This is my journal entry from November 23, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I barely slept again last night. Maybe a couple of hours at most. My mind felt aggravated, frantic, and completely unregulated, like it was pacing in circles without ever slowing down. I was still furious about the divorce, and reading my diary entry from the night before made me sound unhinged, which only confirmed that I still felt unhinged this morning. I finally got out of bed a little after 6:00 a.m., wired with energy and unable to sleep any longer. My thoughts were obsessive and distorted, and one of them kept looping: that if I just told the kids, right in front of my ex-wife, how much she was the problem and how this divorce was entirely her fault, she would suddenly realize how wrong she was for breaking up our family and decide to come back. I was exhausted from feeling like my family was being destroyed, and I wanted the destruction to stop.
I went over to my ex-wife’s house early that morning, earlier than they usually get up on weekends, let myself in, and told everyone they needed to get up and talk right now. My ex-wife was immediately upset. I told them that what they deserved to know was that my ex-wife was behind this divorce, that she was the one refusing my offers to reconcile, and that she was the one committed to breaking up our family. I said this also meant they could lose access to me at some point. I told them that could happen if I met someone new and moved away. Either way, I said my ex-wife pushing this divorce could mean they would see their father far less. My ex-wife tried to stop me, but I kept going because I felt like I had to get it out. It was upsetting for everyone. My ex-wife got angry, though thankfully she did not escalate further. I hugged the kids, held them close, and mostly just sat there with them. After about thirty minutes, I finally acknowledged that I had made my own contributions to my ex-wife feeling this way and that it was not entirely her responsibility. I admitted that I had done my part to cooperate with the divorce and that I had not fought for our family the whole time. Even so, I felt awful for causing that scene and for how I handled myself that morning.
Fortunately, I had tennis scheduled, which gave me somewhere to go. I went back to my place and headed out at 8:30 a.m., then talked with my tennis coach and a man from the tennis club about what was going on in my life. It was obvious I was deep in misery. I played lazy tennis, low effort but still somewhat enjoyable, and he shared details about his own marriage, which reinforced how it can feel impossible to win sometimes. Being married is hard. Being single is hard. Being divorced is hard. Somehow, joy exists inside all of it too, even when it feels completely buried.
After tennis, I went back home and started spiraling badly. I showered and tried to lie down and rest, but instead the depression intensified. For a moment, the way it all stacked together almost sounded like poetry, though it didn’t feel poetic at all. I kept thinking about how awful my life had become and wondering how everything had gone so wrong. I couldn’t believe I had thought and acted the way I did earlier that morning. The spiral deepened until I reached a point of total exhaustion. What I really wanted was for the old version of me to die, for that version of my ego to collapse so something new could take its place. I wanted to let go of the person who was so miserable and so attached to the past and become the best version of myself instead, someone capable of moving forward.
I started to see that the woman I met saying I was not ready to date again was accurate. I was still deeply attached to my ex-wife and the kids, still spending hours with them every day on school drop-offs, pickups, and time at my ex-wife’s house. There simply was not much room for another woman in my life right now. What I said that morning had some validity in that divorce does mean the kids will not see me as much, but I was also taking myself far too seriously. I was acting as though I were irreplaceable or uniquely essential. The kids have plenty of people who love them. My ex-wife has an enormous amount of love to give, as does her family just down the street, and my mom as well. I do not have to be the version of a father who is constantly present in the way I was when we were married, even if accepting that reality feels painful.
Even if I only see the kids a few times a week, that is good enough. Even if I eventually move somewhere else and only see them a few times a year, that is still good enough. There are other people in their lives who love them deeply. I will be there as much as I reasonably can, but I also see clearly now that if I am going to have a new woman in my life someday, that will inevitably mean seeing the kids less. I wish I had explained that to them in a way that was more loving and more grounded, because they have already been worried that they are not going to see me as much. And the truth is, they are right. That part is real. Still, this is a transition period, not a final state, even though it feels permanent when I am in the middle of it.
Despite these realizations, I am completely miserable. I keep thinking, what the fuck happened to my life? How did I get here? I feel like a failure, like an idiot, like someone who has ruined everything. It feels unbearable, like I cannot go on. I think to myself that if anyone actually cares about me, they should call me right now. And right then, my sister calls. She tells me she has just been through a really difficult stretch and is starting fresh again. She says she was thinking about me a lot while she was there, thinking about how similar we are and how much we could help each other. I tell her what happened with my ex-wife and the kids that morning, and she says she went through something very similar with her ex-husband, except he had that conversation with the kids over and over again. Hearing that makes something click. I commit to myself that I am not going to do that again to the kids or to my ex-wife, and that I need to understand how I got into that mental state in the first place so I can prevent it from happening again.
