This is my journal entry from November 20, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
What an amazing day. I woke up, picked the kids up, took them to school, and then went straight to my yoga studio. I was really feeling yoga this morning. The woman who had that conversation with me a week ago was there, and it seemed like she was intentionally avoiding me. My impression is that she feels a little awkward or maybe slightly bad about it. There’s a small part of that which feels validating, but honestly, I’d much rather everyone just be comfortable. I actually want to tell her that I appreciated the conversation and that I took it seriously—that I turned the energy around instead of sulking in it. I guess that was closer to two weeks ago now.
I ended up having a great class with a yoga instructor. I really needed the stretch after personal training on Tuesday and then beating a friend at tennis yesterday. My arms are sore as hell today, and my legs and abs are feeling it too, so the class landed perfectly. During class, I noticed a woman who trained our dogs about a year ago. I’ve texted back and forth with her since I messaged someone from massage school about possibly meeting up, and she was there today looking really good. I caught myself wondering what I missed. It’s amazing how not having sex for a while makes all women look better. I’m genuinely enjoying that effect.
After class, I lingered, waiting to talk to her, but she took forever. I actually sat in my car, then got back out when I saw her coming. When she finally did, I said hi, but she was clearly in a rush to get to a dog-training appointment with a client. She mentioned she’d sent me a message the night before, which I confirmed I received, and I gave her the short version of my situation: my ex-wife and I are getting divorced, I moved out, and she’s keeping the dogs. She responded professionally, telling me that if I ever get a dog and want training, I should let her know. That made it clear she was seeing me strictly in a professional context. At the same time, now she at least knows there’s more to my situation than she might have assumed. What I enjoyed most was noticing how easily I could become interested in her—and then how quickly that interest dissolved. By the time I got home, I’d already forgotten about her.
While I had a little space, I created one more Eventbrite event. Then I headed to the Friendsgiving lunch at the kids’ school. My ex-wife was there, and my daughter was on a field trip, so she came back late and missed her usual lunch around 11:40 a.m. That gave my ex-wife and me a solid forty-plus minutes just sitting together at the school and talking. The conversation was genuinely therapeutic. It felt as good as it did when we were married, which was a powerful reminder. This is a permanent family member. Just because we’re not having sex or living in the same house anymore doesn’t change that. It’s similar to moving out of your parents’ house—they’re still your family, always. Even after they’re gone, they’re still family. It felt really good to remember that closeness with my ex-wife, to appreciate it without trying to force it into what it used to be, and to stop being so sad or resentful about the fact that the sex and shared home are no longer part of our relationship. That shift alone made the day feel grounded, calm, and quietly meaningful.
My son finally came out for his lunch at 12:20 p.m., visibly excited to see us. He sat down right away, and we had a really nice lunch together, talking and catching up. His lunch wrapped up a little after 12:40, and almost immediately after that—around 12:50—my daughter arrived as my son was heading out. The timing worked perfectly. My daughter sat down, and my ex-wife and I had a good lunch with her too.
While we were sitting there, I got a big laugh watching a kid in my daughter’s class. He picked up three lizards and held all of them in his left hand, basically pinched gently between his fingers so their heads were sticking out. It looked like some kind of three-headed demon lizard creature, all their little heads popping out at once. I laughed out loud and told him thank you for making me laugh. There was also a very young girl there—maybe a year and a half or two—someone’s little sister. She was smiling and waving at me repeatedly, just pure joy. Seeing her reminded me how much I love that age, and how excited I am about the idea of having more kids someday who are that little again.
What really surprised me today, though, was where my mind went afterward. This morning I woke up thinking about the woman from the local shop. I met her about a week ago at the shop summit with a local spiritual community. As soon as my thoughts drifted away from the dog trainer earlier, she came right in. I realized that since I was already down by the kids’ school, I was much closer than usual to her shop, which she runs together with her mom.
When she and I talked at the shop summit, she’d said something that stuck with me. She told me I had a beautiful energy—calm, relaxed, mature, and wise. I loved that compliment, and I’ve carried it with me all week. I kept thinking how much I wanted to tell her that I’ve been thinking about her every day since we talked, and that I wanted to see if I could get her phone number and ask her out.
