Shaking the Snowglobe

Last week was one of the best of my life, and it feels like a good moment to be grateful for all the reasons that made it so special. And perhaps, lucky.

My family has a bit, that is funny and at times true, that I am blessed with immeasurable amounts of luck. 

“Uncle Evan, how did you get your Uncle Evan luck?”, my nephew JP, looking up with real curiosity, asked me on Easter Sunday. We all laughed about it at the kitchen table, painting eggs (which we forgot to boil, so it was kind of precarious), and eating Easter brunch. But I’ll be honest, the narrative of my Evan luck does not always sit well with me.

For starters, and a quick qualification, I certainly am lucky. I think about where I was born, when I was born (despite the problems of our society, I still think anyone arguing there was a better time to be alive and an average human is really mistaken), and the loving family I was born to. That all kind of guaranteed a certain kind of fortunate life. Yet, I think about the harder things that have happened. The way my life has felt. And the way it seemed at times, as if, if I were to not do anything about it, it would continue to feel that way forever.

I remember the first real decision I made for myself. I was fourteen, a one hundred and five pound freshman at Choate Rosemary Hall, living in Memorial House with all the other boarding student boys in their first year at the school. I loved Choate when I arrived for pre-season soccer – I got along with the other new students and made fast friends, and was enamored with our dewy grass fields deep in the Wallingford woods. The transition from pre-season to the true school year though, was rough. Turns out those other soccer first years were day students, and turns out that there is a bit of a social dynamic between boarders and non-boarders, and turns out that according to the boarders, soccer is super lame and my posters of Chelsea FC players on my wall meant that I was too. You have zero clue who you are at age fourteen, and as a person who has always lived up in my own head at times (writing helps with this), I was in constant internal dialogue with who I wanted to be, who these other students seemed to want me to be and what this school wanted me to be. For the first time life felt very hard. Like I was chopping my way directionless through a jungle, with a dull machete. 

Amidst the mental distraction and what I’d call bullying, bad grades ensued (I partially blame bad teachers. There is an irony that private schools do not require their educators to have degrees, and many of my teachers were just washed up ex-Choate students). I went home often, and soon decided that all I wanted, all I wanted in the world was just to go to Greenwich High School and play soccer with the guys that I had grown up playing with. Nothing else really mattered. I lobbied my parents, who understood, and I lobbied Choate, who were incredibly unhelpful, save for one Mr. James. He was the closest thing I had in my life to a therapist before I discovered what that actually was in my late twenties. 

So eventually, I was lucky. My parents loved me enough to work out the logistics to get me out of that school and put me in GHS. And also, I made a decision for myself. I knew something was wrong, and that I wanted something different for my life. And when I got to GHS I never forgot that choice. I worked hard, and I played soccer with the guys I grew up with until I watched the clock run out on a scoreboard in our final game together. I went home that night and hugged my Dad and cried, partially because of the defeat, and it all being over. But also because of the gratitude that I was on that field with my friends in the first place. I felt proud to have gotten myself there.

Another seminal choice I made was to move to California and work for Affirm. Again, I was lucky. Very lucky. My brother-in-law’s cousin’s then girlfriend and now wife knew a guy who knew a guy that worked there, and he was willing to refer me to another team that was hiring. I hated my job in consulting with a passion, and I was confused as to why I felt so frustrated to be there (turns out I am very sensitive). Somewhat in reaction to the indecent recommendations we made to our consumer bank clients as to how to extract more fee based income from their customers, I began reading about the “underbanked” section of the US. People who find alternative sources for loans, and put their money in community based savings to avoid institutions they are convinced screw them over. This grew into a genuine passion, and I started reaching out to tech companies that seemed to be operating in the space. I felt so confident when I spoke to Affirm, the company I would eventually join, that I somewhat glossed over the intended responsibilities I would hold – predicting the company’s topline revenue at various levels. I remember in college vowing to never be a coder – I am a people person! Yet something about coding seemed helpful, and a ticket to a life where I didn’t need to do as much work that I hated. I told Affirm that I was a self taught Python guy and could handle whatever they threw at me. 

There is one narrative of what happened next that really fits the Evan Luck model. Affirm grew massively over the next few years, IPO’d, and I watched people become multi millionaires overnight. This event changed my life forever. Now, I played zero role in making this happen. Max Levchin, the CEO, made this happen and no one else. But, I did survive it. And that was not easy. 

A month after I arrived in San Francisco, the pandemic hit. I was thrusted inside my bedroom by the Panhandle with a tiny little window, and was interrogated every single day by Affirm executives wanting to know answers to impossible questions. “When do you predict travel will come back?”, “How many more pelotons can be sold in the US?”, “Why is this mattress company outperforming that one?”. A twenty four year old does not know that they are not supposed to know the answers to those questions. So I worked tirelessly, not efficiently, making and remaking and remaking predictions stratified to every cut of granularity possible. 

