An Explanation of an Absence

Why I Disappeared, Why I Stayed, and What 2025 Holds

I write to you from a room that became my universe for almost three years.

It started as a former dentist's office—all clinical walls and empty corners. The anesthetic white tiles that once echoed with drill sounds now lie hidden beneath wooden flooring I laid down myself, plank by plank. A bright red door stands in a floating frame, a whimsical homage to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, leading nowhere but to imagination. Next to it, what appears to be a blue wall is actually a Hollywood sleight of hand—a trick I learned and adapted to transform the space. Sound panels filled with organic fiberglass line strategic corners, transforming a sterile medical chamber into something approaching a home.

But I wasn't done. I took a hammer to the walls, carefully breaking through in strategic spots, and sliced through old metal lockers to create a continuous track that circles the entire room. Now, a Lego train makes its endless journey around my little world, a reminder that movement and stillness can coexist. Each addition was an act of reclamation, of making the clinical personal, of turning sterile into sacred.

My bed lay directly on the floor until I taught myself woodworking and built a Murphy bed from scratch. My desk was a rescued piece of furniture, saved from the curb and nursed back to health, its termite-riddled wood telling stories of its own rebirth. A tiny red college fridge hummed in the corner, with my only art portrait a refrigerator magnet of Edgar Allan Poe, his “magnetic” gaze watching over my modest meals cooked on a single burner.

This wasn't rock bottom. This was ground zero.

For someone raised on jet fuel, learning to be still was like learning to breathe underwater. In five years, I have taken exactly two round-trip flights—both quick hops to Cartagena. That's it. The child of a flight attendant, a person who'd visited 50 countries, who ping-ponged between New York and Los Angeles like it was a daily commute, suddenly found himself grounded.

The silence was deafening at first. Then it became a teacher.

Medellín: An Accidental Love Story

I never meant to stay in Medellín. Not for a day longer than necessary. I came here to help my cousin—who was living here—navigate a trip home to get back surgery at Johns Hopkins, armed with my Spanish and memories of friends from a 2012 visit. It was meant to be a pit stop, a comma in my life's sentence, not a period.

Then the world stopped spinning.

As airports shuttered and borders sealed, my temporary stay stretched into eight months (that’s how long the pandemic shut down travel in Colombia), then a year, then two. What started as an inconvenience evolved into something else entirely—a cocoon where transformation happened in slow motion.

At sixteen, I lost my father. It's the kind of loss that becomes a lens through which you view everything else—relationships, success, failure, time itself. My family spent years trying to reassemble the puzzle of our lives, but some pieces will always be missing, forever lost under some rug, perhaps decomposing in the belly of a Jack Russell Terrier. That absence shaped me in ways I'm only now beginning to understand.

When the pandemic hit, it stripped away everything external: the convertibles, the red carpets, the carefully constructed facade of "having it all." Like a snake shedding its skin, I watched as layers of my former life peeled away. The dentist's office became my chrysalis, and in that spare space, something new began to take shape.

I learned piano keys from my 61-key Casio keyboard could be companions. Books became friends again. Wood and tools taught me patience. In reducing my world to its essential elements, I found something I hadn't realized I was missing: purpose.

The epiphany, when it came, wasn't a lightning bolt. It was more like dawn breaking—gradual, inevitable, beautiful. I discovered that clarity isn't about having all the answers; it's about finally asking the right questions. Who am I without the trappings of success? What do I want to build with these hands, this mind, this heart?

Now, I'm launching A Texas Nomad—a newsletter that's really a conversation about reinvention, creativity, and the courage to start over. It's free, it's honest, and it's my way of sharing what I've learned about the art of beginning again.

Every story, every lesson, every reflection will find a home on Substack, creating a roadmap for others who might find themselves in their own chrysalis moment. While this post bares my soul, or attempts to, future newsletters will explore the projects that have grown from this period of transformation—ventures that align with who I've become rather than who I thought I should be.

I considered offering free Medellín tours to subscribers, but let's be honest—I'd do that anyway for anyone who asked. For now, you get my gratitude, which I promise is worth more than it sounds. Maybe later I'll figure out something clever involving coffee mugs or stickers. Let's say the first mug's on me.

The newsletter (ATN) is and will always remain free.

👉 https://a-texas-nomad.beehiiv.com/

If you're reading this from your own version of a dentist's office—metaphorical or literal—know that sometimes the most important journeys happen in place. Sometimes you have to stop moving to find your direction.

Thank you for waiting while I found mine. The road ahead is clear now, and I'm ready to drive forward—with purpose, with intention, and with you along for the ride.

Let's make 2025 a year of authentic beginnings.

Warmly,

Edward