The Little Boy Inside
On learning to grow up when nobody showed me how.
Brian Callaway writes The Midlife Sherpa and coaches men and women through the long middle of life. The essays are where the work begins.
A middle-aged maladaptive man. That's what I am.
I'm Brian. I look like I’m fifty on the outside. But inside? I think and react like a little boy, because in a lot of ways, I still am one. I lost my childhood to alcoholism and abuse.
What happened to me wasn't right.
I am a flawed, often unsatisfied human, restless and needy. Looking for attention and admiration and acceptance and the answer. To what? I don’t know. I just know there is an answer. And a question.
Welcome to my brain.
I am a world-class avoider. I’ve built a whole toolkit, born from trauma survival, for sidestepping anything that feels like vulnerability, conflict, or stress. Real or imagined, it doesn’t matter. I’ll find the exit.
For decades I drank myself to sleep.
Until all the good times I was having, missing the good times, became bad times. I don’t do that anymore.
Now I have several “healthy” ways to dodge being present like chugging through dozens of crosswords and sudoku spin-offs, running more miles than beneficial, imploding into the couch to watch Scandinavian Netflix crime shows in their native language, vibe coding unnecessary exercise apps (that never work), chatting up anyone employed in a public-facing customer service position - much to my kids’ shock, and so on.
Kids. Yes, I am the fortunate father of two fierce firecrackers who far surpass me in emotional maturity. In what may be the most white-knuckle thing I have ever faced, I am a Dad-Work-in-Progress, a Dwip, if you will. Dwipping about the house, trying to relate, entertain, and be effective in a role that nobody prepared me for, and is especially humbling when I am grappling with my own growing pains.
Somehow I married a woman patient enough to stay. Others didn’t. She sees the good in me on days I can’t, and resets every morning without a grudge hangover. That humbles me.
I do adore my family, while still learning to love myself. There wasn't a role model for that either. Big surprise. What I did master were these self-taught, handy tools before puberty:
How to instantly read a room and identify danger
Appease, fawn and feign interest
Avoid conflict and discomfort
Bruises may go away, but the pain does not
Make them laugh, it feels just like love (later, I realized a hug would have been better)
Drink what they drink and everything will be okay
That’s the operating system I ran on for my entire life.
It wasn’t the most ideal mode of living. Making mistakes as an adult is brutal, especially when they seem hardwired and baked into my DNA. I’m not rotten. I just wasn’t dealt the same cards as people who had smoother childhoods. I stumble, and occasionally, I let those closest to me down.
Good will and apologies were all I had to offer, until I almost lost it all. Facing the reality of being alone, it suddenly punched me in the face: no one is going to save me. There is no reset button.
I didn’t get a do-over.
But I got something else.
A way forward.
And it started with the most controversial move I’d ever made.
I went vegan.
(I was desperate.)
My wife and I nicknamed this era “The Apex of Gordo,” when I maxed out the scale to 255 pounds. Fun fact: I couldn’t sit down and tie my shoe without breaking a sweat and running out of breath. Notice ‘shoe’ was not plural. I’d have to take a knee for a minute before tying the other shoe.
Anyway, fifteen years ago, inspired by Bill Clinton’s weight loss and my dad’s heart attack, I chose to forego all animal products with the hope of stopping heart disease, and not ending up like my dad. (And maybe I could shed some pounds like Bill.) In retrospect, it was the first time in my adult life that I made a life-changing choice as a big boy—all by myself, and not worried about what other people thought. Once I was completely vegan, it wasn’t long before the pounds flew off, blood pressure plummeted and I learned the most important lesson of my life.
Small physical choices, when completed, generate self-confidence.
Since that first bowl of gazpacho, I lost over 70 pounds (and kept it off). Fueled by purpose and for the first time, proof, I pushed on and drastically overhauled my health. I ran 50 miles around Mt Hood in a day (and thousands of miles a year), built muscle (entirely after 50), and stopped the daily drinking.
Slowly, I began to imagine— could this work on the inside too? Maybe it is possible to communicate maturely, slow down my knee-jerk reactions? Could it be the damage is reversible? With renewed optimism I set my sights on resuscitating my marriage.
Confidence, it turns out, is transferable.
My relationships, my communication, my reactions — everything about me that I thought was calcified — suddenly had room to shift. I rewired, softened, matured. And guess what? My wife and I will celebrate 19 years of marriage, honestly, closer than ever.
The inside work isn’t easy. Will it ever be? I don’t know. I doubt I’ll ever fully quash the reptilian reflex that has moved my mouth in ways my rational brain is still trying to figure out, and atone for. My little boy is still there, still pissed and I imagine, will always be questioning, butting in, reacting without thinking.
The work is in the baby steps. One conflict at a time. Giving him space. Embracing the idea that he is me. And he’s a badass because he rescued me from my childhood and for that, I am indebted, and forever grateful.
To accept is to love.
And you know what?
Loving myself feels pretty good.
My family thinks so too.
Brian Callaway is The Midlife Sherpa. He writes here every week and coaches one-on-one at themidlifesherpa.com.
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Boy, I can relate to this, Brian!