This is my journal entry from March 9, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I wake up this morning looking forward to a massage with my massage therapist and having some time with the kids this afternoon, thinking that I'll take a nice relaxing day today and I'll have a chance to work on my business. I start off stuffing a hundred more letters because I want to be ready for the stamp to arrive in the mail. I'm listening to more of the cloistered book and I take a walk around Crescent Lake. Everything's going great, not a cloud in the sky. Then my massage therapist texts me that she's going to have to cancel last minute on the massage. I look at Wednesday when she says she wants to reschedule, but I have tennis scheduled with a friend. So I don't respond. I start to spiral. I'm like, fuck, my whole day's ruined now. I look up all these different massage therapists on a booking app. I find a few that are actually available for massages this afternoon. But some of them are at least $100 more than my massage therapist is, while others I'd need to drive to Tampa or Clearwater. In my indecision, the opportunity to schedule a massage around the same time I had with my massage therapist passes.
And then I get sidetracked and pulled down a rabbit hole online that I'm not proud of, briefly tempted to just pay for something physical to fill the gap, and then I felt disgusting and closed everything, because that's not really what I want. Thus, I'm like, I got to get out of here. I close all this shit up. And I'm fucking pissed at my massage therapist. I'm like, God damn, I hate this last minute canceling stuff. I stopped seeing her for a year because she at the time was canceling like half the massages the day before or last minute the day of. Like, well, let me try and forgive her. And, you know, she's a really good friend other than the canceling at the last minute sometimes, which hasn't been that much lately.
With this in mind, with my day fucked up now, I'm like, all right, I might as well. Let me just do something different. Let me get out of my routine. So I remember the woman I talked to at the recovery meeting on Saturday said that she liked to go to a local studio for Pilates. I'm like, all right, fuck it. Let me try that today. I haven't done a Pilates class in a decade. And the studio is so close to where I live, like, you know, less than a five minute drive. It's much closer than going to, I mean, much closer. It's like at least half of the distance and the commute time with almost no variability in the time it takes to get there compared to going to my yoga studio or something. I'm like, fuck it. Let me go try this Pilates class right now. So I go in there and I get my mat down. And sure enough, the woman from the recovery meeting walks in after me and looks surprised to see me. I'm like, God damn it. She's going to think I'm fucking stalking her or something. She told me about this and now I'm here. But I do the Pilates class, which ends up being hard. Like there's so much hip flexor and like repetitive small muscle work and ab work. I'm like, Jesus, like it doesn't get my cardio going that much, but it burns out some of these little muscles in my legs and my abs. And I'm grateful to that. I tried something new after the class wraps up.
The woman from the recovery meeting starts talking to me. I was going to just let her go, be like, whatever. Sorry, you know, I don't want to make you think I'm stalking you or something. But she actually is looking at me and like waving at me. I'm like, all right, well, I guess this is might go well then. So I start talking to her and, you know, I acknowledge like, hey, you told me about this. I wanted to do it. My routine was disrupted. You know, sorry if I like triggered that stalker thing. She's like goes on about how she's had all these stalkers before in her life. And we walk out of class and go down in the shade as we're talking. She suggests we move over into a shaded spot because it's like one in Florida and it's hot and sunny, even though it's March. So as I keep talking to her, she continues to be just as defensive as she was at the recovery meeting. Now, this is a pretty woman born a few years after me, maybe like a handful or so. She's so defensive like I asked simple questions and she's like I don't even know you. I'm like I was wasn't asking like anything invasive. I was like asking an ordinary thing like what are you passionate about in life. Like a normal person would be like you know I really care about animals or the environment or you know kids or teaching or writing or art or music. Like a regular fucking person would have said that.
But this woman gets all defensive and the conversation continues to spiral. There end up being periods where we just stare at each other. And I'm getting some really bad vibes here, but I'm just locked in it right now. And I'm interested, like I told her, I'm like, I had kind of an excited reaction when she came in to the meeting the first time. And now it turns out she knows a guy from my recovery group. And he already told her about me. So she already knew me from him. And I didn't know anything about her. So she already knows that I write books and knows a little bit about my life and has actually heard good things about me from my friend. And yet she's so fucking defensive. And I point some of the things out. I'm like, you know. It's, yes, I know it's a crazy, dangerous, awful world lots of times, but if you have your heart closed to love and joy, you know, then there's no point in living. Like, there's no point in going around with your heart closed all the time. You can't receive any of the love that's there. So I said a few things like that, because I was disturbed to see how defensive and closed-hearted she was, and at the same time, she kept wanting to talk to me, too, which is just the weirdest combination.
