My Life Stories

My Flawless Travel Day

/ Tim Severson / 1 Comment

This is shaping up to be a flawless travel day, is my first thought as I step off of the shuttle bus into the drizzle and chilly early spring air at the rental car lot next to the Philadelphia Airport. 

As a sports fan, I know better than this. You are not supposed to talk about the perfect game or no-hitter with the pitcher in the dugout, as it guarantees a hit next inning when he’s back up on the mound. When the sportscaster talks about the incredible streak of made shots at the free-throw line, the next shot is sure to clang off the iron. 

To be fair, it wasn’t a typical travel day. 

My son had been asking to see my sister and their kids in Maryland since we saw them when they came to Minnesota in September. When my wife, Jenni, and I looked at the calendar and discovered Spring Break rolled into Easter this year, it seemed like a fantastic opportunity to book a trip to the East Coast. 

We decided it would be fun to surprise our children with the trip when we got to the airport. Lucky for us, our daughter had been asking to go on an airplane… anywhere, so the surprise would land with her just as well as it would with him.

*Advice for parents planning to surprise their children with a trip: don’t pack your suitcase the morning of your flight. Yes, you will easily convince yourself that you aren’t procrastinating. You’ll think you’re preserving the surprise by not leaving the clue of a half-packed suitcase lying around. Unfortunately, this will make you panic every time you hear a noise while packing and cause you to question your mental capacity when you look at the random assortment of clothing in your suitcase when you open it at your final destination.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for a more significant reaction from my children. It’s not as though they weren’t excited, but I was hoping for utter shock. What percentage of people have had the experience of being surprised with a trip to the airport on the day of their departure? 

The surprise could be the worst destination in the world, say… Madison, WI, and still, I would be in a puddle of tears if I got surprised with a vacation at the airport.

We checked our suitcase without issue despite Jenni packing a bag for her and my daughter that weighed nearly half as much as their combined body weight. 

Security took about ten minutes despite the fact we forgot to take tablets out of two of our carry-ons. We found food the kids and Jenni would eat before the flight, right before the hangry river of rage started to flow out of my wife; the Prosecco helped, too. 

If your significant other gets “hangry,” do not ask them, “Are you hungry?” When you notice the hanger level starting to rise. I nearly derailed our trip by making this observation about my wife as we stood in line for pizza.

Our flight was on time, and we landed ahead of schedule. When we got to baggage claim, I immediately saw our overweight suitcase making its loops around the carousel and snagged it. 

This is why I had the guts to allow myself to take a breath and pat myself on the back in the rental lot. 

I walked over to look at the board to find my name and where my rental card would be parked. Instead of a parking space number next to my name, I saw “see desk.”

Most days, I would have been panicked by this message. On this day, it didn’t occur to me that I could ever have an issue traveling ever again. 

I entered the small yet clean rental car office. I waited in a short line to talk to one of two representatives helping other customers. 

I gave my name as I approached the kiosk and started to wince in preparation for bad news. After some quick clicking on the keyboard, the woman smiled and said, “You reserved an electric car; that’s why you needed to come in here today.”

I did, in fact, reserve a Tesla. It was a secondary surprise for my son and a treat for me. Before you start calling this a humble brag, I will let you know it cost ten dollars more than renting a Toyota Corolla or “something similar” when I reserved the car. 

Once everything was settled, the rental car company representative told me they would immediately pull the car up for me. 

My family was waiting on the curb when I joined them. 

“Daddy, what if they gave us a Tesla?” My son asked as he saw our car weaving through the parking lot.

“Yeah, I don’t think we will get a Tesla, buddy.”

“Yeah, that would be, like, so expensive.” 

I smiled and winked at Jenni as we silently acknowledged how perfect that was for the surprise to land even better. 

Moments like those make you forget the whining, the fights, and the worry of having kids. Like a stack of napkins that have been blown to the ground by the wind, some of the moments are carried away before you have a chance to remember they existed; others hit the ground and stay put just long enough for you to bend over and grab them, almost as if they were holding on just for you. 

If you’re a parent, chase those moments and stomp them to the ground before the wind whisks them away. Pick it up and shove it into your back pocket with the snot cover tissue and fruit snack wrappers because someday you’ll pull it out. It will be the most valuable napkin you have ever held. 

When the Tesla pulled up, my son had the look of shock you’d expect to see on someone who just found out they were going on a flight halfway across the country for Spring Break at the airport. 

As we pulled up to the booth at the exit of the rental car lot, the attendant scanned the barcode on the dash and said, “It’s not letting me check you out; there is a problem with the car.”

“What does that mean, ‘there is a problem with the car?'” Jenni whisper-shouted at me from the passenger seat. 

Twenty-four and a half years of experience with this woman had taught me that the question was not rhetorical, so I repeated it to the attendant. 

“I don’t know. Sometimes, there are errors with the car, but we don’t know what they are until a technician looks at it. Let me call my manager.”

“What the fuck does that even mean? Why would they drive a car up to us that wasn’t working?” Jenni continued from the passenger seat, making sure I was seeing the injustice of the situation we were in, and making sure I didn’t fold to the pressure in an effort to make the interaction as smooth as possible. 

Usually, that would be a fair concern. However, I rented this car for my son, who had, just a week earlier, counted every Tesla we saw on the road throughout a thirty-minute drive. Leaving the rental car lot in something other than a Tesla was impossible.

The attendant wrapped up the call with his manager, “Yeah, you are going to have to bring the car back in and pick a new one. Good news, you’re getting a complimentary upgrade to any sedan in that row.”

“This is a Tesla… upgrade… Tesla!” is all I can hear from the whisper-yelling from the passenger seat.

