People look at me sometimes and decide I’m a certain kind of guy.

Twelve years a soldier. Pentagon on September 11th. Bosnia with the engineers during Operation Joint Endeavor, where I lived in mud up to my ass for months and learned that “the troubles” is a phrase that covers a lot of ground. Two marathons, including all the absurd training that goes with deciding, voluntarily, to run that far on purpose. Currently training for my first ultra. Ran a brutal twenty mile hill race this weekend. Oldest of seven kids, which is its own kind of basic training.

I have buried my daughter. My younger sister. My father. Both my in-laws. And my dog Chloe. I am still here.

And because I think it matters, I will say out loud what a lot of men my age were taught never to say. I live with depression. I have ADHD. I carry grief. I carry PTSD. None of that makes me weak. Talking about it is one of the strongest things I do, and the world does not end when you do it. Mine didn’t.

So that is the guy people think they are getting. Tough old soldier. Unflappable. Seen things. Done things.

Now let me tell you what actually happened today.

My legs were absolutely cooked from the hill race. Everything hurt. But the rain was coming in, and the lawn needed cutting, so out I went, because that is what you do. Push through, get it done, ignore the body, beat the weather. Very tough. Very manly. A real soldier-marathoner-dad-of-the-year situation.

And then I found a dead bunny in my yard. A small one. And I, decorated veteran, ultra trainee, survivor of more than one kind of hell, walked directly into the house to get my mom to deal with it.

I am not joking. I went and got my mommy.

This is the same man who will not finish a book if the protagonist is cruel to a dog. Who has a running list of people who recommended movies without warning me about the dog. There is one of my wife’s coworkers who suggested I watch Marley and Me with no disclaimer whatsoever, and reader, that woman has not been forgiven. She will not be forgiven. The statute of limitations on Marley and Me does not exist.

My wife will also tell you, with great confidence and a little bit of glee, that she has caught me crying at more movies than I will ever admit to. Specifically: any scene where two men show real loyalty to each other. Any scene where a person looks at another person and actually sees what they are carrying. And of course, always, every single time, a dog who overcomes something.

I will deny all of this in public. She knows. She has the receipts.

Here is the thing though. I used to think those two versions of me were a contradiction. The soldier and the guy who needs his mom for yard duty. The marathoner and the man weeping at a golden retriever montage. I spent a lot of years thinking one of them had to be the real me and the other had to be something I was supposed to grow out of, or hide, or grind down until it stopped showing up.

Turns out neither one is the costume. They are both me. The mud and the marathons made the soft parts softer, not harder. Burying people you love does not turn you to stone. If anything it turns you the other direction. You get more tender, not less, because you finally understand what tenderness costs and what it is worth.

If you are out there white-knuckling some idea of what a man is supposed to be, and it is making you smaller and meaner and lonelier, you can put it down. You can be the guy who ran the marathon and the guy who cried at the dog movie. You are allowed.

Anyway. The bunny situation is resolved. My mother handled it with the calm professionalism of someone who has been bailing me out of bunny-related emergencies my entire life.

I am going to go lie down and not watch Marley and Me.

Me and CHLOE A long time ago