Living here is like trying to build a house in the middle of a storm—every day you’re shoveling mud, but the wind keeps blowing it back. I miss my mom’s cooking, but I’m learning to fix things, and that feels real. I’m not the same kid from Queens who thought he’d just go to college and come back. I’m tired, broke, and smell like soap and regret, but I’m still here. That counts for something.

Yes, I’ve become more patient with delays, but I still get impatient when people don’t stand up for each other. I used to just do my job and keep quiet. Now I notice when someone’s being pushed around—and I speak up. That’s not who I was before. I care more about fairness, even if it means pushing harder.

The quiet of the water at dawn, when the mist lifts off the lake and the only sound is the creak of a hull settling in the swell—like the world holding its breath. And the way the cedar smells when you’re sanding it, clean and sharp, like a promise. I like that no one here asks me to be anything but a man with hands that still know how to make things. I’m not the same man I was when I left Maine. I used to build boats to carry people across the sea. Now I build nothing but memories, and still, the wood remembers me.