I figured there was maybe a ten percent chance she didn’t have a boyfriend and would actually be interested. But even if it were only ten percent, spending an hour to find out felt like a no-brainer. That’s essentially ten hours of effort for the possibility of a massive payoff. It really struck me how poorly most of us calculate this kind of thing, especially with dating. We fixate on rejection and discomfort, on the chance it won’t work out, instead of weighing the upside. Even if the odds were five percent or less, it would still be worth twenty hours of effort for the possibility of hundreds—or thousands—of hours of joy. A relationship, intimacy, kids, a shared life. I’ve lived that once already with my ex-wife. I know how big the upside can be.
After lunch, I started heading in the direction of a metaphysical shop, but then I remembered that the a local spiritual community shop members have their weekly summit on Thursdays in Gulfport. I figured I could stop by there briefly, say hi, and then continue on to a metaphysical shop. It was slightly out of the way, but still roughly halfway there. I had the time, and it felt right to follow the momentum of the day.
I pulled into Sumitra in Gulfport around 1:30 p.m., and sure enough, there were about five people I recognized from a local spiritual community sitting together on a couch and a couple of chairs. I immediately spotted an acquaintance from a local spiritual community, of course, and a local hypnotherapist. A few other faces were familiar too, even if their names didn’t come to me right away. The place had that relaxed, communal feel that makes it easy to just drop in and stay longer than planned.
I went up to the counter and ordered a matcha tea with honey. The woman working the counter was in her twenties. I laughed and told her I’d recently met another woman with the same name, and she seemed genuinely surprised by that. She was friendly, warm, but it didn’t feel like a moment to ask for a phone number or push anything further—there were people in line, and the interaction didn’t spark that kind of energy anyway. She asked my name, and interestingly, I didn’t even tell her. I didn’t feel pulled to. It just didn’t seem relevant.
I took my tea and walked over to sit down. The two acquaintances were sitting on a three-seat couch, and there was one open spot at the end, so I sat there. That positioned me directly across from a woman I’d met before from a local spiritual community. At first, it took me a moment to even remember who she was. Then it clicked—she was the woman who had sold me that skull filled with an herbal concoction she made at the Halloween dance party. I’ve been taking a few drops of it almost every day since then. I didn’t even remember her right away, but it came back to me as we started talking.
What surprised me was how quickly the conversation deepened. Over the next two hours, we ended up having an absolutely incredible exchange. She shifted from engaging with the group to locking in almost entirely with me. She started telling me about her life, her kids, her experiences, and I was struck by how aligned we felt. She has a couple of kids herself, and so many of the things that were points of friction between my ex-wife and me, she seemed to mirror me on instead. Similar rhythms, similar perspectives. Talking with her felt easy and energizing. I felt alive in a way that was unmistakable.
At one point, she said something that really stood out. She asked, almost casually, “You know how sometimes you have those days where you wake up and just feel like staying in bed and doing nothing?” I didn’t even hesitate. I told her no. I don’t have days like that. Ever. Every single day, I wake up ready to go. Full of energy. Roaring out of the gate. Even on nights when I barely sleep. I told her about the night I had the woman from massage school over, when we only had about four hours we could have slept and she kept messing with me instead. Even that night, as soon as she left, I was up, energized, ready for the day. Ready for tennis. Ready for yoga. Ready for the kids. Just firing on all cylinders.
She looked genuinely impressed. She told me I should lead with that. That it was incredible to have that much consistent energy. I told her it’s true—I have so many things I want to do all the time. If you gave me forty-eight hours in a day, I could easily fill all of them. There are so many books I want to write, so many people I want to spend time with, so many places I want to go. The real challenge for me isn’t motivation. It’s prioritization. Figuring out what’s actually worth doing, especially in the long term.
I told her that something like this diary—this book—is basically worthless in the short term from any practical or financial perspective. At the same time, it serves as an excellent Tenth Step for me in Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s deeply therapeutic. Talking through these experiences, then reading them back, helps me stay honest, grounded, and connected. And sitting there, talking with her, I could feel how naturally that honesty translated into real connection.
At the same time, I kept thinking about something that happened yesterday at school pickup. One of the parents asked me, “How are your books doing?” I asked what he meant, and he clarified, “Are you making money?” I told him no, definitely not—that I’m losing money writing these books. He responded with something like, “Oh, that’s too bad.” That reaction stuck with me. It’s unfortunate how many people measure success exclusively through immediate money. If you’re not making money, then it must not be going well. That framing feels completely backwards to me.
