First Week Of School

Steven Barnes
4 min readAug 27, 2021

First week of school — Jason is getting HIMSELF up, at meetings on time, and doing his homework at school. Wants to work with me, and study psychology at UCLA. We’re going to clear out the garage and build him a gym: weight bench, heavy bag, speed bag.

He has been 100% polite. We hug every morning. He loves the notion that he is The Nerd From Hell.

Be still, my beating heart.

He is acting just like a young man who wants to really embrace the world. What is the definition? A man is the male version of an adult. What is “male” and “female”…

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Steven Barnes

Steven Barnes is a NY Times bestselling author, ecstatic husband and father, and holder of black belts in three martial arts. www.lifewritingpodcast.com.