“So, you’re saying there’s a problem with the car, not with my reservation?”

“Right. I know you really want to drive the Tesla, but you’re not going to be able to today.”

I hadn’t said anything about being excited to drive the Tesla, so this comment convinced me I would need to have a conversation with someone else. He directed the line of cars behind me to back up so I could return the vehicle. 

“Do you want me to go talk to them?” Jenni asked. I would typically respond with an enthusiastic “yes,” but since going with the flow would have ruined my son’s day, I let her know I would handle it. 

I returned to the rental car office and approached the woman who had assisted me the first time. I told her I wasn’t allowed to leave with the Tesla. She looked as confused as I was by this news and told me she would investigate. She went to the back room to discuss the situation with her manager. 

I stood in the empty office waiting and rehearsing how I would get ‘tough’ if the answer was anything other than renting us the Tesla when my phone rang. I looked at the screen to see a call from an unknown number in Philadelphia and answered.

“Hi, Mr. Severson. This is Janet with Delta Baggage Services. Did you take the wrong luggage after your flight from Minneapolis today?”

I didn’t have to think about it as I closed my eyes and tilted my face skyward, “Most likely.” 

“Have you left the airport, sir?”

“No, I’m at the rental car lot right now, but I can be back as soon as I have my rental car.”

She told me where to go to return the stranger’s suitcase I had in my possession and get my actual suitcase while I apologized profusely. 

My anxiety, which is typically paired with my travel, was finally served. I had to jinx it by slowing up before I crossed the finish line and was now facing my punishment. 

The woman returned from the back room, and I readied myself for battle. Fortunately for me, there would be no battle as she explained that she had missed a step in renting an electronic vehicle out to me. 

As Jenni and our kids had never gotten out, I returned to the car to see “On Rent” written with white car chalk on the two back windows. The attendant from the booth had come around and written this to ensure we didn’t leave the lot in the Tesla. Having that written on both the windows took some fun out of driving it, but I had a suitcase to return.

We parked near the Philadelphia airport’s arrival doors in an area with few cars, hoping no one would walk through to tell Jenni she needed to move the vehicle. 

I ran down the sidewalk and through baggage claim like a former Heisman Trophy winner to return the stolen luggage, convinced I was about to get an earful from an Eagles fan.

I found the Delta Baggage office and was relieved not to see anyone obviously waiting on their luggage. I found Janet, who assured me this kind of thing happens all the time. 

“You have morons flying in from Minnesota all the time?”

Janet stared at me, not getting my joke. A hand reached from behind me and rolled what I thought was my suitcase away. 

I turned and stood face to face with the man whose luggage I had taken. He looked to be in his late twenties. He stared at me with a vacant look. He wasn’t mad, but he didn’t have a look of understanding either. 

“I am so unbelievably sorry.”

No change in expression.

I then did something I had never done before in my entire life: I pressed my palms together in front of my chest and started doing these twenty-degree bows as I repeated, “I’m so sorry,” multiple times. 

Still nothing.

I was about to turn to Janet to gauge how this interaction was going from a third party’s vantage point. Before I could do that, a younger man leaned his head through the door and, with a thick accent, said, “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I’m so sorry, I was trying to figure out where to catch the shuttle for the rental cars and I grabb…”

“It’s. Okay,” the second man interrupted. The other man flashed me a quick grin before he turned, and they walked away.

Turning toward Janet to grab my bag, I said, “I’m just going to get out of this airport before anything else goes wrong.”

“It really happens all the time,” Janet called after me as I walked away.

“I really doubt that,” I said to myself as I began my way back to the rental car with the correct suitcase this time. 

People often use hyperbole when discussing what they would do for their children. Parents make statements like, “I’d step in front of a bus for my child” or “I’d take a bullet for my kids,” and I always think: but would you?

It’s not that I am questioning their love. Instead, it’s usually because those statements are uttered after something mundane occurs. It’s easy to claim you’d do anything, but we don’t get to know what we would do until those moments present themselves. 

Now, I can tell my kids, honestly, “I would have a stern conversation with a rental car agent for you.”

Because even though it didn’t happen, I was ready. I was prepared to say what needed to be said to ensure my son got to ride in a Tesla.

I had a short time to come up with what I would say, and it was good. If said with the correct tone of voice, I would have gotten the Tesla and most likely gotten a discount. It’s a short statement that is to the point and could get me out of even the stickiest of situations. 

Since I didn’t use it, I figured here is as good a place as any to share it:

“I’m going to go get my wife.”

Cheers. 

Bar Soap and People Pleasing

/ Tim Severson / 2 Comments

“We can all agree that people who use bar soap in the shower are psychopaths, right?” I asked my friends Jenna and Terrence.

After getting showered and ready for the day, these were the first words out of my mouth when I sat down at the breakfast table while on vacation last year with a few other families. I have never had a strong opinion on body wash versus bar soap. However, when I sat down at the table, nobody was talking, and I felt the need to fill the two seconds of silence thanks to my social anxiety. 

“I use bar soap in the shower,” Terrence said, staring at me with contempt aimed at making me uncomfortable. 

I should have seen it coming. I should have known not to talk about anything related to the shower in public. It’s where all of my previous embarrassments come out to play. Something about the warm water and the vacant shower wall prompts my brain to play a highlight reel of all the things I have done to embarrass myself, like every time I have introduced myself to someone I have already met, for example.

Of course, I did my best to walk back my question by asking thoughtful questions about the merits of using bar soap. It didn’t matter that I was talking to an old friend who knew my proclivity for being awkward.