At one point, towards the end of the conversation, because we were exploring some interesting territory, she did open up a little bit after saying how she didn't know me and she didn't like having her boundaries pushed and like one red flag after another of how much she's struggling. Like, Jesus Christ, a normal person would have just answered the questions and had a conversation or left and said, hey, I got to go. Bye. But not her. And I ask if like you want to go have lunch. She's like, no, you know, I'm. She's like, no, I don't want to. And then a few minutes later, she finally says that she's going to go. We talked for like 30 minutes at least. She says she's going to go. And I'm like, do you want to exchange numbers or something? She says really coldly, like, I don't think that'd be appropriate and walks off. And then I spiral. And I'm like, what the fuck was that? Like, that was so bad. That was one of the worst conversations I've had in a long time. I felt like, you know, ChatGPT is much easier to talk to. Like this was, this was like, I just left like taking on, I feel like I downloaded all these like nasty emotions and like she projected all this awful shit onto me and just dumped all this nasty crap onto me. I hope she felt better afterwards because I felt like shit after that conversation, just like I did after the last conversation with her.
And then I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Like, why do I tolerate that? I should have just dismissed her immediately when the first time she got defensive and be like, I don't know you. I'm like, well, fine. All right, I'm going to go. I'll talk to you later. And I come home and I'm like crying. Like, I feel so bad. I could just feel what, like how. I could feel all the nasty things this woman from her past and whatever else she's been through and all that shit she was projecting on me and seeing that in me. And then the insane combination of wanting to talk to me and being very interested in me and hearing good things about me and being very defensive and damaged at the same time. Like, so crazy. I get home and I cry and I lay in bed and I feel like shit.
And then I think, well, let me call my friend up from my recovery group because I've got his number. We're pretty close. So I call him up and he tells me that him and this woman are very close. I'm like, y'all are dating. He's like, no. I'm like, why not? Why don't if you're that close, why don't you date? He's like, you know, it just doesn't feel like there's anything dating wise there. Like it's just a plutonic friendship. I'm like, Jesus Christ, like y'all are both fucked up. You know, or maybe I'm the one that's that's fucked up for thinking that way. But like you got something that close. But so he explains, you know, I tell him what happened and I tell him, look, I'm looking for feedback. You know, I'm not looking, you know, because he's very close with her. He doesn't want to be in the middle of, you know, the two of us, you know, trying to get him to think the other one's putting the other one down. I'm like, I'm just telling you my experience with her and I'd like you to process it and give me some ideas.
And what he says is he encourages me. He's like, you know, one thing I've learned to do is I've learned to read the room. Like if I'm not getting a warm reception, I need to stop that interaction. And that to me is like where I, cause I'm trying to figure out, I'm like, okay, it wasn't, obviously it wasn't all her. I'm like, what did I violate in myself that leaves me feeling bad? I'm like, I should have disengaged from this woman a long time before. Just like I should have disengaged from the call with the team from my yoga studio immediately. Like, this woman had a lot of bad energy and, like, just dumped it all on me. And I should have disengaged immediately. Like, this woman clearly has huge baggage with men, which would make sense why she's at a recovery meeting. And, you know, she just dumped all that on me and I absorbed it. And I should have disengaged immediately as soon as I detected that, which was really the last recovery meeting. I could pick that up and feel her hostility. And it's like, I should not be interacting with women that are hostile towards men. Like that's something fucked up that they should deal with. And I don't need to be a part of that. Like they can deal with that with their girlfriends or with platonic friends like my, you know, friend from my recovery group. Like deal with it with them. I don't want to deal with your trauma, past trauma towards men all being projected and dumped on me.
