i will not remember 2025 as a great year. the bads (wife leaving me, employment uncertainty) outweighed the goods. by a lot.
but i’m not going to focus on that, i’m going to talk a bit about what went right. first, my kid basically kept me afloat. they are 11 years old, and are fun, intelligent, crafty, diligent, creative and kind. i never would have thought that i would have got so much out of being a dad. every day i get to spend with them feels like a lucky one.
today marks a full year of “not drinking”. i entertained drastic changes to my relationship with alcohol for years (decades!) and about 14 months ago i could feel all the remaining benefits slipping away and the reality of potentially serious health issues lurking, so i set a date and stuck with it. other than the first year of my kid’s life (babies are hard, man) i’ve never had such a tough year - and i got through it without drinking. and weirdly, it was easier than i anticipated. the first couple of weeks were tough, and there’s been plenty of moments where other people’s drinks looked delicious, but i feel like i’m on the other side now and there’s no reason to go back.
the breakup of my marriage acted as a sort of forcing function, but i had plans to start therapy anyways, so i did. and while it hasn’t completely changed me in ways that i might have imagined it could, it has helped me get a little closer to understanding what and how i want my life to be like, and what i want to take with me and what i want to leave behind.
i started anti-depressants. they managed to kick in right around the same time that my wife was moving out, so it’s hard to tell if my life was getting easier because of the drugs or that the source of conflict was no longer under my roof. i still don’t know, and with this much tumult i don’t have a lot of perspective on what exactly is keeping me balanced. but the drugs don’t bother me in any way, so i’ll keep going with them for the time being.
the power and influence of the loved ones in my life has been immeasurable. close friends who i see multiple times a week, distant friends who check on me, the kindness of people i barely know who’ve offered spontaneous connection and warmth - it’s almost overwhelming. i grew up around a certain type of PNW hippy and always sort of laughed at them, and now i realize that i’m closer to that type than ever, and that it was always in there. i’ve told my therapist many times that the ultimate goal is to approach the rest of my life with love in my heart and to get myself set up so that i can give as much as i’ve been lucky to receive, and the work continues. but when i look around and see how lucky i am to be around such solidly good people, it makes me want to insure that i’m giving back to them.
so yeah, 2026. i’ve been re-oriented and while i still have to continue to push myself in the right directions, i think i can build on this. happy new year to all you good folks and those you love. let’s keep getting better.
