I Wasn't Too Busy. I Was Somewhere Else.

For years I had an alibi, and it was a good one. I wasn't absent. I was busy.

And the thing about that alibi is that every piece of evidence supporting it was true. Work really did get heavier. The kids really did need more of me than they used to. Nobody was lying about the hours. So when the distance started showing up, I had a clean, reasonable, verifiable explanation sitting right there, and I reached for it every single time.