That's, you know, I went out, I remember going out with a woman I went out with and she's, you know, eye gazing at me and saying that she is really good reading energy. And she said, you know, you're just such a kind soul. And then that other woman from a local spiritual community, that's like, you know, you're so mature and loving and wise. And it's like, that's, that's what I have to offer for a woman who's not fucked up and damaged. But man, I've got a resentment bad. And my friend helps me to make some more sense of it. Really, I take away from the call with him, like read the room. That's one thing I could do better is read the room because I can read the room. I mean, I could tell this woman was very defensive. And yet it's like I just subjected myself to more of the torture of talking with her anyway. I am proud that my curiosity was driving that, though. But, you know, the curiosity can be, there's a lot of ways I can be curious. And I noticed, like, maybe there's an opportunity to be curious about more other people. Like, often I'm not curious enough about non-attractive women or men, although I certainly am in many cases. And I'm too curious about attractive women. So I can see the opportunity to balance that out. Like, I want to know about attractive women too much. And if you're not an attractive woman, in a lot of cases, I'm not as interested. So that I could adjust. Be more curious in regular people and less curious about attractive women. And, you know, assume that, assume people are, well, like, just not go in assuming there's something amazing there, but just because a woman's attractive. But, you know, go in with no assumptions and read the room.
So I hang out with my friend. I feel better getting some clarity. And at the same time, I go through my phone. I woke up this morning thinking I need to purge all these girls, especially, but some, you know, a lot of guys' phone numbers too. I need to go through my phone. I have over 300 contacts. I need to clear out the ones that I don't use and that I have no reason to use anymore. So I go through my phone while I'm talking with my friend because it's a pretty mindless task. And I delete hundreds of phone numbers. I delete the number of a woman I'd been interested in. I delete the number of a woman I had contacted. I delete the number of a woman I had been seeing. I delete the number of a woman I know. I delete my friend I had a crush on in my recovery group a few years ago. Delete her number. Anyone that I've sent a message to that didn't respond to me or was not very warm, like the woman I had been seeing was not very warm. Well, she didn't respond to me either. Like the others didn't respond to my last message, delete all of them. I'm done. I don't ever need to text them again. If they message me and or call, you know, I won't have their number in my phone to tell them from a random person unless they make it clear who they are. I can just ignore their message, especially if it's a like hi, you know, hey Jerry what's new. Like I don't need to respond to that either. Like if it was from a random number, I wouldn't, I wouldn't bother responding to that. Like the woman I know sent me that hey Jerry what's new. If I didn't have her number on my phone, I wouldn't have responded to that.
So I also delete a lot of men's phone numbers. A guy I've known for a decade in my recovery group, he didn't respond to my last message. It doesn't seem like we're on the same wavelength anymore. He's taking these marijuana gummies. Last time I saw him, I deleted his number. I'm like, I need to be very careful about who I let in my inner circle and who I invite to spend more time with me. Unless you're paying to spend time with me. If you're paying to spend time with me, you know, I'll open it up a lot. But if I'm going to spend time with you for free, I need to be very choosy about who spends time with me for free. No sick, crazy girls. You know, no dudes that are like out, you know, using again. So I delete hundreds from my phone and I feel like I've cleared up a huge headspace. Like, it's so nice that I can't just impulsively text a woman I had contacted or a woman I had been seeing when I'm feeling good, and try and reach out and start that again. Those should be finished unless they reach out. Because I've reached out enough times at this point, and it's dead unless it's on them.
After I hang out with my friend, the kids get here, and thank God for them. I'm so disturbed that I can tell I'm not really fully being present with the kids, but I know that, and I'm working on bridging the gap. My ex-wife doesn't ask any questions, and she can see I'm in an awful mood. She's not interested in investigating that, which is just fine with me. My ex-wife heads out and the kids immediately get to playing with their friend who was grounded for a couple of weeks, but she's available now. So for most of the rest of the evening, the kids are hanging out with their friend and my son and I drive cars in the back alley and wreck them into each other again, which ends up being a lot of fun and a lot of laughter. I am super grateful that even though I feel so fucking depressed, that I can still laugh and I can still have fun with my son. And I keep getting more and more present with the kids as time goes on. My daughter goes to play with my landlord's pets for an hour. And my son plays with me and then goes to play with the friends. They end up playing most of the time with the friends, although they do stuff about 50 more letters at my house between playing with friends. And whenever they're not here, I stamp, I get the stamp in the mail and I stamp at least 400 letters. All those letters we got ready that I stuffed that the kids stuffed. I stamp all of them while the kids are out and then clean up the house, get ready for them. We then they finally get back at like nine. My son did his homework at some point in there and then finishes up his homework. I read the Humphrey book to them that they're reading. And all of us take showers and we go to bed at 9.55. And I'm very grateful.
