This is my journal entry from January 7, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I picked the kids up today for school, dropped them off, had a nice time reading my son's book that was all about the sun to him this morning. Had the last couple of Larabars for breakfast, which I now regret because there's none for tomorrow. But I found a fantastic sale today where they're like 25% off. I went back to my place, well, the old place. Got some stuff to move it to a new place. And then went to play tennis with a friend. He fucked me up today, man. I lost both sets by three or four games. We had fun playing. I hadn't played tennis in a week or two at this point either. It felt great to get out there. The weather was nice and cloudy and cool. It was perfect. Had a good chat with him. Then went back.
Knocked down a salad and got another load for the car ready, dropped it off my place. Then I picked the kids up from school. My daughter comes out immediately and says, I want to go pick Melanie up at mom's house and bring her down to your house. I said, no, thanks. We're not doing that. Your mom has a meeting and you know, you got to plan this stuff further in advance. I'm planning to take you back to my house. We'll hang out there. She gets in a fuss for the next, like, 40 minutes, but thankfully she was pretty quiet about it. She mostly just didn't talk, and then when they got to my house, she stood out in the front yard and was jumping and grabbing leaves off this tree, and she took the bowl of strawberries from my son. It ended up being a pretty smooth time through her emotions, which I'm really grateful for. At the house...
I showed my son how I put on the blackout film onto the windows. I ordered this blackout film where you just clean the window and get it wet and then stick the film on, and it's perfect. But I kind of messed up doing some of the applications earlier today, so I ordered a few more. They're hella cheap, too, like $8 a roll. A roll's enough to do one window. I have four windows, though, in the main bedroom. God damn it, who's going to give a fuck about how many windows you have in your bedroom? Well, who knows if anybody else will ever listen to this, so maybe no one, but I think it's interesting. After my daughter settled down and my son explored the house, and I gave him each of these little things come with a little squeegee and a tape measure. I gave him those to play with, and he did for like a few minutes, actually.
But then we settled down to play the Harry Potter Monopoly. I took the folding table, and I got this chair in the mail today that has a footrest, some cheap $75 chair on Amazon that has a little ottoman with it. Set all that up, and we played Harry Potter Monopoly. We hit a nice zone where we're all laughing and having fun, the kids and me. And then my ex-wife calls. I made a plan with her that she could come at 5 and bring the dog, and we could go to the dog park. Well, she ends up arriving almost 30 minutes early. And for some reason, it just blew my buzz. Like, I was all excited. We all were in sync. We're having fun playing together. I don't know. My ex-wife getting here, I just had an emotional, sudden emotional crash as soon as she called and said she wanted to come early. I'm like, damn, my time with the kids. Like, we're all having so much fun. And it was so, I mean, I guess there are ways to rationalize it, but it just felt like an overdramatic reaction. It's like, come on. I felt the same way my daughter did when she came out of school. Like, it was just emotions, and I got a little bitchy and whiny for a little bit of it, but I was just kind of quiet for the rest of it. And then it wore off once we walked. I got the drone out and got the remote control car, and we took the dog and walked over to Crescent Lake, and...
It only took a few hundred yards of walking before it wore off. And I'm like, whew, I don't know what happened with that mood. But I'm glad I'm done with that. And I'm glad my ex-wife, she went outside for a minute when she got here to do her work stuff. And then she's like, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your time like that. And I'm like, I don't know what happened with my emotions. She's like, well, you're doing great with moving right now and these big changes. And I was like, thank you. I hadn't thought of that. You know, I was kind of down that I'd had that much of an emotional reaction, but at the same time, I was like, you know, yeah. Overall, everything is going great. Like, I'm moving into this house tomorrow where I'm recording this, and I've got almost everything here by now except the furniture, and I'm so excited to start sleeping here. Now, this house has a lot of old shit in it.