After a few months of beating myself up mentally in the shower, every time I squeezed the blue gel from my oversized Old Spice body wash bottle into my hand for saying what I said, we were invited for dinner at Jenna and Terrence’s home. When we arrived, Terrence handed me a small gift bag. Inside was a bar of soap from Baxter of California. 

I have been using bar soap every morning since May 28, 2023. 

Hi, I’m Tim, and I am a people-pleaser. 

Let’s get on the same page with what that means:

“The people pleaser needs to please others for reasons that may include fear of rejection, insecurities, the need to be well-liked. If he stops pleasing others, he thinks everyone will abandon him; he will be uncared for and unloved. Or he may fear failure; if he stops pleasing others, he will disappoint them, which he thinks will lead to punishment or negative consequences.”

Psychology Today

Reading that description feels like a punch in the right testicle because if you change the “he’s” with Tim, it reads like a summary of my personality. However, I take exception to the underlying negative tone.

It’s easy for the world’s non-people-pleasers to speak about us as though we are doormats who need to stand up for ourselves, learn to say ‘no,’ and set clear boundaries. They assume everything about the people-pleasers way is wrong. 

Synchronicity (see: Carl Jung) popped up as I began working on this piece when a friend posted a meme regarding people pleasing on her Instagram story. I sent her a message asking her why I should stop being a people pleaser. I am simplifying the way I asked the question for brevity. 

This is what it looks like when my social anxiety takes the wheel as I attempt to ask a simple question: 

I am a neurotic mess.

“I think people pleasing becomes dangerous when you lose yourself. There’s an aspect of being able to be supportive and accommodating to the people around you, but when it goes too far, I feel like people lose themselves. Like if I am doing something only because I know it’ll make other people happy but it actually makes me uncomfortable or upset, then I feel like I’m doing more mental and psychological damage to myself than I would just saying no.”

It’s hard to believe I could get such an insightful response from a rambling question. Still, I have always been good at surrounding myself with intelligent people.

Her words have been playing on a loop in my brain since I read them.

I can trace many things I love in this life back to a moment someone could classify as people-pleasing. 

One afternoon recently, after I did something my wife would classify as people-pleasing, I stopped her and said, “I don’t think you understand that almost everything I do in my life is for you.”

She explained how ridiculous that concept is, but I don’t think she, or anyone else for that matter, can understand how happy it makes me to make other people happy. It doesn’t matter if it is through a grandiose gesture or even something mundane, like holding doors. 

When we started living together, she still loved Gray’s Anatomy. Me? Not so much, until I realized I didn’t like leaving the room when she would turn it on. So, I started it from the beginning and was hooked after two episodes. We watched it for as long as we could tolerate—probably too long. 

If I hadn’t liked it, I would have watched it all the same because my person (IYKYK, Gray’s Anatomy fans) was happy to have me join her in watching something that made her happy, which, in turn, made me happy. The fact that I liked it was a bonus. 

In college, I had a roommate who was (still is) obsessed with the Minnesota Twins. I learned of his obsession while watching the Twins lose to the New York Yankees in the ALDS in 2004. 

I played baseball as a kid and liked watching a game occasionally. Still, I never described myself as a “baseball fan.” Desperate to make a friend out of a roommate, I listened intently as he broke down the games between obscenities being hurled at Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. This led to late-night tutorials about pitching mechanics, swing mechanics, and manager strategies I pretended to be interested in.

Fast-forward to me refreshing the ESPN website repeatedly in my room the following winter to see what moves the Twins would make during free agency. 

One could argue that becoming a Twins fan in 2004 is a perfect demonstration of people-pleasing causing me to be uncomfortable and upset as it was the infancy of what would become a historical post-season losing streak to the Yankees. However, I used their excessive losing to my advantage by using it against the person who got me into this mess by reminding him incessantly about every failure, no matter how small, which also fills me with joy.

I could go on with examples like those mentioned above. So many things in my life make me happy that I could have missed out on if I had given in to my initial instinct to say ‘no.’ 

I allowed the analytical side of my brain to understand what people-pleasing is, and I placed myself in a box I didn’t fit. 

Sometimes, there can be too much self-analyzing; sometimes, therapy can push you in the wrong direction. I may be a people-pleaser. There might be something in my past that may force me to serve others’ happiness before mine, but naming it and calling it negative is short-sighted. If everyone involved leaves happy, does the order they got there really matter? 

I say no. If I lived that way, I’d spend most of my life alone because when opportunities arise, my gut instinct is to decline for any of a long list of trite reasons and stay home by myself. Giving in to that instinct would lead to an entirely new set of diagnoses that may or may not be accurate. 

Allow me to re-introduce myself.

Hi, I’m Tim, and I am a people-pleaser happy. 

And that is all I need to know.

Oh! I am also a proud user of bar soap.

Cheers.

Shadow Work

/ Tim Severson / Leave a comment

When I started working with a coach in September, I intended to get coaching on finding a new career. I needed someone to help me put together a resume and find something that aligned with what I wanted in life. 

My coach, Ally, quickly recognized that I wouldn’t be happy switching to another standard job or career. She encouraged me to read Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. She described it as spiritual and a bit “woo-woo,” so I was unsure if it would be the right fit. 

Desperate for answers and direction, I bought the book without thinking. I knew I needed something out of the norm to jump-start my new life, whatever it might turn into. 

My mouth hung open as I read the first pages of The Artist’s Way. Never in my life had I seen myself so clearly in someone else’s writing. It was as though someone had downloaded all of my hopes, dreams, and fears, reorganized them into a book about how to put them into practice, and sold them back to me. 