As I go to bed, I have probably my best cry of the day. Now, I cried at least three, maybe four different times today. I am thankful the woman from the recovery meeting did help me express some emotions. And she kept talking about a leak in energy. And I'm like, that's exactly like she sprung a leak in my energy and just like dumped it all out and screwed it all up somehow. And I delete the recovery meetings off my calendar that she goes to. I'm like, I'm not going there anymore. I don't want to see her again. I'm not going to go to Pilates. I want to stay away from this woman, anyone that, you know, I'm going to bed. I'm like, I really need to stay away from her. Like this was one of the most difficult, draining conversations I've had with someone in quite a while. Like this, I need to stay away from her. Like, I don't want to see her anymore. And my mind must have ranted about her for over an hour, if not two hours today. And I interrupted it with all the positive intelligence shit so many times. I stopped it so many times. I'm like, there's the judge. Like, is she really that bad? You know, I interrupted it, but it went on and on and on and on and on about this woman. Like I, nobody has triggered me that bad in quite a while. And I'm like, we're going to stay away from her.
And then I'm thinking, you know, I wonder how this was for her. Like, does she walk away having dumped all her shit on me? Does she actually feel better? Does she want to talk with me again or will she be happy not to see me at the recovery meeting? I end up feeling pretty powerless, like so stupid, like. She'll probably be relieved that I'm not at the recovery meeting. There's nothing. It's just pure shit. But a valuable learning point going forward. I need to be very careful about where I give people my time and energy. And I need to cut people off, especially attractive girls, intentionally compensate and cut them off much earlier. Like the date with the woman I went out with a week ago, for example. I should have cut that date off as soon as it wasn't very rude. Like, as soon as we were done eating dinner, I should have cut that date off right there. Although I would have missed some interesting material about the extraterrestrial spacecraft. I should have cut the date off two hours earlier, and I knew I didn't want a second date, and I didn't like her that much within the first three seconds of seeing her. And I dragged it out. And I knew this woman was bad news that talking to her for two minutes at the recovery meeting. And so I confirmed that by talking with her for 30 minutes.
But I am really grateful as I go to bed. I am so grateful for the kids. Like the energy of being around the kids is just the opposite of being around this woman. They're so open hearted and like the girl that they're friends with, you know, she's so open hearted and, you know, talking about her life and just. Just so open to have a heartfelt conversation. I'm like, thank God for the kids. I talk to the kids because they asked why I felt so bad. And I said, I ran into someone that was really mean today, you know, who unloaded all her emotions and bullshit onto me. And, you know, then I could see that she was seeing me that way. And it felt disgusting. I felt, you know, emotionally violated. And, you know, she did not affirm me at all. Her words were all cruel. And yet I stood there and took them anyway and continued to encourage her to use more cruel words on me. And she was happy to oblige.
I lay in bed reflecting like, thank God for these kids. Like these kids, you know, the world often feels like a really shitty place with sick people, not just women, of course, but sick people, you know, who do a lot of fucked up things to hurt each other, who are living very closed hearted self-absorbed disconnected lives but these kids these kids are just right like these kids if if we can give you know if these kids these kids to me are like our whole people still not fucked up and destroyed and broken by the world yet and like they're my role models like i want you know the kids say that they're proud of me for being just like a big kid and that's how i feel like i still am approaching the world like a kid, which is why I get crushed sometimes emotionally doing that. And I go to bed feeling super grateful that the kids are there. Like, you know what? The kids help me avoid using coping mechanisms. The kids are enough to love me and to take the edge off of, you know, the one of the worst conversations I've had in a while today. And what's funny is my friend from my recovery group is so close with this woman and thinks so highly of her, and he's very close and thinks highly of me, and yet, you know, I have the exact opposite experience. It's so funny how, you know, how relative our lives are. I go to bed thinking that my mind is going to process this, and tomorrow I'm going to have an even better understanding and be able to put all this stuff into play clearly.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.