Needs to be replaced and like door handles that fell off the fucking bathroom. I could barely get out of that bitch today. Like I'll try. I'm like, I'm glad this bathroom has two doors because I'm literally like the handle fell off and I can't like turn it to open. And I mean, I probably could have just kicked that bitch in if I needed to or something. But I'm like, shit, good thing there's another door here. I already feel really at home here. It felt so nice to have a shorter drive home from the kids' school. You know, even if it's just a few minutes, that time adds up when it's repeated. You know, I got a few minutes back in my life. Really grateful for that. If you're settling into a new chapter and rebuilding your life like this, I'd love for you to come grow alongside us in the Jerry Banfield Family.
My ex-wife and I and the kids had a wonderful walk to the park. We walked around Crescent Lake to the dog park. Melanie ran around there and played with other dogs. I was messing all the dogs up at the dog park when I took the drone off. They were all going nuts, barking at it and trying to chase it. I flew it over the dog park, and they went flying around. I'm glad you can fly drones in St. Pete parks. It's so fun. I flew the drone and let my son and my daughter have a turn flying it. My ex-wife didn't want a turn to fly it, but my son and my daughter had fun flying it. My son's car was going back and forth between high speed and low speed for some reason we couldn't figure out. He drove it around, and then my ex-wife and I had a really nice conversation between talking to the kids. My daughter was happy to have the dog. My son was happy to have his car and to have attention from all of us.
My ex-wife had parked on the side of the street that you're not supposed to park on. I was like, ooh, you were naughty. You parked here for an hour and a half. She's like, you didn't say anything when we walked out. I'm like, yeah, I was in a shitty mood. I wasn't really paying attention. But I'm like, do not park right in front of my house again. You got to park on the other side of the street from now on. So I teased her a little bit about that. And then she took the kids home.
My son's car still had battery and I wanted to run it out. So I walked back over to Crescent Lake driving his car by myself. And I was laughing my ass off because I drove the car out in the middle of the park and there were a few dogs that people were letting run around off leash. And the dogs started chasing the car, which was hilarious. That had me fucked up. Like these dogs just running behind this remote control car all over, and thankfully I was going fast again all over the place. Then I ran into this kid out there. He liked my remote control car, so then I let him drive the car himself and he drove it and he loved the dogs chasing it around too until it ran out of battery.
I'm a parent myself and I'm always trying to run the delicate balance of being, you know, friendly and nice with kids, but at the same time not being seen as some creep, you know? It's really awkward. It's like, all right, you know, I don't know. It's so much easier for women in so many ways than this. Like, I listened to Ali Wong's special tonight called Don Wong. And yeah, there's stuff that's harder for women. This thing is much harder for men. Women can just go out and snuggle some random kid and nobody's going to think twice about it. But I'm standing next to this kid. I'm like, all right, am I too close to this kid? Like, I don't want the parents to think I'm doing anything wrong, you know, like, let me take a step away from this kid. So you got to question that shit all the time, when back when I didn't question it as much.
You know, all the kids were giving me huge hugs because I'm a big, loving, kind guy, like a woman I went out with said when we went to walk on the beach. I just see you radiate kindness. So the kids see that, too. All the kids in my daughter's class were giving me so many hugs. They finally, the teacher said that only the child of the parent could give a parent a hug. I'm like, how fucking petty is this shit right now?
So I played with this kid at the park, and his parents were happy I was entertaining him. And he was running around like crazy and laughing like hell at the dogs chasing the car. Then the battery ran out, and he left crying because he ended up thinking that he did something. I'm like, the car battery's out, and I'm going to go take it home and charge it. So he was crying. I'm like, I had a great time. Thanks a lot, kid. His mom's like, thank you. His dad's like, nice meeting you. Like, well, that was a good time for all of us.
So I came back home and then went to chair the AA meeting that I chaired for this month. I asked another guy to do the topic because this girl, I didn't have her number or anything. And she didn't show up till after the meeting already started. But she still did the topic and did a great job. And we had a no bullshit meeting where people didn't just gush about how the big book's so great and Bill Wilson is the next Jesus Christ or whatever. No, we had a good meeting where people were real, talking about their struggles. And I shared, of course, about my divorce. What else do you think I'd talk about? I said I was wondering sometimes if my sobriety was just easy. That I had such a loving wife who took care of me. And, you know, I made money. And I'm like, is it easy for me to stay sober just because my life's been easy?