I cannot go more than a paragraph in the book without thinking, “Yep, I do that,” or “Do other people think like that, too?” I quit my job within a few weeks of opening the book. 

Doing something solely for myself and my mental well-being was a relief. The relief, however, was short-lived when I realized the work was just starting because, for anything to work for me creatively, I needed to do a lot of work on myself. 

Shadow-Work, to be precise. 

The Artist’s Way is adorned with outstanding inspirational quotes from people throughout history. One name is quoted most frequently—a name familiar to me from studying psychology in college: Carl Jung.

If you’ve taken a Myers-Briggs personality assessment, you are more familiar with Dr. Jung than you realize. 

While studying psychology in college, my relationship with Jung’s work was influenced by my relationship with religion as a lapsed Catholic and how his work was taught to me. He was presented as a descendant of Sigmond Freud’s teachings who liked to analyze dreams. 

I can’t stand hearing about the nonsense of people’s dreams. So, the idea that analyzing a dream about sorting paper clips in my underwear in an Arby’s with my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Schirmer, would reveal valuable information about my psyche did not lead me to explore more of his teachings.

Rather, it left me to view him as someone who had a few good ideas but was mostly a kook who thought the answers to life’s problems were in our dreams. As a twenty-year-old, that was all I needed to hear to shrug my shoulders, shake my head, and move on to something more concrete and scientific. 

Jung’s contention is that we all have traits or interests that we have decided to ignore. Some of these are negative, and some might be positive things we were told to give up on at some point in life by parents and/or perceived authority figures. 

“Without a well-developed shadow side, a person can easily become shallow and extremely preoccupied with the opinions of others.”

Carl Jung

That sentence defines how I lived the first thirty-nine years of my life. 

In my brain, shadow work meant I would need to get spiritual and blame my parents for all of the problems in my life, which were two things I had no interest in doing. So, I ignored the idea altogether. 

Reading The Artist’s Way made it clear that avoiding shadow work would not be possible. It is around every corner. To get anywhere, I would need to uncover things that would certainly be uncomfortable and painful at times.

There is one crucial question everyone should ask themselves first and foremost before they dig into their childhood searching for answers about the person they have become as an adult:

Did my parents do the best they could to raise me?

If your immediate and honest answer to that question is yes, you need to understand the work is yours to do.

Chastizing your parents might feel good, but it will not get you further down the road. It will feel nice momentarily, but you will be left battling the same issues. Furthermore, you will have one or two fewer people to turn to for love, guidance, or even a hug. 

If your answer to the question is “No,” you need to talk to someone far more qualified to help you out. You do not need advice from a guy who had to fight for his life to earn a 3.0 GPA and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. 

For the “yes” people (like me), it’s time to grow up.

As an adult who is white-knuckling through this whole parenting thing right now, there are too many nights I go to sleep wishing I had done better for my kids. I resolve to be a better Dad the next day, but then I invent a new way to screw up. 

You know what I don’t need? Having my children recite my ‘greatest hits’ of failures to me twenty or thirty years from now. I wrote the music and lyrics for those chart-toppers; no one knows them better.

You know who else doesn’t need that, your parents.

They are the low-hanging fruit. They are the people desperate for you to visit or pick up the phone and call for an update on your life. You probably aren’t going to go to the effort of tracking down all the bullies and awful teachers who played a significant role in creating your shadow, so don’t put all of it on your parents. 

You don’t need to remind them that there were days they couldn’t take it anymore. The days when if they heard “mom” or “dad” one more time, they were sure they would have a psychotic break. 

Take a look at your own body of work before blaming it all on your parents. 

Does that mean you won’t trace some of your issues back to interactions with your parents? 

Of course not. 

When I’ve uncovered things, I’ve found that they are mostly silly. They wouldn’t register on my list of events on any given day of my adult life. However, they were devastating to the kid they happened to. 

As an adult, it’s silly that I still know the name of the girl who made fun of me for spelling “baby” wrong during my second-grade spelling bee and still, if I’m honest, hold a grudge. 

While it has played a prominent role in my avoiding the spotlight for any reason, personally or professionally, I’ve discovered that there is nothing that the girl or I can say about that incident that changes anything about the thirty-one years that have passed since the incident. Not to mention, she is an adult now, and while it was damaging to me, I’d guess she has no recollection of making fun of me. 

I have been spending a lot of time rounding up these silly things that make up my shadow and shining lights on them, only to find they aren’t worth thinking about, let alone driving my life choices. 

As I write this, I am thirty-nine with two children, ages seven and five. 

My parents were my age and had three children (ages 11, 10, and 8) when I was born. 

I am going to focus on my father through this example for no other reason than the fact that I grew up with Boomer parents who followed gender norms in the household. In those scenarios, our moms had the advantage of being constantly present. She had the luxury of being the parent who dolled out the love and affection at the steep cost of dealing with endless whining, fights, lying, and my two other siblings, Janie and Dave.

My Dad is the oldest of thirteen. He started delivering milk when he was young and stopped working (for the most part) just a couple of years ago.

He went to college, fought in Vietnam, attended medical school at the University of Minnesota, was a resident at Mayo Clinic, and dedicated his life to treating, healing, and saving thousands of children’s lives while maintaining a marriage and a family. That’s barely scratching the surface of his story, and I’m exhausted. 

My Dad cared for every child and family he came across. Going out with him anywhere in Minnesota as a kid was a small taste of what it would be like to have a parent who is a celebrity. We couldn’t go anywhere without a former colleague or patient stopping him to say hello and, usually, thank you. 

I have the things I have in this life thanks to the hard work my Dad put in professionally.

