This is my journal entry from November 17, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I dropped the kids off at school and headed straight to the tennis club for tennis. I was playing doubles with a few guys I hadn’t played with before. In the first set, I felt like I was absolutely dominating. Everything was clicking, and I thought, yeah, I’ve got these guys. Then the second and third sets told a different story. I realized pretty quickly that the guy I’d been partnered with in the first set was actually the strongest player on the court. Once he switched to the other side, he managed to beat me in both of the next sets. Still, it was fun, competitive, and I got some solid exercise in, which was really the point.
After tennis, my mind shifted almost entirely to the Eventbrite idea. I felt genuinely excited about it and knew I was going to spend most of the day working on it. I also decided I was going to make a bean soup instead of living off hummus again. On the way home, I stopped at Whole Foods. While I was there, I noticed a really beautiful woman. I said good morning to her, and she responded warmly. She lingered in the same aisle as me, then ended up right next to me again at the self-checkout. I didn’t know what else to say beyond that. I’d already said hi, and I didn’t feel any obvious signal that there was some special connection happening. It still felt good just to acknowledge her and get a positive response. At the same time, I caught myself wondering if I should be more aggressive, more of a pickup artist, and try to force a conversation. But that doesn’t really feel like me. When the timing is right, I naturally have plenty to say. When it’s not, it feels awkward to manufacture something.
After Whole Foods, I went to get a massage with my massage therapist. It struck me how different I felt compared to just a week earlier. Last week, my mood was dark and heavy. Today, I felt excited and forward-looking. I’d talked briefly with my ex-wife that morning about the Eventbrite ideas, and she seemed to have almost no interest in hearing about them. Then, in contrast, I talked with my massage therapist, and she was enthusiastic, engaged, asking questions, and genuinely curious. That contrast stood out to me. I felt grateful that I have so many people in my life I can talk to openly. At the same time, I found myself hoping my ex-wife is okay, because she’s been really closed off lately.
After the massage, my massage therapist and I sat and talked for another thirty minutes before I headed home. Once there, I started working on the bean soup and digging deeper into the Eventbrite plans. I’m thinking I’ll put up around thirty different events. I’m assuming most of them won’t get any attendees, and that’s fine. The ones that do get someone to show up will matter. Each one will be a win. Setting them up won’t take much time, and once they’re posted, they can just sit there. As I was doing this, I started looking at Zillow and got myself completely hyped, imagining how much money I could make if this works. I saw a house listed for rent—a four-bedroom, three-bath, close to my kids. As soon as I saw it, I felt this impulse to go look at it immediately. So I did. I just walked out of my house and headed down the street.
Right as I stepped outside, a woman walking her dog passed directly in front of my driveway. I stopped and pet the dog, exchanged a few words, but she didn’t seem interested in talking much beyond that. She told me she needed to keep walking so her dog wouldn’t go crazy. And just like that, the moment passed, another brief interaction folded into the day as I kept moving forward.
As I was walking past my mom’s house, her neighbor was out in the street. I’d given her a book the day before when the kids and I were out, and she stopped me to tell me there was a house for rent down the street. I told her I’d already seen that one and checked on it. Then she mentioned another option—one very close to my mom’s place, renting for less. That immediately caught my attention. She started telling me more about it, and before I knew it, I was seriously considering that place instead of the other house I’d just been hyped about. Cheaper each month, and right near my mom, felt like something worth looking into.
I walked past the other house anyway, just to see it in person, and then I called the real estate agent for the place near my mom’s. We set up an appointment for 11:00 a.m. the next morning. As I stood near that house, I noticed a bush or small tree growing right next to the back door. I stepped closer and realized it was absolutely covered in bees—easily fifty or more. Honeybees, wasps, hornets, all kinds of them, buzzing around and pollinating the plant. I was standing about a foot away from this swarm, and it looked incredible. Beautiful, alive, buzzing with activity. At the same time, I was very aware that if I were someone with a bee allergy, I probably would have freaked the fuck out. I was grateful I didn’t piss any of them off.
As we walked around the backyard, a little black racer snake suddenly darted by and startled us. That made me pause. I wondered if that was a sign, and if it was, what kind of sign it might be. I didn’t land on an answer, but it definitely registered.
I walked back home and headed to my 4:00 p.m. meeting. This time I walked there instead of driving. We had ten people show up, which felt great. A couple of the guys were new, so we talked quite a bit about early sobriety. We also touched again on prayer and meditation, staying connected, and the same general theme as the meeting the night before. Afterward, I walked back home and spent a couple of hours working with ChatGPT on solidifying my plan for all these events.
What I like about working this way is that I can give general parameters and then refine from there. I picked out thirty-one different one-hour time slots throughout the week that I could realistically host events. I worked through pricing and landed on $55 per event. That way, if even one person shows up, it’s worth my time, and it’s still affordable. It also naturally filters out people who only want to spend $10 or $20 and aren’t really committed. After a couple of hours, I had a tentative outline for thirty-one different events I could host at my house.
After that, I walked down to my ex-wife’s place to see the kids for bedtime. During bedtime, my daughter tried to take a little back massager away from my son. When she grabbed for it, he hit her, and she hit him back hard. I was still feeling pretty relaxed from my massage earlier, so instead of reacting immediately, I paused and thought it through. My ex-wife asked me how to handle it, and I took a minute before responding.
I offered my daughter a calm option. I told her that if she could apologize and set an intention for the future—that she wouldn’t respond by hitting as hard as she possibly could when she started something—then we could move forward. I asked her to commit to being a little kinder next time. She wasn’t interested at all. She doubled down, insisting that my son deserved it and justifying what she did. At that point, I shifted gears. I told her we don’t hit in this house. I told her I was fining her some of her allowance. She said she didn’t care. It didn’t matter to her. So I said fine, I’m fining you all the rest of your money. That finally pushed her over the edge emotionally. She lost it.
After I left, though, my ex-wife told me that my daughter eventually calmed down, apologized to my son, and made things right. That’s how these nights go. Messy, emotional, imperfect, and ultimately human.
After that, I started feeling a little bad about the whole thing. I don’t want to parent from a place where I’m constantly second-guessing myself or carrying guilt around. At the same time, I’m not willing to just stand there and tolerate my daughter hitting my son as hard as she possibly can. That’s not okay. I talked it through with my mom, and she reminded me of something from my own childhood. There was a time when I pushed my brother down while she was out picking up pizza and my dad was out of town, which was rare. I remember thinking that because dad wasn’t around, mom probably wouldn’t be that strict and I could get away with more. As soon as we got home, though, she made it very clear, firmly and physically, that she wasn’t someone to mess with either. The message landed instantly: I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted because dad wasn’t there.
My mom reminded me that sometimes you’re just going to feel bad as a parent, and that doesn’t automatically mean you did the wrong thing. Hearing that helped. It reframed it for me. I’m not okay with letting my daughter do whatever she wants to my son. There have to be boundaries. It’s okay for me to set them. And if I can’t set them gently and cooperatively in the moment, then consequences are going to come into play one way or another. That doesn’t make me a bad parent. It makes me a parent who’s willing to step in. After that conversation, I felt noticeably better. I went home and worked with ChatGPT some more on the event ideas. By tomorrow, I should be ready to actually start setting them up.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.