Radio Manu, Papa Tzango

Don't be skilful!

Hey Chris and fellow tangential thinkers.

This is a dean coming to you from my house in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I've been living

with three of my best friends for the last year and a half, exploring what life is like

outside of the states and teaching English and building community out here.

And 2019 just ended, so I've been looking back at the year and kind of reflecting on what

was an amazing year in a lot of ways and also without hyperbole the hardest year of my

life.

This summer I experienced the end of the first great love of my life, which I say, believing

that most of us are blessed with multiple.

But man, if before this love felt like stealing spare change from the loose pockets of the universe,

this was a fucking bank robbery and it really consumed me for about two years and then

ended in a really painful way.

And so it's been really forcing me to bringing up a lot of growth that I have to do and

a lot of processing.

And then in October I spent the last two weeks of my grandmother's life taking care of

her as she died of cancer, which was both an incredible struggle, but also such a blessing.

And sitting in the room with her every day, talking to her, reading to her, and really meeting

death for the first time in my life, sitting there when she took her last breath, which was

a really profound experience, which I'm still trying to integrate.

And in the midst of all this, I really appreciate having this community of fellow humans trying

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