This period of time is a blur, but one moment stands out in sharp detail. I had gone home to Greenwich to be with family for a bit, and we were meant to travel in the morning to Naples, Florida (where the pandemic did not really exist). I stayed up all night on my laptop making minor changes to a forecast, begging it to look remotely sensible to send to our CFO. I was frozen in place making changes. I pulled myself up at one point to the bathroom, and just stared into a corner, utterly broken in my brain. This, did not feel lucky. Nor healthy. Nor worth it. I woke up in the morning to my Dad asking me where my bags were, to which I responded that I had no bags, and that I wasn’t going to be making it on this trip. I was depleted. I didn’t even have words to describe what was going on with me.

I don’t mean to say I had the most traumatic experience, it’s just to paint a picture that that was not a healthy job. I did not like it, and way too much was expected of me. But I made a decision for myself to take a hard job, in a burgeoning industry, at a time when interest rates were low and growth was high. The pandemic super charged Affirm’s growth and because of my hard work the company awarded me with a tiny amount of equity that gave me some freedom to think about what else life could look like. I switched off the finance team to another group that seemed more relaxed, and interesting. Every person besides one on my finance team told me I was making an objectively bad choice for my career – but I figured that it was my life and I was welcome to find that out for myself. If anything has been true in my life, it’s that I’ve looked for opportunities to go out there and make my own mistakes.

Fortunately, I think I worked through all the trauma from my initial Affirm tenure via 30 days of skiing up in Tahoe each of the next two years. I have to thank my manager in that period, Faizaan, for constantly reminding me to actually live my life.

Towards the end of my time in California, I could feel the distance from my family. I moved back to NYC, and I knew in my heart the real reason was to be back closer to family. At some point you have to look around and contend with the fact that you’re from where you’re from, and your people are where they are, and mine are all in the EST time zone. The word I had in my head was “available”. I wanted to be available. Rory, my niece, is the one who ultimately brought me home. I was leaving the Skirkanich’s in New Jersey, not having yet decided to return to NYC, and I told Rory that I would see her soon. “It wasn’t very soon last time,” she said. I just stared at her, shocked that an eight year old was capable of something like that. 

So I moved back, which was not easy. I could feel my brain return to me slowly, remembering the smells and the sensibilities of not just visiting home but being home. I had so many questions for myself. Would the hobbies, and interests I loved in California come with me? Or were those going to stay out there? Were they who I was or just where I was? I had no idea. I pulled myself off the floor of my parents room and just tried to commute into work every day. Eventually I got an apartment, and I took my life back over.

I saw my life start to take shape, and to form. Writing, which I began in earnest in California, had come with me. And it took me to the Center for Fiction, where I found even more people with the same passion. Caring for the outdoors came with me too; instead of pulling weeds in the Presidio, I was cleaning off oyster shells on Governor’s island. I worked hard in person, and hit a creative but jovial stride there. I saw my parents, I saw Nana Betty, I saw my sisters. I spoke with the strangers of New York, the kindest strangers out there. I saw nearly every friend from my life I had made before the age of 25, who have all gathered here. I started to do ambitious things. I decided to try and create a writing sample to possibly submit to MFA programs. I found the beautiful nature in the city where I could, mainly down in Rockaway beach. 

So skip ahead a little bit and I arrive to last week. What I’ll call the week of my life. Not necessarily the best (though I think it was). Just, “the week”. Because the way it looked, and how it felt, is the accumulation of choices that I’ve made and the luck that I’ve had. A life I feel I’ve carved for myself, to look and feel a certain way, out of the slab of stone I was born with. 

Last Tuesday, I went home to Greenwich for my 30th birthday celebration. I looked around the room at the restaurant, at the loving cast of characters I typically get to see on Thanksgiving. It’s impossible not to see the full room without noticing its absences, but there is something still comforting about noticing who is not there. It gets you thinking about those people; Denise, Great Aunt Fran, Grandpa Bob. I bopped around the room giving hugs, and giving my happiness for having everyone in the room. I said a few words to everyone when dinner came, that I was so happy to be back and feeling available to everybody. I think it’s unlikely, were I still in SF, that I would have been in that room with all those people. 

I loved all of the gifts, and the cards. Niel gave me these patches from a 1965 trip to Grenoble, France. I stared in awe at their tidy embroidery, and an odd but now obvious thought came to mind. Niel loves France, and Frances. My mom gave me the gift of a walking tour in Williamsburg to the locations of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, to the places that Francie (full name Frances), the main character in the book, spends her time. Francie wants to be a writer in that book, and from what I’ve heard, Great Aunt Fran wanted to be one too. It was impossible, reading the book alongside my Mom, not to see the comparisons of Francie’s Irish Catholic matriarchal family in Brooklyn to the McBride family and Fran in particular, in the Bronx. 

