This is my journal entry from September 17, 2025, part of my daily autobiography The Kind Divorce — my real, unedited days, published in order.
Massage school felt better today. Three classmates were out—either sick themselves or caring for someone who was. It still amazes me how many people stay trapped in the germ theory mindset, convinced that illness always comes from something external. I’m grateful I’ve moved past that. We did more anatomy work in the morning, then began our Swedish practicum—the first time we actually used lotion and practiced massage directly on the skin. A classmate and I partnered up, and I told him how impressed I was by his natural ability. He already seems to have an intuitive sense for how to move and connect through touch.
At lunch, I talked with a student from another class about how much power we have inside our own bodies to influence what most people see as “illness.” I explained that I view symptoms like a cough not as something caused by germs but as a reflection of what’s happening within me—my thoughts, emotions, and actions. To me, a cough is a message from my body and subconscious, asking for an adjustment. Whenever I feel the urge to cough, I affirm that I’m willing to change, and almost instantly, the sensation disappears. My mind becomes flexible, open, and receptive to whatever inner shift is being requested. It feels like dialogue between my conscious and subconscious—a gentle reminder to realign.
After class, I went to meet a local pastor at a nearby church, just a few minutes from my house. I wanted to talk about starting an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting there at 4 p.m. on weekdays. The pastor welcomed me warmly and made the entire process effortless. I’m deeply grateful that a girl from my former home group joined me; her presence made all the difference. Technically, it only takes two people to start a group, but her enthusiasm and creativity helped shape the vision. She brought ideas for the group name and was open to blending them with mine. After meeting with a local pastor, we sat together for nearly an hour designing a format from scratch. It was exciting to imagine what an ideal meeting could look like after attending more than two thousand AA meetings myself.
Not everyone was supportive. When I mentioned the idea to some other AA members yesterday, a few were downright toxic—accusing me of ego, saying there were already enough meetings, or that I was just trying to do AA “my way.” I told my new co-founder about it, and she laughed and said, “So what if it is?” She was right. Every group reflects the personality of the people who started it. None of these other meetings are neutral or perfect; they’re all built around someone’s vision. That’s part of what makes AA beautiful—the freedom to create something new when you feel called to.
a local pastor said the suggested donation for using the church space would be $375 per month, which works out to about $10 or $12 per meeting if we run five meetings a week. He told us not to worry about paying anything until November, which felt generous. I’m happy to support that church since it’s been such a steady part of my AA journey. With all the money I’ve already dropped into baskets over the years, I can easily cover $100 a month myself. If the rest of the group contributes a few hundred collectively, we’ll have more than enough to keep the room funded—and build something meaningful together.
My daughter’s basketball game was canceled tonight, so I suggested taking my son to the tennis club instead. We went for about an hour and found a rhythm that made the time fly. He grabbed a basket of roughly fifty tennis balls and hit them one by one toward me while I returned them. Sometimes I fired them back hard just to make him chase, but most of the time I gave him easier ones so he could connect and keep the rally going. We started laughing as we tried hitting the balls as high as possible, watching them arc against the lights. I knocked one clean over the fence into the swampy canal behind the courts before realizing I’d better aim toward the club from then on, unless I wanted to lose an entire basket to the mangroves.
On our way out, I ran into a tennis coach and her daughters, and it was nice to introduce them to my son. I’m looking forward to seeing her again at the tennis clinic tomorrow. When we got home, I went straight to washing dishes and then took the kids over to my mom’s for a bit. She’s leaving soon for my brother’s wedding, and something about her energy tonight felt tense, like there was something unspoken. I asked how she was doing, but she didn’t seem up for talking, so I let it go.
Later, as I got ready for bed, I felt grateful that my ex-wife and I have been consistently close lately—it’s been grounding and comforting to reconnect that way. At the same time, I’ve noticed areas where our intimacy could feel smoother or more connected. I want to explore ways we can make it easier and more playful. There’s potential there to deepen things, to bring back more fun and flow.
Afterward, I found myself getting irritated again with my AI workflow. It just takes too long. I even investigated using AI to talk to AI through Zapier, but that didn’t work out. My goal is to streamline this entire book production process—to be able to dictate, process, and publish quickly without losing authenticity. I love seeing the finished books out in the world, even though most people never actually read them. Just having them exists as powerful marketing. Still, I researched what it would cost to have someone else do these books for me, and the prices were ridiculous. That only confirmed that I need to handle the whole process myself.
I’m so close to cracking the system—dictating is effortless, but everything slows down after that. I’ve been working on I Was Famous on the Internet for over a month now, logging hours of dictation and revisions, yet it’s still not done. Tonight, I tried putting the entire transcript into ChatGPT to rewrite, but the result was terrible—it can’t hold the whole manuscript in memory, so it starts making things up that never happened. That drives me insane. Accuracy matters more to me than polish. If I’m going to publish something, it must reflect my real experience, not some AI approximation of it. I’ll sleep on it tonight and hope I wake up with a solution—some key optimization that makes the process faster while keeping the writing raw, honest, and real.
Breakthrough
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.