Sure, you can “overcome genetics”: dye your hair, exercise and eat right to counter a history of heart disease… but all that is still being driven– underlined– by genetics.

I stopped by my mom’s office on my way off campus this morning. I had just finished my last piano lesson class. As I was leaving I explained to some classmates I might come back next fall, but not this spring– I was going to take a semester off to shift focus to the guitar for a while.

So I walked up to my mom’s place thinking of how many different things I feel torn between, musically (guitar, piano), “professionally” (storytelling, noveling, children’s books) and home life (cleaning, meal planning, and “pre-school” for the girls). One of the first things she said to me was how dad felt pulled in so many directions by his many interests, and I could only laugh.