voices: This is just who he is. He gets bored and quits. He sticks to nothing. He'll never go very far.
Now, I'm not telling you this to whine. I hate whining.
I'm telling you this to set you up. To draw you in close, like a moth to a flame, and then LIGHT YOU ABLAZE.
I kid. Mostly. You know I love the drama.
"It's here!"
My partner about jumped out of her skin. "What?!"
There it was in my inbox. A parcel, pending. And inside that parcel, five copies of my book.
I was out the door like a kid on Christmas. The mail lockers couldn't open fast enough. And when they finally did, when I saw those three words, Penguin Random House, I hugged the box. Both arms. An actual hug, think a favorite teddy bear.
My inner child lives loud in my head. A lot of us ADHD folks know the feeling. And under all that noise, I heard the smallest voice of all say it.
"It's my bookie."
I carried it back upstairs. Opened the door. Set the box down.
"I should film an unboxing."
No. This one was just for us.
With the tears already coming, I opened it. And there they were.
Five galley copies. The first real, bound, printed copies, the ones that come off the press before a book ever hits a shelf. Not a stack of loose pages. A book. My book.
Red cover. Big bold letters. I HOPE YOU HATE THIS. And a bulldog being dragged along, begrudging every step.
I had done it.
I Hope You Hate This was never just a book to me. It's a love letter to the version of me who was sure he couldn't. The dreamer nobody believed. The artist who never got a canvas.
It's the gift I gave that kid. The one that says: They may never see you, Nick. But you see you. And you're allowed to want what you want. And you're allowed to win.
So, my hope for you.
Listen to the things you say about yourself. Really listen. Those voices telling you who you are and what you'll never pull off, if they don't fuel you, they were never your voice to begin with.
Leave them behind. We can go together.