AUDIO – A MEMOIR –
April 16, 2026 – Some memoirs seek to comfort. Ken Rideout’s Everything You Want Is on the Other Side of Hard seeks to awaken, and for the most part, it does. It opens with brutal impact and bone-deep fatigue. A runner slams into the hard Mongolian desert during an ultramarathon, drenched in sweat, heart pounding.
This is not a tale of gentle healing. Far from it. It’s about pressing on when stopping would be easier.
Rideout grew up outside Boston in a world where chaos felt normal and safety was never guaranteed. This was Boston of the 1970s. Poverty pressed in from every side. Violence could erupt without warning. Addiction hung over daily life like a gathering storm. Home offered little certainty and even less peace. Adults came and went. Promises rarely held. Trust was scarce, and stability scarcer still.
He tells it plainly, without a shred of self-pity. There’s no melodrama. Just a boy learning to read danger the way other children learn their times tables, alert to every shift in mood, every raised voice, every signal that trouble may be near.
Then hockey appears.
The rink offers order where home offers turmoil. Rules make sense. Effort earns results. Coaches show up. Praise feels like oxygen. For the first time in his life, Rideout experiences structure and belonging. Slowly, his identity forms around a simple idea: be tougher than everyone else and never quit.