Did that mean there were areas where things lacked? Of course. There were events my Dad couldn’t attend when he was on call or had many patients. I don’t have what would be called an affectionate relationship with him; we don’t hug a lot or say, “I love you” often. 

It would be easy to use that as the reason I am not where I want to be in my life. It would be lovely to remove myself from all responsibility and pin it on one of the two people who gave me this life.

That is akin to mining for shit in a mountain made of gold.

I didn’t need to do any searching to know my parents gave it their all for me. I can’t exist in a day of my adult life without being able to draw a direct line to them for all of the great things I have in my life. 

I’ve found that shadow work is not the search for something or someone to blame for who I am. It’s the search for the person I truly am that I keep hidden away because of something I misinterpreted when I was younger. 

For example, I loved when people would stop my Dad and remind him of how he saved their child’s life when they were younger. I craved that kind of attention. I wanted to have a positive effect on people’s lives. Because I wanted that kind of attention, I decided I needed to be my Dad to get it. I spent a lot of my childhood convinced I would be a doctor. 

There are easier ways to get that attention, but I was an idiot kid who knew nothing about how the world worked. Is the kid who, with a broken wrist and using a cane due to a snowmobile accident, auditioned for his fifth-grade talent show by lip-syncing “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan a good judge of… anything?

Thoughts like that opened things up for me. I started coming up with more and more until I realized that I had held many beliefs about myself, my abilities, and my weaknesses since I was a kid. 

Perpetuating false beliefs I developed in childhood for so long turned me into an idiot adult who doesn’t know anything about how the world works. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized it was ‘peace’ of mind rather than ‘piece’ of mind. So, no, calling myself an idiot isn’t harsh.

If I wasn’t a reliable source of knowing what I wanted to do as a kid, then there is no way I could accurately assess what I couldn’t do as an adult. Nevertheless, I trusted my own perception of what I was capable of, allowing these baseless, limiting thoughts to spread like an infection until I had a long list of things I couldn’t do and a short list of what I could do. The problem was I had no interest in doing any of the stuff on the shortlist. 

The only thing that has been a constant want in my life is writing. I have been obsessed with writing for as long as I can remember. 

I wish the path I obsess over was more practical, like being an accountant or doing something technology-based. It’s just not the answer for me. Even if I had the aptitude for those things, I’d be miserable doing them. 

I have been miserable for a large portion of my life because I lived under the assumption that I needed to keep working through the misery to get the money, life, and time I wanted to pursue my dream. When I looked around, that was how life worked. Over time, this way of life took its toll, so I had no idea who I was anymore. 

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do in order to have what you want.”

Margaret Young

So, here I sit, typing away, hoping that Margaret is right about this one. I am doing what I want to do, which brings me more happiness between 8 AM and 5 PM on a weekday than I thought possible. 

However, I am still searching for “who I really am.”

The good news? Thirty-nine years of being a moron has given me a lot of good stories and a penchant for good humor. I’ll be sure to bring you more “wisdom” as I pull it out of the shadows.

Cheers.

My Business Trip

/ Tim Severson / 1 Comment

Watch on YouTube

Watching business travelers is one of my favorite things about going to the airport. Those who never need to tell what their airline membership status is because they are the embodiment of Platinum. 

Meanwhile, I bragged to everyone I could find when I hit Delta’s “Silver Medallion” status a year ago, hoping no one would ask the obvious next question, “What does that get you?”

“Unlimited Complimentary Upgrades.”

“So you fly First Class a lot?”

“I’ve never flown First Class,” I respond, avoiding eye contact and hoping the topic of conversation changes.

The truth is it makes me feel like I’m one of those elite people who travel for business consistently. One of those who navigate a chaotic airport effortlessly while rolling their matching carry-on and laptop bag behind in their C-Suite attire. 

I find that aesthetic far superior to that of the twenty-something who has jammed all of their clothing into an enormous backpack while dressed as a Bohemian fever dream come to life. If you’ve been to the airport, you know the outfit: Birkenstocks, pajama pants, tie-dye shirt, and a blue bandana covering their ratty dreadlocks traveling back home to Omaha. 

This preference applies exclusively within the confines of an airport. I’m hanging with twenty-something anywhere else in the world, mainly for the free weed.

It will come as no surprise that I was thrilled when presented with an opportunity to attend a three-day conference at the Georgia International Convention Center, located roughly two hundred yards from the Atlanta Airport. A fine venue to learn about the latest and greatest updates in the credit card processing industry. 

While it wasn’t glamorous, it made me feel like a grown-up. One of those moments that remind me I am, in fact, an adult, like not asking permission to buy candy at the store or buying porn at a sex shop mid-morning on a Tuesday. You know, adult stuff.

I bought a new carry-on for the trip and planned my travel outfit to be optimized for TSA. Shoes that I could easily slip on and off, jeans that fit just right without a belt, and a sports jacket to elevate it all a little bit, all in the hope I would pass as a Platinum Medallion member on a pure travel day. A look that let everyone know I wasn’t on my way to a multi-million dollar meeting today but tomorrow possibly. I even took out my laptop on the plane so that people around me would be impressed by my work ethic. At the same time, I clicked around a fake spreadsheet rather than doing any actual work. 

Now you have to wonder, who else is doing that?

The thrill of the business trip ended when I stepped off the airport tram at my hotel a mere forty-five seconds after leaving the airport.

For the next seventy-two hours, I would be forced to wear a lanyard, go to classes about the credit card processing industry, and talk to some of the biggest slime-ball salesmen the world has seen while pretending to give a shit about any of it.

