While the other kids ran ahead toward the playground, I walked silently alongside my teacher. Her keys jingled and jangled as she tossed them into the air. My hands gesticulated abstractly, sketching shapes only I could see.
Anyone watching probably would have assumed that I had done something wrong, and this was my punishment. But this was my choice, every day. My teacher had taken to calling me her "little old man", because I walked when other kids ran.
I wasn’t bored. I was busy. There were worlds within me.
In one of those worlds, I was a super hero. I was strong enough to do impossible things. In one of my heroic quests, I had to punch through the moon to reach what the big bad villain had hidden inside. No spaceship. No laser. Just will and momentum. Plus the unshakeable certainty that the moon was not as solid as it pretended to be.
I grew up assuming everyone lived like this. That everyone was driven by the instinct to create worlds. As I grew older and became aware of the more nuanced, adult machinery of life, it baffled me that our society seemed almost engineered to sand that impulse down. Over time, I came to understand: most people don’t feel that pull at all.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just hard to grasp when my own mind never stops humming. My brain works how it works, and imagining a different configuration still feels like trying to picture a color I've never seen.
When the world told me that it was time to put away childish things, I chose a practical path.
I went to a practical college. Earned a practical degree. Took a practical job. Built a practical life. And truly, no complaints. I have an incredible wife and two fun-loving boys. I have privilege. I have comfort.
But comfort, it turns out, is a siren's song.
The first time I was laid off, in 2021, it was executed with impressive precision. I joined my regularly scheduled one-on-one with no prior suspicion. My boss delivered the news with no apology or explanation. The call ended. My screen went black. My company-issued computer restarted itself, remotely controlled, wiping everything clean. My removal had been planned as meticulously as a bank heist.
Later, I learned this had happened to nearly every other management-level employee in the company. The lesson was hard to miss: in corporate America, employees are as disposable as files in the recycle bin.
I did the practical thing again. I found another job.
But something had cracked open.
Through the calcified layers of adulthood pushed the child who wanted adventure, who needed to make things. The child who remembered that the moon could be broken if you hit it hard enough. That crack led me to launch a podcast about gamebooks, recording over forty episodes. It led me to tabletop roleplaying games. It led me to create One Night Worlds.
But practicality pulled me back in. I landed another job. Then another. At first, I kept creating. Then I let myself get busy. I told myself I was prioritizing what mattered, practically speaking.
Then the illusion shattered again.
I had been thoroughly exhausted, and hadn't noticed. Unsatisfied. Unfulfilled. Slowly dying in a way that doesn’t announce itself but drains color from everything. Depressed, quietly and thoroughly.
But there was a light inside. A crack that had never closed. Those layers of calcification were brittle now. The inner child was no longer patient. He wasn’t asking anymore. He was pushing, over and over; reminding me that the moon had always been hollow.
So I talked to my wife.
Living with ADHD means my attention scatters easily. I finished college because of Crystal. I succeeded in my career because of Crystal. When we had kids, I kept succeeding because of Crystal. I am a wide spectrum of blinding light. She is a perfectly refined lens. When she focuses me, I can burn through steel.
I asked her if she was happy.
She said yes. Of course she did. She has everything she ever wanted. She has to be happy. Right? Right?
Then I asked another question. Was she fulfilled? Thoughtful silence. No. Not really.
We used to stay up late dreaming. Big plans, unusual paths, one of a kind lives. Wandering. And here we are instead: the suburbs, a big mortgage, no income, and the unsettling sense that we’d mistaken practicality for safety.
So we’re planning again. Not escape fantasies. Not imaginary worlds. Real steps. Real movement. The kind that will leave bruises.
I’ve spent my whole life pretending the moon was solid.
With Crystal to focus me, I’m ready to punch through it.
Thanks for reading. This is a place where I write my most intimate thoughts about my life and work. I'll occasionally post public articles like this one. I also post weekly creative journals in my private newsletter The Wandering Workshop. Click here to join. Your support would mean the world to me.
Right now I'm working on launching Terminus X7Z, a scifi TTRPG about scientific discovery, cultural exchange, and political tension. Follow it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brianhazzard/terminus-x7z