I think my books are going really well. These are books that could be read a hundred years from now. They’re meant to entertain, to educate, to model a way of living and thinking. They feel more like a long-form Tao Te Ching than a product launch. I genuinely enjoy writing them. They feel meaningful. That matters to me far more than short-term profit.
Eventually, everyone else filtered out of the café, and a woman I met from a local spiritual community and I were left sitting there together. At that point, she mentioned that she has a boyfriend she lives with, and that her kids are with them. Then she casually floated an idea that landed hard. She said someone like me—someone who doesn’t really use Facebook—could post in community groups if I needed a roommate. She explained that if I rented the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, I could potentially rent out the other three rooms and cover the rent entirely. She said someone like her, already embedded in the community, could even post for me.
That idea lit something up. After we’d been talking for about two hours, I asked if we could exchange numbers. The way I did it was intentional. I said something concrete enough to justify it, but vague enough to leave it open. Something along the lines of, “We could talk about house stuff… or really anything.” We exchanged numbers, and when I left and drove to my AA meeting, I felt absolutely euphoric.
I kept thinking, what an incredible interaction. My mind immediately started playing that Pitbull song “Hotel Room Service,” with its hook about leaving your boyfriend and meeting up at a hotel, and I had to laugh at myself. This woman feels extremely compatible with me. My imagination ran wild for a moment. She could move right into that house with her kids. We could build something. And then I caught myself and smiled. I used to see relationships as permanent in a rigid, fixed way. When I was with my ex-wife, if a woman had a boyfriend, that was it. End of story. Now, after divorce, my perspective is completely different. Nothing is permanent. Not relationships, not living situations, not identities. Whether someone has a boyfriend, a girlfriend, is polyamorous, whatever—it doesn’t mean anything is fixed forever.
What matters is connection. Getting to know people. Letting things unfold. You never know who’s going to decide that you’re the person they want to build something with. Maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s someone she introduces me to. Maybe it’s just the confidence that comes from realizing there are women out there who are deeply compatible with me.
She is very attractive. She also told me she used to weigh 190 pounds, which for her frame would be roughly equivalent to me weighing around 250. I noticed the stretch marks on her side, and I showed her mine. I told her I’d seen them and thought it was cool. We both laughed about it. We’ve both been through weight loss journeys. There was something deeply human and grounding about that moment—no pretending, no performance. Just two people acknowledging their bodies and their histories honestly. Whether anything comes of this or not, something important happened today. A seed was planted. And right now, that feels like more than enough.
She talked about parenting her kids, and something about that conversation felt absolutely magical. It wasn’t dramatic or over-the-top. It was grounded, real, lived-in. The way she spoke about her kids, the way she thought about them, the way she navigated life with them—it all felt deeply aligned with how I experience parenting. It left me buzzing in the best way.
I went to my AA meeting afterward, and it was all guys I know well, every one of them with at least two years sober. We talked about the Third Step, and I had a real breakthrough with it. I’ve struggled before with the question of how I know I’m doing God’s will versus just doing whatever I feel like. What clicked for me tonight is that alignment feels a very specific way. When I’m curious, when life feels magical, when things seem to be given to me effortlessly, that’s how I know I’m lined up. When I feel like I’m grinding, hustling, forcing things, or when my mind is full of resentment—thinking everyone is letting me down, everyone is doing it wrong, most people are evil, everything feels hopeless—that’s how I know I’m not lined up.
I think about God in very practical terms. To me, God is human consciousness on this planet. I’m like a cell in the body of humanity, or a cell in the body of the planet itself. When a body is healthy, the cells aren’t trying to hoard energy for themselves. That would be insane. You want each cell to trust that it will receive what it needs from the collective. In my mind, that’s how cancer develops—when a group of cells decides to do its own thing, to take as much as it can for itself, regardless of the rest of the body.
Right now, it feels impossible for me to have cancer, because that’s not how my body—or my life—is operating. The cells are cooperating. They’re working together for the benefit of the whole. And I see humanity the same way. I’m hopeful that at some point we’ll hit a critical mass where enough people are thinking like this that we get something that really does resemble heaven on earth. Resources distributed effectively instead of hoarded. No exploitation. No poisoning the whole system for individual gain. That’s not something one person fixes alone. It’s collective.