On the second night of my business trip, cocktails were the solution to allow me to have a good time. I went to the hotel restaurant, sat at the bar, and watched in silent frustration as the bartender ruined the Manhattan I ordered by muddling an orange slice and two maraschino cherries in my glass. Nevertheless, I smiled when she set it on a coaster in front of me and responded with an overly enthusiastic, “Thank you, looks amazing.” 

I sat at the bar alone. People on either side of me were talking shop and introducing themselves while I hoped the liquid courage would kick in and allow me to join in. I handed my credit card to the bartender to pay for my drink. 

“I saw that,” the woman in her mid to late twenties sitting beside me said with a smirk. 

I glance at the crowded bar to either side of me to ensure this is directed at me. “You saw what?”

“Your credit card.”

Why is this woman interested in my credit card?

“Oh, yeah, I used it to pay for my drink.”

She laughed as she spun her stool to face me, taking a drink of her gin and tonic. “It’s black.”

“What is?”

“Your credit card.”

My card was black in color only. It was not the exclusive American Express Black Card she assumed it to be. Not that my US Bank-issued Visa Flex Perks Reward Card didn’t give me a pretty solid 1% cash back on my purchases. 

“Yes, it is.”

I didn’t lie. I would have probably told the truth if Ms. Credit Report had asked me if it was a Black Card specifically.

I stood up from my stool, deciding to try my luck at the bar on the other side of the hotel lobby. As I did so, the woman obsessed with my credit card introduced herself. We talked briefly about where we were from and what companies we worked for, and I retreated to the other bar. 

Fortunately, I found a few familiar faces. I had a decent enough time meeting new people and reveling in cocktails. 

Near the end of the night, I found myself stuck at a high-top table with a man who had spent his entire adult life in the credit card processing industry. If you’ve been to a professional conference, you know this guy. No matter the time of day or setting, he is talking shop. No attention is paid to your attempts to change the topic as he continues to talk about the most boring subjects while nursing a light beer for far too long. 

I gave an exaggerated stretch, preparing to deliver my excuse for needing to head back to my hotel room, when I heard a voice over my shoulder. “You owe me a drink.”

I turned, puzzled, to see the same woman from the first bar standing behind me with an empty wine glass.

“I do?”

She stared back at me, telepathically telling me to catch the hint. After a beat, I realized she was attempting to save me.

“I do,” I said, turning to the man, “Sorry. Thanks for all the information about the upcoming rate changes to Visa Corporate Cards; it will really help me out.”

I lied. He hadn’t told me anything I didn’t know, and none of the information would help me.

“Thanks, that dude was never going to stop talking. What are you drinking?”

I took her order and went to the bar to get a couple of drinks. When I returned, I found her at a high top with a couple of the familiar faces I had seen earlier. 

As the night wore on, the crowd slowly dissipated to ten people. We stood in the lobby talking.

I felt like an actual adult at a business conference in Atlanta, having cocktails at an airport Marriott with a lanyard around my neck. This was a scene I had witnessed as a kid when I would travel to conferences with my Dad. 

The bartender was counting the minutes until closing time while cleaning glasses. “Last call.” 

Hearing that, I took the last swallow of my third Manhattan. I began checking my pockets for my belongings in preparation for getting back to my room. Undoubtedly, the other adults I was gathered with were ready to call it a night.

“Anyone want another beer?”

There was a pause. The pause. This was an end-of-the-night stand-off that would be settled by the sole brave enough to answer first. 

I stare at my empty glass, hoping someone will break the silence. “Why not?”

I am not good with awkward silence, but I am good at drinking cocktails. 

Two guys from the group went to the bar and returned with enough beer in their arms for everyone to have two more beers.

Most people are grown adolescents pretending to be adults, including myself.

The night continued, and we carried on having a boisterous conversation in the empty lobby, our laughs echoing off the tiled floor. By the night’s end, I was almost exclusively talking to the woman from the bar. It turned out we had quite a bit in common, she was an easy laugh, and I had a beer in my hand—the only three ingredients I needed to morph from an introvert into an extrovert.

I continued to enjoy the conversation until the beer ran out. I was ecstatic that I wasn’t in my room watching a movie and eating terrible food. 

When the beer ran out, we all agreed it was a good night, but it was time to end it. We walked to the elevators while continuing the conversation, squeezing every last drop of fun out of the night we could manage.

An elevator door dinged, and I entered the tiny elevator with the woman from the bar and four guys from the group. We went up one floor, and the elevator doors opened.

She bites her lip while looking at me with doe eyes. “This is my floor.”

“Oh, okay. It was great to meet you,” I said with the enthusiasm of a kid who made an unexpected friend at summer camp.

“Same. I have had so much fun talking to you tonight.”

She stepped off the elevator as one of the other passengers held the door from shutting. She turned around to face the five of us left in the elevator, her eyes trained on me expectantly.

“Have a good night,” I said as the elevator doors began to close.

I saw disappointment flash across her face just as the doors clanked shut and the elevator began its ascent to the next floor. The slight lurch when it started reminded me how many Manhattans I had consumed.

One of the guys in the elevator loudly blurted. “Dude, you’re getting off on the wrong fucking floor.” 

The elevator erupted into laughter. I laughed along despite not understanding what we were laughing at.

We stopped laughing when the elevator doors opened on the next floor, my floor.

I walked off the elevator and stopped. “Wait, why did I get off on the wrong floor?”

They all chuckled, and one responded, “She wanted you to go to her room. Are you serious right now?”

The doors closed, and I heard their laughter fade as they made their way to the next floor, leaving me alone in the hushed hotel hallway. 

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been hit on in my life by someone other than my wife. I’d have to take off my socks to count the number of times she’s hit on me, so I guess you can say things are going pretty well.