Grateful to share. I'm like, you know, I'm happy for my divorce because my divorce might change a career. It showed me like my sobriety is strong. Like I just went through all that shit all at once. And, you know, I had some tough days, as you might have read about. More than likely you haven't read about. Because I'm talking to some imaginary fucker here and just sitting in this house recording this by myself. Wouldn't it be funny if this became like the next religion where like 100,000 years from now, everybody's reading every one of these diaries and like hanging on every word of it and talking about me like I'm some savior? That'd be stupid, wouldn't it? And yes, Jerry will triumph. You will all pray to Jerry instead of Jesus. I had a good chat with people.
A little chat after the meeting, not too serious. Then I fucked up and called my mother, and I went back to the house I'm moving out of and collected a whole bunch of shit. Really, it's not shit. Collected a lot of kitchen stuff to move from one kitchen to the other. I got a bunch of plastic bags. God damn, this has got even more exciting than when you're talking about how many windows your bedroom has. Charlie Murphy.
And I called my mother, and, you know, she's unhappy that I said I don't want to hang out with her at her house anymore. She's unhappy that I've moved out of the neighborhood, and I don't want to just hang around at her house with the kids eating junk food and watching Winnie the Pooh, bouncing around her fucking cluttered house. And I don't want them hanging around with these pill bottles all around and just feeling like it's normal to have these orange pill bottles laying all over.
So I let her rant for a while and I told her about a woman I'd been talking to, because I guess it's time to mention she texted me earlier today. Actually, she sent like a two and a half minute audio message. And I notice how fast my mind and body jump straight to wanting her physically, like I've got a one-track mind sometimes. I'm trying to be honest with myself about how much of this is just loneliness and desire since the divorce rather than any real connection. Anyway, I got a message from her, and she's like, you know, I'm available if you want to meet Friday at Crescent Lake Park for another walk, and I texted her back. I guess my text was kind of lukewarm because she sent this, you know, detailed message and all that shit and I sent back, you know, thanks for the message, I'm moving all the furniture tomorrow and I've been spending the last few days moving all the small stuff, Friday I should be able to meet up with you for a walk at Crescent Lake. It was kind of lukewarm. You know, I kind of feel lukewarm about her too. Like I was pretty excited until she just closed up and wasn't interested and I'm like whatever, you know, I guess I got overexcited.
And I talked to my mother like, you know, she needs a place to live. I have space for her to live. She just wanted to be with me and cook some food and help me with my business. Like we could make that shit happen. And I know I don't even hardly know her yet. At the same time, sometimes it makes sense to move fast in life. And other times you got to slow down. My sponsor at the meeting today, he said, you know, you can get a girl in there real quick, but it can be hard getting them out of there. My mother said it's not fair. She's like, well, what happens if you move her in and then you find some other girl that you want to have kids with and you need to dump her? I'm like, well, I'll deal with that if it happens. That's what I'll do. If you're weighing a big personal decision like whether to move fast or slow with someone, I'd be glad to talk it through with you on a private Zoom call.
I think back to my marriage. It's like, what happens when I meet this really hot girl at AA in 2021 that likes me? It might have made more sense to just be like, let me just divorce my ex-wife and marry her instead. And that could have worked out better for everybody. Or same thing with a woman I had a crush on from yoga in 2023. And maybe 2026 is the year I get the next great one. So I don't know. I love the idea of having some regular companionship and having a partner and stuff. At the same time, is it fair to someone to be like, hey, if something better comes along, I'm going to upgrade? You know?
A woman 30 years younger that comes along that wants to be with me and, you know, wants to have kids with me, yeah, I'm gonna upgrade. Is it an upgrade though? In some ways it would be, in some ways it wouldn't be. I'm just being honest. I think if we can just be honest about these things, it's all right. So I'm really grateful to have another day sober, to be moving into this house, to have all this stuff to share.
And I'm getting sleepy time. I'm going to head home and get my ass to bed. Well, I'm in one home, but I'm going to head to the home where my bed is. I'm going to grab a truck to rent tomorrow morning and start moving that shit. I'll see you tomorrow.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.