What really tied it together tonight was realizing how curiosity and the Third Step go hand in hand. The moment I think I know exactly how things are going to unfold, I’ve closed myself off from the collective. The collective does incredible things—things I could never plan. Like today. When I woke up this morning, I had absolutely no idea I was going to sit and talk with her for two hours. That wasn’t on my radar at all. And yet, it ended up being one of the best parts of the day. Lunch with the kids was amazing. Yoga was great. Tennis has been great. But that conversation was a pure gift—something I didn’t anticipate, didn’t engineer, didn’t chase. I just stepped into it.
After the meeting, we ended early. I gave the same guy a ride home again, and this time another little gift showed up. He offered me gas money. I told him no. I said, if you don’t have $10,000, I don’t care about $2, $20, $50, or even $100. That stuff is meaningless to me right now. What I want is business systems that bring in $10,000 a month while actually helping people, where nobody is exploited and everyone wins. If it’s not that, then it’s not worth sweating. I’ll just keep handing out twenties and hundreds when I feel like it. So I told him not to worry about gas money. He’s good.
Tonight felt like another confirmation that when I stop forcing things and stay curious, life keeps meeting me halfway—sometimes with exactly what I didn’t even know to ask for. Right after I dropped him off, I turned the corner to head back and immediately saw an entertainment center sitting on the side of the road. It was taller than me, wrapped in moving plastic, with a sign taped to it that simply said FREE. I laughed out loud. This was exactly what I’ve been missing—something tall and substantial to hold books. I pulled over, got out, and stood there for a minute figuring out how the hell I was going to fit it into my Toyota Corolla.
My trunk is usually full of yoga mats, tennis balls, folding chairs, books, basketballs—basically my entire life. I moved all of that into the back seats and started shoving this thing into the trunk. It jammed in there tight. Really tight. I put a yoga mat underneath where the trunk latches so it wouldn’t crack the glass. One of the guys who was there came out with some rope, tied a clean slipknot, and secured the trunk so it wouldn’t bounce. Then, casually, he handed me a painting—an original by a local artist—that he said had sold for $500 at one point. Maybe it’s worth more now. Who knows.
I just stood there for a second thinking, I literally picked up what could easily be $1,000 worth of stuff off the side of the road. That’s abundance. That’s how you know you’re tapped in. Stuff like that feels like a sign. Like, yeah, I’m in the Third Step right now. I’ve turned my will over. I’m not operating as a lone individual. I’m part of a collective, and I’m letting that collective guide me. What really hit me was that I never even made it to the metaphysical shop to talk to a friend today. And yet, the desire to go there put me in exactly the right position for all of this to happen. It reminded me of how I ended up walking to that house yesterday—the one I got approved for. I didn’t force anything. I just followed the pull.
I drove home slowly, about five miles under the speed limit, and made it back without any issues. Somehow, I got the entertainment center out of the car and into the house completely on my own. It looks fantastic. Exactly what I wanted. I ate a couple of bananas and then headed off to tennis. I walked over to the tennis club and played with my tennis coach. She’s hilarious. We’re always cracking up when she’s around. I was hitting lobs ridiculously high, reacting dramatically when I missed easy winners, and just having a great time. Then I played four games with a friend. From there, I walked straight over to my ex-wife’s house and hung out with the kids for about an hour. Dinner was a total scavenger feast—corn on the cob, boiled peanuts, the rest of my son’s tropical fruit smoothie from the morning, a Lara Bar, and three pieces of Halloween candy stolen from my son’s stash. Perfect.
After saying goodnight to them, I walked back home feeling full in every sense. Life felt completely magical. I pulled up Zillow and noticed two more houses had popped up nearby. One was a three-bedroom, two-bath, under a thousand square feet, listed at $3,300 a month. That felt wildly optimistic for what it was. For a moment, I felt a flicker of desperation—what if someone grabs the $3,000 house before I do?—and then I caught myself. That house has been on Zillow for fifty-five days. I’ve already been approved. I’m seeing it in less than forty-eight hours, and if my ex-wife and the kids like it, I’ll commit.
What really struck me was how many options there are right now, all nearby. That’s a gift. There must have been times when nothing was available around here. Seeing multiple possibilities so close by feels like confirmation that I’m not scrambling—I’m choosing. And $3,000 a month feels damn good compared to paying $3,300 for half the space and one fewer bedroom and bathroom. Everything about today reinforced the same message: when I stop forcing things and stay open, life keeps handing me exactly what I need—often in ways I never could have planned.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.