She tells me she thinks it would be really good for me to come visit her, and I start seriously considering it. I could come up for a week right now. My ex-wife and the kids are traveling tomorrow anyway, and I am about to face my first Thanksgiving since the divorce. Even though I believe I am invited and would be welcomed, I do not feel like being there. Going to Michigan suddenly sounds right. Being around my family, supporting my sister during such a vulnerable time, and not sitting alone in this emotional wreckage feels like exactly what I need. As she talks more about her experience, it becomes clear that she was in a much darker place than I am now when she hit her low point, and instead of judgment, I feel deep understanding. I can see how it happened. At the same time, it stirs a desperation in me to make sure that does not happen to me. I will do whatever it takes to avoid that path, because I am not convinced I would come back from it.
I want to see her. I genuinely believe we could help each other right now. After we hang up, I do not hesitate. I go straight to Delta.com, search through flights, and book a ticket to leave the next day to stay with her for a week.
After booking the flight, I text my sister to let her know when I am coming, and she tells me she will loop in our aunt and our other sister. Not long after that, while I am still feeling a surge of excitement about the trip, my aunt calls me. She wants to make sure I understand what I am walking into, just in case I do not. Everything she says mirrors what my sister already told me almost exactly. As she talks, I realize the purpose of her call is not to discourage me but to share how difficult her own experience was during a similar time and to help prepare me emotionally so I can actually support my sister instead of unraveling myself. I mostly listen, reassure her that I am stable, committed, and sober enough to be there, and tell her I genuinely believe this will be good for both of us. She says she will see me at Thanksgiving, asks me to keep her updated, wishes me a safe trip, and asks that the conversation stay between the two of us which I’m sure it will since no one reads these fucking books lol. What I take that to mean is not that it is a secret forever, but that it is not something to immediately dump on my sister. Realistically, my sister would probably assume this conversation happened anyway, and it feels like a healthy, normal exchange: someone checking in to make sure everyone knows what is going on and what they are stepping into.
After that call, though, fear starts creeping in. I suddenly wonder if I am actually stable enough to make this trip. What if things go badly while I am there? What if my sister relapses again? What if I start to lose it myself? I start questioning whether this was a mistake at all. I really hope it was not, because I already spent about $400 on a nonrefundable ticket. I could have stayed in Florida, and everyone would have understood. No one would have been upset with me for staying put and doing what I normally do. By booking this flight, I am deliberately stepping into the middle of everything in Michigan. At the same time, I realize that the only thing worse than committing to this and risking that something goes wrong would be canceling the trip after already saying yes. That would feel like an even bigger mess. I decide I need other people’s perspectives, because right now I cannot trust my own thinking to be clear.
My ex-wife lets me know that my son is available to hang out with me at 4:30 p.m., which feels like a gift because I am emotionally destroyed at this point. I have been crying on and off, hurting, wanting my ego to die and be reborn, fully in that phoenix-burning-down-and-starting-over process. Around the same time, I start listening to a book that feels uncannily perfect for where I am: Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser. It is all about how difficult experiences can break you open in ways that help you grow. I listen to it at three times speed and tear through it, and it feels like exactly what I need. Divorce, pain, collapse, transformation—it is all there, right when I need to hear it. It feels aligned in a way that is almost absurd, like the right book showing up at the exact moment my life is falling apart, reframing this whole experience as something that could actually serve the evolution of my soul.
I talk to my sponsor and tell him exactly what is going on, then plan to see him at the meeting later. When I get together with my son to play soccer, everything still makes me cry. At one point, he makes a joke about what happened that morning, and I immediately start sobbing. At the same time, I feel strangely grateful that he can joke about it, because I am deeply ashamed. I am horrified that I walked into that house, woke everyone up, and spoke to them the way I did. It is the exact opposite of the kind of person I want to be. And yet, I remember the line from Alcoholics Anonymous about how we do not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. I need to understand this, not bury it. I need to see clearly how I ended up in such a fucked-up mental space and then acted on it, because if I do not understand that, I cannot make sure it does not happen again.
After playing with my son, I take him over to my mom’s house at 5:30 p.m., and my daughter comes over too. Before leaving, I make a point of hugging my ex-wife and owning my behavior directly. Step Ten in Alcoholics Anonymous is about promptly admitting the nature of your wrongs, so I tell her plainly that what I did that morning was awful, that I am sorry, and that I genuinely appreciate how she handled it. I tell her I am going to look carefully at what led up to it and make sure it does not happen again. As I say this, things are already starting to come into focus for me. On Saturday night, I did not get good sleep because I got overly excited the night before talking with the woman I met, listening to music, feeding off the hype of the event, and staying up late. The next day, I did no yoga, played no tennis, and did not get a massage. My sponsor even asked if I was going to the men’s meeting at 5:30 p.m., which I easily could have gone to, but I said no because I had been to meetings six days in a row. I remember feeling, even as I said it, that it was probably the wrong call, that things would go better if I went anyway, and then I skipped it.
When I look at it honestly, I did almost nothing that day for self-care. I spent the day aggravated, isolated, lying in bed, and doing nothing to regulate myself. After that, I said the nasty things to my ex-wife that I wrote about in the previous entry. She did not react, and when she did not react, I escalated internally. The next morning, I showed up and said the same kinds of things to the kids. Seeing it laid out like that, the pattern becomes obvious. Skipping yoga put me in a more amped-up, ungrounded state. I also put zero energy into my books, telling myself I was too tired, which was just another rationalization. I fed nothing that actually supports me. I did almost nothing to feel good or stay balanced, and it is shocking how quickly that absence turned into a full spiral of distorted thinking and impulsive behavior.
