The Narrow Place

When your past life won't fit into the new one.

This isn’t just a move. It’s a reckoning.
In two weeks, I have to fit a lifetime of meaning—guitars I built, a piano passed down, a shop full of memories—into a space that’s half the size.
The stuff isn’t just stuff. It’s sacred.
But the timeline is real. The walls are closing in. And one part of me is absolutely losing its mind trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to pull this off.
This is what it feels like to be caught in a narrow place.

I’m a dad, a musician, a writer, and a business owner—and somewhere in the middle of it all, I became a collector of things that mattered more than I knew.

The Setup

There’s a part of me that wants to burn it all down.

Not because I don’t love my life, but because I love it too much.
And because the weight of keeping it has started to feel like I’m dragging this whole life behind me, upstream.

I’ve got guitars.

Not just ones I bought. Ones I built.
Hand-wired, hand-finished. Hours upon hours spent designing, sanding, soldering, dreaming. Not just of how they’d look, but of what it would feel like to play the songs I’ve written on them. As if crafting them was a kind of ritual—a meditative precursor to the moment they’d finally carry my music.

The piano?

It was my grandma’s.

I used to sit on its bench with the worn green cushion—more like fabric stretched over cardboard than anything soft—digging the edge of the bench into the backs of my legs as I picked out Mary Had a Little Lamb or Twinkle Twinkle on a visit to her house in Tacoma. I was just a kid. It might’ve been summer. Might’ve been Christmas. What I remember is the stillness. The feeling that music could emerge from wood and wire and fingertips, even when you didn’t know what you were doing.

The drum set was a gift.
Passed down from a friend who got it from his dad in high school, back when bands and basements were the center of everything. He gave it to me when he stopped playing. And I kept it—not just to play, but because I understood what it meant to let it go. And what it meant to receive it.

Then there are the Airstreams.
Yeah. Plural. I’ve got two.

The first one was a dream.
Traveling for work while keeping my wife and kids close. A way to be a provider without being absent. A workaround for the pain of being gone so much.

We even lived in one for a while, up in Olympia, during a season when we were trying to simplify life and stay connected while I traveled.

It was simple.
Quiet.
Uncluttered.
No lawn to mow. No neighbors asking about zoning permits. No half-finished projects staring me down.
Just the four of us, sharing meals, reading books, being.
That trailer holds one of the most peaceful stretches of our marriage. It was temporary, but it felt timeless.

Now they’re both sitting in a sunbaked lot on the edge of town.
Outdoor storage. Two hundred bucks a month to let aluminum dreams slowly oxidize in the Idaho heat.

The very thing I used to judge.
People with so much stuff they had to rent space just to keep it.

Now I am one of those people.

And while there’s some subtlety there—sure, not everything I collected was junk—
I also can’t say I was all that intentional.
Some things were sentimental. Some were just reflex.
A way of proving to myself that I could finally have the things I couldn’t afford when I was younger.

Then there’s the shop. I found it and filled it to make my business work. A place for tools and wallpaper.

1,000 square feet. 25 by 40. Big bay door. In the industrial district 10 minutes from home.
I thought it would be too much.
But over time, it grew became the hub of my business.

I used it for prepping work vans, applying Raptor liner, applying branding decals.
It hosted meetings, Saturday escapes.
It was a planning space, a build space, a space to breathe when the house felt too full of everything else.

Now I’m moving. Downsizing. The business will rent from me while I readjust to the new overhead. I have a new mortgage coming and the store where I sell wallpapers rent just rose significantly. It’s a way for me to keep my overall budget down but damn, its a lot of work.

This time, into a place that’s just mine. A 3 bed 1 bath home with a shop in back for me and the boys, in our week-on, week-off rhythm.

The new place has just enough room for me and the boys to stretch out. Barely. 1200 sq ft of “oh my God, how are we going to do this?”
Yeah, there’s a garage in the back—but smaller. Half as big and no big door. No parking lot.
Just enough space to cram in what makes sense to move, if I’m ruthless.

And I’m trying.
Trying to sell things. List them. Get “value” for them.
But most of what I get are low-ball offers.
People who don’t see what I see.
Don’t feel what I feel when I look at that guitar, or that trailer, or that bike I rebuilt from the frame up because I wanted what teenage me never got to ride.

There’s a part of me that’s calm and patient—trying to do this right.
But there’s another part that’s scared shitless I’ll snap and just dump it all.
Not because I want to—but because it’s too much.
There’s no room.
There’s no time.
And the emotional weight of sorting through it all is beginning to eclipse the physical.

I’ve gained weight too. Not a ton. But enough.
Enough to know I’m carrying more than just gear.
More than just boxes.

The Hope

And what I really want—what I long for—isn’t to keep it all or to get top dollar.