Since it is so infrequent for me, I am a little slow on the uptake.

I ran through the night’s events as I walked to my hotel room. 

She got interested because of my credit card. She came and saved me from the boring conversation. I bought her a drink. She was next to me all night, even when I talked about college football with that guy. She laughed at almost everything I said, even things that weren’t funny. And she put her hand on my arm every time she laughed.

I stood in my hotel bathroom, having a staring contest with the drunk in the mirror, when I finally realized the guys in the elevator were right. 

I went to the queen-sized bed I had arbitrarily chosen as my sleeping bed when I arrived and laid down, promising myself I’d take my clothes off when the room stopped spinning.

I wake up to a hotel maid attempting to enter my room at 10 AM. Panicked, I sat up, saying, “No, thank you. Please come back later.” 

The maid apologized as the door clicked shut. 

I’m lying in the same spot I closed my eyes. I’m fully clothed except for my left sock. I glanced at the alarm clock to see I had already missed the first session of the morning for the conference, but I needed a shower to shake the hangover. I exited my room before checkout time and went down to catch the last few hours of the conference.

I filled my computer bag with the complimentary snacks available at the breakfast bar for the conference attendees. Who passes up free candy bars?

I had one more class session on my agenda. As I made my way to the class, I saw her walking towards me. I lit up with a smile, excited to see my new friend. “Hey!”

She didn’t slow down or change her expression. “Good morning.”

I walked into the class about 10 minutes before it started to see the man who had made credit card processing his life sitting at a table by himself, reading through the packet we were all given with far too much interest.

I turned on my heel and went to the tram to take me to the airport. I sat at my gate, looking the woman up on social media, not because I was interested in connecting with her but because I was terrified she had heard the laughter from the elevator. When the elevator doors shut, I pictured her assuming I had made fun of her. Fortunately, I realized there was no message I could come up with that wouldn’t leave me looking like a jerk or, worse, a creep. I turned on some music and attempted to get comfortable in my chair. 

They called me to board the plane. I snapped into elite traveler mode and made my way to the plane via the steamy and crowded jetway. I found my aisle seat next to a man, already asleep against the window, and a woman sitting in the middle seat, looking nervous. 

I placed my carry-on under the seat in front of me and unraveled my earbuds to drown out the rest of the plane.

The woman next to me was nervously thumbing the pages of her romance novel. “What is that?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, thinking that something about me and Atlanta must drive the women crazy.

She pointed to the airplane’s ceiling, “The smoke or the, umm, steam up there.”

I looked to the ceiling to see what she was talking about. The cold air from the airplane’s air conditioning, mixed with the hot and humid Atlanta spring air, was causing a steaming effect, which was amplified by the blue ambient lights on the plane.

“There must be turbulence on our flight path.”

“What?”

“The pilot must be expecting a rough ride. When they expect a rough ride, they release a little laughing gas, like what you get at the dentist, into the cabin to keep us calm,” I said, pretending this is common knowledge amongst elite business travelers.

Her face shifted from nervous to terrified.

Why the hell did I say that? I thought before saying, “I’m kidding. The pilots have the air conditioner running to try and keep it comfortable in here while people finish boarding.”

It’s the sort of joke I try to sneak past my wife, not one I tell to nervous strangers on a plane. She muttered a thanks as she opened her novel. I put my earbuds in and turned on some music. As I rested the back of my head on the uncomfortable headrest of my seat, I realized why I said what I said.

I really missed my wife.

When I got to my car at the Minneapolis airport, I resolved to leave the business trips to the experts.

Cheers. 

Holding Doors

/ Tim Severson / 2 Comments

You can find Ally here.

Watch it on YouTube

I am a big fan of small acts of kindness – gestures that may appear insignificant but potentially alter a stranger’s day.

One of my favorites is holding doors open for people. I live for the moment when a stranger’s eyes light up at an act that takes so little effort. I like to think the light I see in their eyes will, at the very least, carry them through whatever they might be going through. They may be more patient with their children or significant other or find their own small gesture that allows them to pass the light to someone else.

Because I have chosen door-holding as one of my favorite hobbies, I often find myself separated from my wife, Jenni, when we enter restaurants when I am out with her. 

I do my best to beat my wife to the door so that I can hold it for her. This gesture rarely brings a light to her eyes or even a ‘thank you,’ for that matter. Sometimes, I worry Jenni walks into doors when she is alone because she assumes all doors will open for her. 

Once, I opened her car door for her, thinking it would be an unexpected romantic gesture sure to score me big points. Jenni stopped short of the door and glared at me when she said, “Don’t do that.” 

“I thought women find it romantic?”

“Well, I don’t.”

“K,” I said, retreating to the other side of the car.

My point is, if she’s out there walking into doors when I’m not around, she deserves it. 

When we get separated entering a restaurant or bar, it typically leads to an interaction inside the building with the strangers I have already held the door for as they want to aid me in reuniting with the person I arrived with. 

As with so many things in life, these interactions have a pattern. I hold the door for my wife to see another person or people following her to the door; I continue to hold the door for them. They act as though they can’t believe the sacrifice I have made for them. When we are safely inside, they will say some variation of, “I suppose you want to be with her,” as they make room for me to rejoin my wife. 

We are never as unique as we think we are, are we?

Whether they speak or not, there is always a look of realization that I am not with the person I arrived with. 

Historically, this would be my cue to make a joke at my own expense (my favorite kind). I agree it is hard to believe a knockout like my wife is in public with me. And historically, I would get a laugh from strangers and an eye-roll from my wife.

Jenni and I recently went out on a date, just the two of us. This is a rare occurrence with a seven-year-old and five-year-old at home.

