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This week I want to talk about showing up ugly.

Not the curated vulnerability kind. Not the "I'm a mess, but like, a photogenic mess" kind. The kind where your kid is screaming in the back seat, you've been a monster all morning, and every cell in your body is telling you to turn the car around and go home.

I had a morning this week where I lost it. Full stop.

I was sharp with my wife. Sharp enough that I heard myself say something out loud I shouldn't have said in front of the kids. My oldest melted down before we even got out of the door, twice. He was hitting me with a toy shield. I took it away and said something firm in a voice that wasn't firm, it was angry. I know the difference. He does too.

The whole drive was a disaster. He screamed. I took pleasure in telling him we were still going to school, which is the part I need to be honest about, because that's the part that tells me I wasn't parenting. I was winning. And winning against a four-year-old is losing.

I kept thinking: don't take him in like this. Don't let anyone see this. Handle it yourself, regroup, cancel. You should be capable of handling this, Lance. You’re supposed to be better than this.

I didn't cancel. I parked, pulled him out, and walked in with a kid who was still swinging at me with a stuffed animal.

And here's what happened: his teacher took one look, stepped in, blocked off the coat room, sat with him for fifteen minutes, and turned the entire morning around. By the time I left with his brother, he was acting like nothing had happened. Fifteen minutes. That's all it took. But those fifteen minutes weren't mine to give. I'd used up everything I had.

This is the thing I keep relearning, and I keep relearning it because I keep forgetting it: the destination is the intervention. Not the preparation. Not the regulation. Not the "I'll go once I feel ready." The getting there. The arrival itself.

When you're drowning, you have two instincts. Withdraw. Turtle up. Close the door. Wait until you're okay before you let anyone see you. That feels like self-preservation, but it's not. It's shame dressed up as strategy.

Or you can do the harder thing: get to the place. Get to the person. Arrive broken and trust that the village you built will do what villages do.

I am not good at this. I got to the destination this week with malice, because I was too stubborn and too angry to turn it around. That's not wisdom. That's spite doing the right thing's job. But spite got me to the door, and the door had someone on the other side of it who could carry what I couldn't.

You don't need to show up well. You don't need to show up regulated. You don't need to show up with a plan.

You just need to show up.

The rest is what other people are for.

Let's get into it.

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