Illustration of Derek Powazek by Adam Ellis

I can’t complain.

I talk to my grandma most weekends. She’s an amazing woman. She lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, and yet, every time I call her and ask how she’s doing, her answer is, “I can’t complain.”

She probably said the same thing when she was homeless in Siberia. In winter.

I think, for her, to complain is to invite disaster. The same goes for happy, too. Never brag, or consider yourself lucky, because then it’ll go away. It’s superstitious, sure, but grandma Powazek has been right more than she’s been wrong. I trust her.

That’s why, when I think about how great things are going right now, with the company and the magazine and the wife and basically everything, it fills me with equal parts excitement and dread. Maybe it’s the grandma in me, but I just don’t want to think about how lucky I am right now, for fear it will all go poof.

So, me? I can’t complain.


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Hi, I’m Derek. I used to make websites. Now I grow flowers and know things. I’m mostly harmless. More.