All my Great Aunts love me dearly, and are the kind to come up to me at a holiday, pinch my cheek and tell me they can’t believe how much I’ve grown. I love this. Great Aunt Fran though was a slightly different ilk, slightly more serious, I always felt like she was observing me. The year before she passed away she came up to me at Thanksgiving and told me she had read the entirety of this blog, which I had no clue she even knew about. She looked at me with this air of, what I can really only call suspicion. “It was very, very good Evan. I liked it.” It was almost like she was confused that I hadn’t made more of a thing of it, or that I had the job I had and yet also spent my time this way. When my Mom gave her eulogy for Fran (FRANCES! MACKBRIDE!), she described Fran’s unique ability to make you feel like the most special person in the room, in the world. I was tearfully grateful to have that memory of her at Thanksgiving while sitting in the pew.

Kelly, my fairy godmother, gave me a box of records that she had conjured out of thin air, despite all of her own having burnt in a house fire. My sisters gave me tickets to a concert. Richie gave me whiskey. And my Dad gave me a belly deep laughing fit, as he sang a song about my wanderlust that no one will ever forget. Ronnie gave me the line to remember, “Happy thirtieth, you won’t be seeing twenty nine again!” that for whatever reason put a smile on my face. At the behest of the maitre de I let go of the 30th birthday balloon and watched it curl and loop into the sky, out of view way faster than I expected.

And that was only Tuesday.

My friend Stephanie and I both left our car wash software company a few weeks ago. I felt it was my time to go when the company announced a 30% layoff. I effectively automated my job there, via an Italian AI agent I created named Massimo. It was funny, and very very real. Massimo is now effectively that company’s main corporate strategy (“You can do more with Mo!”). Steph told the company if they fired anyone on her team she would leave out of principal, and stuck to her guns. While at Rinsed, we started an internal newsletter together that made people just a bit happier to come to work and practice some of their creative side. We had the thought of trying to facilitate the same idea at other companies, and over a few weeks built out a web app and got our first customer. We launched with them on Wednesday and I felt some pride at hitting that milestone with someone I consider a great friend. The idea is to make money, and it is to also inspire people to connect slightly deeper to their place of work and to do so through writing. We will see where this idea lands, but if I can make it work out I’ll be a happy camper. It doesn’t feel like working at all (so far). I was lucky to join this startup where I met Steph in the first place. Funny enough though, she was the reason I initially joined. My friend Nick in San Francisco told me his best friend Steph from high school worked at this Car Wash startup where I had landed an interview, and that he trusted her judgement.

On Thursday, I went to see my drum teacher’s band perform at a small venue in Bushwick, and brought along my best friend Kurt and his girlfriend Sinclaire. Kurt and I drove to high school every day together, and I spent many nights on his family’s couch. He is a brother to me. And we have never ever lived in the same city, until now. Dancing around with him, listening to this epic rock band who I was only there to see because I texted this guy off of a flyer I saw at a bagel shop, I felt lucky again. And, I knew that I was there because I had decided to be.

Friday I drove to Bronxville, to attend an admitted students day at Sarah Lawrence college. This post is getting long so here is the short of this one – one day in San Francisco I stumbled upon a place called the Writer’s Salon. I was desperate for an in person experience, and to find community, so I signed up for a class called Raw Writing. I had a feeling I might like it. Turns out I loved it, and loved the people. An instructor I met there named Kathy Garlick became a real mentor, and she was the instigator for me to try out applying to MFA programs. She had attended Sarah Lawrence a while back, so this program was always anchored in my brain as one I might like. I applied there and was just completely shocked I got in. Friday night was an admitted students night, and I was curious if I would feel some sort of sign that I should actually go to this program. Well, the night was sort of a string of right-in-my-face signs that I really ought to do it and I submitted my deposit the next morning.

Saturday morning I went surfing, there was a beautiful sunrise. Then I met up with my close college friends and old roommates, Jack and Collin, for what we were calling a 91st birthday party. From the moment we arrived to this Mexican restaurant for a 12 person dinner with unlimited margaritas, to the end of the night as we looked around a bar we had taken over with 40+ people (we gave all of our friends birthday party hats so we could find them anywhere in the crowded bar), we were laughing and having the best time. 

Sometimes you catch a wave (unlike Saturday morning) and the only thing there is to do is look up towards the beach and enjoy it as long as possible. Sunday night, I finally arrived to the shore, tuckered out and ready for bed. 

I look at my life this past week, and now, and what it seems to be going forward. I see my family, and I see work that is meaningful, and I see friends that I love, and I see the ocean and time outside, and I see in the writing community “my people” – a bunch of way up in their heads little weirdos. And I know I’ve been lucky. But I also know that luck and life are what you make of it. 

One time I was on a video call with our family friend Fady Rizk, who had been very sick. I was walking around MidTown wishing him good health when a bird pooped right on top of my head and shoulder. I was stunned. Fady seemed excited though.

 “Evan, Evan did a bird just poop on your head? Is this what is happening right now? That a bird is pooping on your head?” 

“Yes Fady! God, can you believe it, what bad luck.”

“Evan in my culture this is incredible luck! This is the most amazing news!”

And to think I was only pooped on because I decided to walk outside and call my friend.