As I held the door for her to enter the cocktail bar, two women were approaching behind her. They thanked me profusely as they hurried inside to escape the below-zero temperature outside. I followed them in as my wife asked the hostess for a table for two. The women for whom I held the door were momentarily distracted as they took in the live music from the piano man right inside the main entrance. 

They both looked at me when the hostess said, “Please, follow me,” to Jenni. 

“Ope, you probably want to go with her,” one of them said as they split apart, allowing me to pass between them.

If you’re not from the Midwest, “Ope” is a colloquial term used to merge “oops” and an apology. If you need help remembering this, an excellent mnemonic device is Oops, Please Excuse me. 

“I know, I know, it’s hard to believe she’s with me,” I said with a smile. 

There wasn’t a laugh, smile, or even the patronizing sound of air being forcibly exhaled through the nose. Instead, I was met with two looks of confusion bordering on contempt. 

I followed my wife and hostess to our table, trying to sort out what had gone wrong on the short journey. 

Did I not say what I thought I said? Did I misunderstand what they said to me?

“You can’t get away with that anymore,” Jenni said, reading my mind as we sat at our table in the dimly lit bar. 

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely curious about what she picked up on that I didn’t.

“Your joke. It doesn’t work anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because you sound like a dick.” 

“Thank you. How so?”

“You can’t say that anymore,” Jenni began, with the patience of a mathematical savant being forced to explain arithmetic, “because it doesn’t work when you look the way you do now.”

“The way I look now?” I asked, attempting to seem genuinely confused so she would continue to turn the explanation into a compliment.

“Look at you in that sweater with the jacket and man-bun looking all handsome. When you look like you do now, those jokes don’t work because it sounds like you’re suggesting I’m the lucky one for being with you.”

“So, they think I’m a douchebag?”

“Probably.” 

At that moment, I felt my reality tilt slightly. It was like noticing a small detail in a painting that has hung on your wall for years that you can’t unsee but changes the way you view forever.

My entire personality is based on a version of myself that no longer exists. I have spent my life building a sense of humor based on making fun of how I appear to the outside world, or at least how I believe I appear. 

When I look in the mirror, I still see this guy: 

Picture from Holding Doors showing Tim in taking a photo in his bathroom mirror during his weight loss journey

I took this exquisite photo on May 19, 2021, about a month after I started my journey to lose weight and look the way I do now. I didn’t have the guts to take one on the first day of my journey, so believe it or not, this is me after losing twenty-six pounds. 

After looking at it that morning, I immediately saved it into my iPhone’s password-protected, hidden album. An album I assumed was for attractive people to safely store the nudes they are sent from other attractive people.

I swore to myself no one would ever see it.

I had hallucinations of what the reactions would look like on other people’s faces, ranging from outright laughter to complete disgust. I considered deleting it because I didn’t want someone to find it if I ended up dying in a car accident that day. 

Clearly, there was no fatal car crash that day. Instead, I looked at that picture at least a dozen times during the day with a continuous loop of the most hateful, nasty criticisms running through my head. 

I considered reverting to the lifestyle that led to that… physique. I was riding high when I grabbed my phone to snap the photo. The scale showed 239.2, the first time I had been in the two-thirties since eight years prior. I felt attractive, proud, and like I was making progress. One look at the picture left me devastated. 

I hated the guy in the picture. I despised him and every shitty lifestyle decision he had made since October 8, 1984. I wanted to hide. I wanted to be cast away and left alone to live my remaining days in the misery I deserved. 

In the past few months, I have discovered that the guy in that picture is not someone to hate. 

I now see a guy desperate to feel good about his appearance, even just once. He wants to put on a shirt without closing his eyes, terrified to see and be disgusted by how the shirt fits his body when he looks in the mirror. He wants to eat a meal in front of someone else without trying to calculate exactly how much he can consume before people start to think to themselves; no wonder he is so big. 

Now, that picture is on the Internet. 

Strangers worldwide can stumble across it; their reactions will run the entire spectrum of possible responses. 

I’m okay with that. Not because I had a glow-up but because I now love the guy in that picture. He worked his ass off, literally. 

He believes that he is on the path to a better existence. 

His only error is assuming that losing weight is where the work stops. God, how I wish he was right about that one.

It turns out reinventing ourselves is a lot of work, and I am still a work in progress. 

I may not know everything about who my authentic self is, but I do know a few things:

If you see me jammin’ in my car on a Tuesday morning, singing at the top of my lungs, know that I am trying to turn that Tuesday morning into a Friday morning vibe with the likes of Taylor Swift, Sia, or Ariana Grande. 

I like the idea that strangers might think I’m an attractive douchebag, as Jenni suggested. Still, I will do everything in my power to let my kindness be why people are drawn to me. 

I will never stop making fun of myself. I am far too easy of a target.

I have found my place in this universe where I previously thought there might not be one for me. I have discovered what life can look and feel like when you are happy, and I will not give it up for anything. 

I want to spread that feeling. I want to provide a break, whether through my writing, podcasting, or ridiculous videos, for anyone who needs a Friday morning vibe.

Like so many others, I have been conditioned to believe life must be a slow, miserable grind five days a week to earn two days of happiness. If you feel duped the same way I do, I would love for you to join me in staring that notion directly in the eye while enthusiastically encouraging it to get fucked.

While it doesn’t always feel like it, we are in control of how our lives play out. If there is something in your life, whether it be big or small, that you don’t like, change it. Turns out you are allowed to do that.

It won’t be easy, but the things in life worth doing rarely are.

Well, aside from holding doors.

Cheers.