I just want someone to see it.
To pick up a guitar or ride a bike I built piece by piece and say,
“Damn. I get it. This is beautiful.”

And maybe help me move it—not just physically,
but emotionally.
Spiritually.

To help me bring the pieces of this life from that chapter into this one
without pretending it’s all just junk to be hauled off.

Not with shame.
Not with fire.

But with honor.

But it’s not just about the stuff.

It’s the move itself.

The Real Transition

This move marks the end of something that once held so much hope—a marriage, a dream of raising kids in Boise, putting down roots in a city where we could build something better than we’d had before.

That was the hope, anyway.
A house near a good school.
A place the boys could belong.
A community we hadn’t had in the previous place—something connected.
A place that was meaningful.

And we found it.
At least a version of it.

Sarah—my ex-wife—had started putting down roots. She was building a community coffee shop, growing relationships, investing in the community.
It was clear early on: she wanted the family home more than I did.
After we decided to separate, we made one thing clear: the boys would stay in the house and we would shift between places. We didn’t want everything to change for them.
And I didn’t fight the decision she would get the family home.
A part of me knew it was right. It felt like it would be easier for me to adapt—easier to build something new—than it would be for her to uproot.
I moved into the basement.
And that quiet agreement—made without conflict, made for the sake of our kids—shaped everything that followed.

We shared meals sometimes. Shared housework.
Kept the week-on, week-off rhythm with the boys.
Lived through the awkwardness. The quiet tension. The strange new normal.

And slowly, something started to grow in me again.

The writing I’m doing now—the reflection, the clarity, the voice—none of it would’ve been possible in the old shape of things.
In the weeks I had alone, a part of me finally had room to breathe.

And then, when it was time, a house found me.

I hadn’t been hunting at all.
Just mentioned my situation to a realtor friend.
I must’ve mad an impression, because when a house came up off market, he remembered me.

Sent me a walk-through video.
I drove by. It felt like maybe.

Then I stepped inside.
And with that short walk through, I made an offer.

The place wasn’t big.
It wasn’t grand.
But it fit.

Smaller. Simpler.
Just enough for me and the boys to begin again.
And a little shop in the back—not as good as the one I rented in Garden City, but still something.

It wasn’t a fallback.
It wasn’t settling.

It was the next evolution.

A space that made sense for who I am now.
And the version of me that’s still emerging.

The Conundrum

The closing date is in two weeks. That’s it.
Fourteen days to sort through years of sentiment, memory, and identity—and somehow fit it all into a space that’s half the size.

I’m supposed to get the keys.
And I’ve still got more stuff than will ever fit in this new place.

I’m not going to get rid of all of it at once.
That’s clear now.

It’ll probably be some mix of external storage and a little strategic Tetris in the house and garage.
Maybe even keep the Airstream parked for a while longer.
It still feels like a future project—something that might matter again, just not yet.

This verse has followed me for years. It always shows up when I’m clinging, rushing, or trying to force something to happen.

“Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?”
— Tao Te Ching, Verse 15

That verse has circled back to me so many times.
And here it is again—meeting me in the mess, not to judge or rush, but to remind.

Because there’s a part of me that just wants to let everything go.

Just be done.
Just clear it all out and start fresh.

But when I slow down and really sit with that part—he’s not careless.
He’s not ruthless.

He’s tender.

He feels young.
Like someone who had to let go of things before—not by choice,
and not with gentleness.

Maybe it was toys in a move.
Or friends I couldn’t see again.
Or out of a manic point a few years ago when I loaded up a bunch of vintage amps and guitars and unloaded them to a group of people in disbelief of what was happening.

Whatever it was, it left a mark.

And now that same part is rising up again—hoping to be heard.
Not to sabotage the move.
Not to throw it all away.

But to ask: Can we please do it differently this time?

Can we let go of what no longer fits without shame?
Can we hold onto what still matters without guilt?
Can we move forward not with force,
but with honor—and maybe even a little ceremony?

This is the narrow place.
And I’m walking through it—not perfectly, not cleanly, but fully awake.

Learning not just what to keep…
but how to let go.

Final Reflection

The Tao says the stream doesn’t resist the narrow place.
It doesn’t rage against the rocks or mourn the calm pool it left behind.
It just moves—soft, persistent, adaptable.

That’s the image I’m holding now.

I don’t have to fight this squeeze.
I don’t have to figure it all out before the water clears.

I just have to move through.

What’s on the other side isn’t collapse.
It’s clarity. It’s shape. It’s the next version of me taking form.

Even here—in the pressure, the deadline, the mess—
I can feel it.

The current is carrying me forward.
And I’m ready to let go.

Have you ever felt the squeeze of a narrow place?
What did you let go of? What did you learn through that experience?