Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 13 — The Unspoken Things Chapter Dedication: Thomas Joseph Karlin, May 2, 1994-November 5, 2011 and every other human who died as a result of the pain of sexual abuse and/or assault.

“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.” Emma Donoghue

This photo of Kylee is before a radio interview back in 2014 with Les Norman, former Kansas City Royals outfielder and current radio host of Breakin’ the Norm. On his show, he takes an introspective look into sports and life. Other than Kylee’s interview, I hadn’t known much about the show and hadn’t ever listened to it. After the interview I started following Les on social media, but rarely saw a post from him on Facebook until I caught this one and took a screenshot of it.

It was odd that I even saw it because I usually only open Facebook at night, but on this particular morning I happened to open the app and it was the first thing that popped up. For a reason I couldn’t understand, given the topic of a Girldad author with young children, I felt like I was supposed to listen to this show. There was no way that I could listen to it when it aired live that afternoon, and the only other time it mentioned was Saturday morning at 7 a.m., which I really didn’t like the idea of.

Friday night rolled around, and I tried to talk myself out of setting my alarm to wake up that early. It just seemed silly because I don’t have little girls and I’m not a dad. What could the purpose be? But ultimately, the feeling won, and I set my alarm to wake up at 6:55 a.m. I really did enjoy the show and was glad I listened, but when I went downstairs to start the day, I had another feeling: that I was supposed to sit down and write to Dr. Sowers. That felt even sillier than listening to the show, but it didn’t go away, so I figured I needed to listen to the prompting. Then I realized there was the issue of how to get the message to him. I searched around social media and his website, but didn’t see a way to email him directly, so I looked to see if I had Les’ s email from when we coordinated the interview for Kylee. I didn’t find one, but looked on the show’s website and saw one, so thought it was worth a shot. I didn’t really expect to hear back from him, and I figured there’s no way he could be the one to sift through all the emails that come into a show’s inbox. Knowing it was unlikely he would ever see it that way, I moved on to my back-up plan. I remembered recently running into someone I hadn’t seen in at least six years who would definitely be able to get the email to Les. When these things arise and it seems like I’m a dog with a bone about something, it is always because the feeling won’t leave me alone. These are not thoughts; they are feelings that just won’t go away. And that is when I know for sure it is important and I need to listen and do whatever it is, even when it’s a little embarrassing. However, most of the time, people are even kinder than I expected, and this was one of those times.

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