I can see now that having a wide emotional range is not the problem. In fact, it feels healthy to be able to experience life fully, but that range has to be managed. Without structure and care, it can run completely out of control. That realization does not erase what I did, but it helps me understand it.
At my mom’s house, things soften. Being there feels good. I tell her about my plans to go to Michigan, and I spend time with my daughter. The kids give me endless snuggles, the kind that crack you open whether you want them to or not. I cry more. My handkerchief is soaked from wiping tears, but being there with them, even in that raw state, feels grounding in a way nothing else has all day.
After that, I say goodnight to the kids and head to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to see my sponsor and my sponsee. I am right on the edge of tears the entire time, quietly crying through most of the meeting. I do not say anything until the very end, when they ask if there is a burning desire. At that point, I raise my hand and share. I say essentially everything I have written here, just compressed into two or three minutes instead of fifteen. I am rigorously honest with the group, and that kind of honesty has been a lifesaver for me in AA. I do not want to stand up in front of a room full of people who have heard for years how well I am doing and how great sobriety is and admit how much I am struggling. At the same time, I know that when I share honestly, I give people the opportunity to help me, and that is exactly what happens.
After the meeting, several people who have known me for years come up to support me. One guy looks me straight in the eye as I share my fear about going on the trip to see my sister after the call with my aunt. I tell him I am scared, that I do not know if I am going to make things better or worse, that I am not sure I can do this right now. He responds by paraphrasing a passage from AA's Big Book about being on the front lines together and seeing the lives and families that addiction damages. He talks about Step Twelve, about how once you are sober, your job is to carry the message to alcoholics who are still suffering. He reframes the trip for me in a way that lands hard and true. My sister got out of the hospital on Friday, and I will arrive on Monday. That is three days later. That is the front lines of alcoholism. And that, he tells me, is exactly what I am equipped to do at this point in my life.
I think about another man who has been like a sponsor to me for most of my sobriety, someone who has been sober my entire adult life. He once told me that right after his son died, he was still on a twelve-step call trying to help someone else get sober. That memory hits me. I realize how much I need to get out of myself and think about someone else, and how doing that might actually help me too. I also start to see this trip as a form of amends to my ex-wife. I took up far too much space in her life yesterday, and this morning especially. It feels like such a long day now, even though I am technically dictating this a couple of days later. I took up too much emotional space, and one way I can make amends is by giving her space instead. Taking a week-long trip might actually be one of the kindest things I can do for her right now. It is a way of saying, have Thanksgiving with your family without interruptions from me. I am going to go be with my family and support them, and you can have time away from me to think, to process, and to potentially complete our divorce while I am gone.
When this man at the meeting tells me that I am on the firing lines for the right reasons, that I have been sober eleven years, that I am going to be safe, and that I am genuinely in a position to be helpful, I start crying. I cry because I know he is right, and because I can feel the fear loosening its grip. Another guy tells me the exact same thing. My sponsor tells me the exact same thing. My sponsee tells me the exact same thing. They all hug me and I start to feel some hope.
After the meeting, people start sharing their own situations with me, and it immediately pulls me out of my tunnel vision. One guy tells me he is struggling financially right now. He sold a business, and the buyer was supposed to make another payment that he had been counting on for his financial security, but now the guy is refusing to pay. He has no idea what he is going to do next. My sponsee shares what his life looks like right now: a pregnant wife due in just a few weeks, a son with a broken wrist, a daughter, all of them young, kindergarten being the oldest, a full-time job, a packed household, and the daily work of staying sober on top of all of that. Listening to them, I realize that in some ways my situation looks great from the outside. I have an enormous amount of freedom and space, and comparatively little responsibility. That perspective shift is immediate and grounding. Talking with them restores me to sanity. I feel genuinely good again. I am reminded how absurd it was that I let resentment build toward this meeting, the very place that has supported me for so long, especially when I need it most.
Even the small details of the night feel oddly affirming. The parking lot is packed because there is another event at the church, yet I manage to get a spot anyway. I end up parking on a sidewalk, but it is a wide one in the middle of the church near a staircase, and it works. I feel strangely proud of myself for finding a spot in such a crowded lot, like a small but meaningful win on a day that needed one. When I leave, I pull my car out and stop by my mom’s house again on the way home. I talk with her about the Michigan trip and ask for her honest feedback on everything. Hearing her perspective helps settle me further.
I get home and go to bed early, by 9:30 p.m., which feels incredibly good. I am ready for sleep in a way I have not been for days. I still have some fear about the trip tomorrow, but it no longer feels overwhelming. I trust the plan I set up for myself. I have tennis scheduled in the morning. I am seeing my massage therapist for a massage. I trust that when tomorrow comes, I will know exactly what to do, and that clarity will be there when I need it.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.