Coffee with Aaron
☕️ A dose of life shared by yours truly, Aaron Aiken. As if we are sitting down and having a coffee together. Written and shared with the hope that something from my life may offer assistance in yours.

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I’m not sure what to write - this is so personal

I’m with my family. My parents and my brother with his family. Mozzie is with me. We are currently in Strathmere, New Jersey. The beach house we are staying in is a connection through a connection through a connection. A weekend gift to my parents from the owners. This is my first time traveling since 2021. It is good to put Harrisburg behind me for a couple of days, Mozzie and I will be here all day tomorrow, returning late Sunday night. Something I am struggling with in my head at the moment is, well, I don’t really know what....
April 27th, 2024

popcorn

Driving home tonight I was hit with the desire for popcorn, and so I made some. Watching, actually _watching_, The Newsroom. Some quick thoughts: • I mentioned yesterday, last night, that I like self-imposed deadlines (in the context of the duffle bag I am hoping to create this week). Something else I like to do is minimize the number of materials I can use, especially when it comes to hardware and especially when it comes to zippers. I've never liked them, and so just about all of my leather designs design them out of the picture and not into it....
April 23rd, 2024

I’m looking forward to empty space

Another one of those nights where I’m tired but not tired enough to go to sleep. Well, that’s probably not true. I could absolutely go to sleep but I don’t want to. I have felt very frazzled, scattered, and overwhelmed all day and I think that writing about whatever comes out through my finger tips may help sleep to be more restful than if I were to keep things bottled up. And so here we are, an evening chat.I haven’t made much progress on my new workbench, certainly not enough progress to even begin to imagine making my first piece...
April 22nd, 2024

sunday list

Sunday napsThe past few Sunday’s I have had to take a nap just to push through the rest of the day. Usually around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and just for 30 minutes. I fall into a deep sleep, dreams and all, then wake up ready to go. Usually followed by a cup of coffee. making a list during churchSitting in a church service is one of the only times during the week when I am “forced” to sit and stay in once place. As such, my brain as time to wander to places it usually does not have...
April 21st, 2024

Playing checkers

Tuesday night we all went out for dinner to Cracker Barrel. Mozzie was in the mood for their pancakes, and Lindsay and I can always go for something there, so Cracker Barrel it was. After dinner Mozzie and I went outside on the porch where it was still relatively warm. We sat in their rocking chairs and played a game of checkers on the set they always have available for use. I think this may have been is first time playing it, which is terrible but true. Everything for his generation is screen-based and mostly single player only (multiplayer seems...
April 18th, 2024

my bike

I don’t have the energy for work but I’m not entirely ready for bed and I don’t know any in-between, so I’ll write about my bike.When I get on the thing...I don’t know. It makes me feel a certain way. Free, almost, maybe. Complete? No, too dramatic. Harmonious. That’s it. I don’t know how else to describe it. When I ride I feel in harmony. With what? Not sure, but with something. It feels natural. Similar to using hand tools, which become a very real extension of my body when I use them, riding a bike extends my body, the...
April 18th, 2024

movement

Part of me is a nomad, maybe a large part of me. I struggle to stay in one place for too long, I like to move around, see new things, allow spontaneity to guide me. Back in the day, before 2020, before work from home became the new norm, before I left my full-time corporate job, I worked in a large office building in the city. My morning routine was to wake up at 4:30 and get in a lot of personal life before leaving at 8. I’d park in the 5th Street parking garage and walk into the office,...
April 17th, 2024

A time for everything

When I have a thought, or an idea, or a thing I want to do, I write it down. I write it in the notebook I carry in my back right pocket. I write it on the next empty space below the last item of my current list. I write it there knowing that I will likely not get to it today, but trusting that I will at some point in the future. It will be migrated from day to day, notebook to notebook, until it is crossed off, delegated, or deemed not something I’m actually going to do. I...
April 12th, 2024

Being aware

I’ll keep this vague because the details don’t matter as much as my reaction to them does, or the lack of my reaction. We have very limited control of things in life, mostly only in control of our words and actions. Everything else, the words and actions of others, is out of our control. This means that people are going to say things or do things that we may not particularly appreciate or agree with. That’s fine, there’s nothing we can do about it. Our reaction is what counts. In the past I would have wallowed in self-pity, abused alcohol,...
April 11th, 2024

Counter intuitive

“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.  ~ Martin Luther” When the days begin to feel short, when time seems to be lacking, when life starts to feel like more of an uphill battle than it usually is, I am tempted to skip routines so that I “have more time.” In the past this is what I would have done, turning on a dime. Now, though, a few years wiser (I hope), I understand that it is my very routines that take time that will help to see me through the...
April 10th, 2024

Addressing the elephant in the room

Lindsay and I have never actually talked about our marriage since separating and the subsequent divorce. And don’t worry, I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty details here, I think that will be better to get into on a separate blog intended to cover such topics in more detail. What I want to capture here is the fact that we had the conversation. We talked about growing up. We’ve known each other since around 1999 or so. Grew up around the same people. Lived in the same area. Our families know each other from growing up and going...
April 9th, 2024

Getting in my own way

Someone once told me that they thought I needed to play competitive sports, do something competitive, anything competitive! I declined. They asked why. I said that I compete with myself. I am my own competition. I set up my own hurdles to jump over. I set the bar very high for myself, sometimes I land it most times I don’t. I don’t need to play a game or sport against others to get the satisfaction of competing. I push myself. I am self-motivated, self-driven. Both a blessing and a curse. I am also extremely hard on myself. While I may...
April 8th, 2024

drinking, memories, dating

“People say they drink to forget. When I drink I remember. I remember things I thought lost. I experience emotions I thought stifled. My eyes threaten tears that never fall. ” That quote above is from an email I wrote to someone a few weeks ago. She writes on Substack, or used to, about post-divorce life and I find a lot of her perspective and thoughts to be helpful to me. One of her posts prompted me to write an email reply and I’m not sure if she ever received it, but the line above was included and it has stuck...
April 8th, 2024

Time to Settle

I have been on “high alert” for a while, 6 months actually. I didn’t realize it while in the midst of things but looking back...yeah, wow...that actually helps to explain a few things regarding my physical state near the end of that time period and my mental state, too. Prior to last October I was working full-time as an I.T. consultant, CSI Manager to be a bit more precise. It was a job that I fell into, made up as I went along, never really wanted. It was a necessary evil in 2013 and I became comfortable as time went...
April 5th, 2024
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