{"id":107,"date":"2026-06-02T15:37:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/?page_id=107"},"modified":"2026-06-02T16:00:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T15:00:46","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"107\" class=\"elementor elementor-107\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4dfe758 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"4dfe758\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-bc37597 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"bc37597\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n  .about-wrap {\r\n    background-color: #080808;\r\n    color: #e8e2d9;\r\n    font-family: Georgia, serif;\r\n    font-size: 19px;\r\n    line-height: 1.8;\r\n    padding: 80px 32px 120px;\r\n    max-width: 820px;\r\n    margin: 0 auto;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-eyebrow {\r\n    font-size: 11px;\r\n    letter-spacing: 0.3em;\r\n    text-transform: uppercase;\r\n    color: #c0392b;\r\n    margin-bottom: 18px;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-wrap h1 {\r\n    font-size: clamp(2rem, 5.5vw, 3.6rem);\r\n    font-weight: 700;\r\n    line-height: 1.1;\r\n    color: #f5f0eb;\r\n    margin-bottom: 20px;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-wrap h1 span {\r\n    background: linear-gradient(90deg, #e8541a 0%, #d4a843 100%);\r\n    -webkit-background-clip: text;\r\n    -webkit-text-fill-color: transparent;\r\n    background-clip: text;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-tagline {\r\n    font-size: 11px;\r\n    letter-spacing: 0.22em;\r\n    text-transform: uppercase;\r\n    color: #8a8a8a;\r\n    margin-bottom: 60px;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-tagline em { color: #d4a843; font-style: normal; }\r\n  .about-rule {\r\n    display: flex;\r\n    align-items: center;\r\n    gap: 16px;\r\n    margin-bottom: 52px;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-rule-line { flex: 1; height: 1px; background: linear-gradient(90deg, #c0392b, transparent); }\r\n  .about-rule-line.rev { background: linear-gradient(90deg, transparent, #c0392b); }\r\n  .about-wrap p {\r\n    margin-bottom: 1.65em;\r\n    font-size: 1.12rem;\r\n    color: #d4cec5;\r\n  }\r\n  .about-wrap p strong { color: #f5f0eb; font-weight: 400; }\r\n  .about-wrap p em { color: #d4a843; font-style: italic; }\r\n  .about-wrap p.standout {\r\n    font-size: 1.25rem;\r\n    color: #e8e2d9;\r\n    border-left: 2px solid #c0392b;\r\n    padding-left: 20px;\r\n    font-style: italic;\r\n  }\r\n<\/style>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"about-wrap\">\r\n  <p class=\"about-eyebrow\">Jesse T. Mills &mdash; About<\/p>\r\n  <h1>I'm 50.<br>Here's <span>what that looks like.<\/span><\/h1>\r\n  <p class=\"about-tagline\"><em>ADHD Is Not A Disorder. It's A Superpower.<\/em><\/p>\r\n  <div class=\"about-rule\">\r\n    <div class=\"about-rule-line\"><\/div>\r\n    <div style=\"font-size:20px\">\ud83d\udd25<\/div>\r\n    <div class=\"about-rule-line rev\"><\/div>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n  <p>My name is Jesse Mills. I'm 50 years old and I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 48. Looking back on my life, though \u2014 it shows. School wasn't easy for me, but not because I couldn't keep up. It was because I was bored. I've been working since I can remember. That part I was always good at.<\/p>\r\n  <p>My first real job was McDonald's, full time, with side work at another fast food place, Fashion Bug, and bouncing at a bar. When McDonald's wanted to promote me I got my GED. Then I did <strong>Hamburger University<\/strong>. I was there for years. One day I decided I was going to be a smokejumper, so I quit, went to Job Corps, went through their forestry program, and became a <strong>Hotshot<\/strong>. Loved it. Joined an engine crew in North Carolina. Got bitten by a cottonmouth. Went home to heal.<\/p>\r\n  <p>That's when the backpacking started. I met a Navajo girl who'd been adopted and didn't know her heritage, so we traveled to Arizona together so she could learn. We ended up living in a shack in the desert outside of Tuba City, <strong>tending sheep for a family<\/strong>. When she got pregnant I decided it was time to get serious. <em>Our baby didn't survive her.<\/em> That loss put me in a spiral that eventually landed me in jail for an extended stretch.<\/p>\r\n  <p>When I got out I went to live with family in California and enrolled at the <strong>Art Institute of San Francisco<\/strong>. Did well. Didn't finish \u2014 money ran out. Moved back to Washington. Took jobs remodeling Walmarts, stocking nights \u2014 bored out of my mind \u2014 then quit and went to work at a plywood mill. Then I joined a church, became Catholic, and that took me to <strong>World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n  <p>I didn't go home from there.<\/p>\r\n  <p class=\"standout\">I had no money and no plan. I backpacked across Europe staying in churches and monasteries. In Lourdes, France, someone told me about the Camino de Santiago. I started walking the next day.<\/p>\r\n  <p>When I finished the pilgrimage someone handed me a plane ticket to England. I stayed in a monastery. From there I was given a ticket to <strong>Israel<\/strong>, where I met the woman who would become my wife. We traveled to Egypt, came back to Israel, then she flew home to the States \u2014 and found out she was pregnant. I followed. <em>I lost that child too.<\/em><\/p>\r\n  <p>We moved to Washington. I got a job <strong>building yachts at Westport<\/strong>. My first child was born in Port Angeles. We moved back to Pennsylvania so she could be close to her family. I married her. We had <strong>six kids together<\/strong> over the next twenty years.<\/p>\r\n  <p>In between I did what I had to do \u2014 painting, satellite dishes, wiring businesses for computers \u2014 until I landed full-time work at a pool company. I was a pool tech, got my <strong>Class B CDL with tanker and hazmat endorsements<\/strong> for deliveries, and stayed there for seventeen or eighteen years. Didn't love it. But I was the only one working, and my wife wasn't ready to move, so I provided. That's what you do.<\/p>\r\n  <p>We were together twenty years before we separated. Just after that, just before my 50th birthday, I was in a serious car accident. I've been in recovery ever since \u2014 housebound in <strong>Pennsylvania<\/strong>, two legal cases working their way through the system, and more time to think than I've ever had in my life.<\/p>\r\n  <p>So I'm using it. I have a dream of building <strong>Iron Lotus Sanctuary<\/strong> \u2014 a permaculture retreat property in Arizona that's been in my head for a while and is starting to get real. And somewhere past all of this is a sailboat and open water. That dream hasn't moved.<\/p>\r\n  <p><em>The ADHD brain doesn't do straight lines. It never has. But looking back \u2014 every detour went somewhere.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesse T. Mills &mdash; About I&#8217;m 50.Here&#8217;s what that looks like. ADHD Is Not A Disorder. It&#8217;s A Superpower. \ud83d\udd25 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-107","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113,"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107\/revisions\/113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessetmills.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}