This is my journal entry from November 25, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I slept on the couch last night with the cats, and all things considered, it went pretty well. They weren’t there the entire night, but at some point they came down and woke me up. The couch wasn’t exactly comfortable, especially compared to my usual routine of sleeping alone in a blacked-out room, but I still managed to get a decent night of rest—enough to feel ready for a power flow yoga class in the morning at a local yoga studio.
My nephew got up and headed off to school, and then my sister woke up. We sat together and had a nice cup of tea while she made me avocado toast. After that, she left for her group, and I drove over to a yoga studio in town. The studio is heated to 88 degrees, which made me grateful I wore workout shorts and took my shirt off. It’s a strange experience to walk outside in forty-degree weather wearing a jacket and shorts, knowing you’re headed somewhere that feels like summer inside. The staff at the studio were friendly, and the teacher—attractive and clearly very experienced—was leading the class. There were only two of us students there, which made for an intimate, focused power flow that felt both grounding and energizing.
After class, my sister had suggested I go next door to the coffee shop right beside the studio. I brought my laptop and my Can You Catch a Cold? book with me and walked up to the counter, where a beautiful barista with a smile that lit up her whole face greeted me. I ordered a chocolate-dipped date and a Nutella strawberry croissant to go with my matcha tea. I sat down, opened my book, and read in the coffee shop, and it felt genuinely good just to be out. I could have easily done the same thing at home, laptop open and book in hand, but being around people made a real difference. I need to do more of this—more time out in cafés, just sitting among other humans—because I get lonely too easily. Being in a place like this, surrounded by quiet activity and presence, seems to keep that loneliness at bay.
After about an hour, I realized the Wi-Fi wasn’t working and my phone hotspot was crawling, so I headed back to my sister’s house. I wasn’t sure if my niece was home since she’d stayed back from school that day. I asked if she was there and said hello, but there was no response, and it seemed like I had the place to myself. The house was quiet. I took a shower and then sat down to work on my résumé, along with recording the last two diary entries I’d fallen behind on. It felt almost funny to be working on a résumé after all these years of not applying for jobs, but a man at the tennis club had asked me to send one over. I dictated a long voice memo to ChatGPT, laying out everything I’ve done, and then spent a couple of hours refining it with the help of the AI. When it was finished, I looked at it and thought, damn, this actually looks impressive.
Seeing it all laid out—over a billion views online that I chose to delete, being a top 20 Facebook partner, a top 10 Udemy instructor, millions of dollars in online sales, coaching clients in more than 30 countries—hit differently on paper. The résumé reflected a wide range of skills: speaking, coaching, consulting, writing. It genuinely looked solid. I’d been feeling pretty down lately, but regardless of what happens with any résumé I send out, I felt proud of where I’ve been and what I’ve done. For once, instead of feeling like I’d completely fucked up my career and my life, I could see the full arc of it with a little more respect.
Later that evening, my sister got home from her group and made chili for dinner. One of her friends came over, and oh my god—this woman was funny as hell. She’s a middle-aged Black woman with purple hair and has two kids of her own. From the moment she started talking, I felt it instantly: she talks the way I think. It was like having a stand-up comedian in the room, completely off the cuff, sharp, real, and unfiltered. We were laughing nonstop. There was no performative energy to it—just raw, observational humor pouring out of her in a way that felt effortless.
We ate the chili together and then headed to the AA meeting. At one point, one of the guys said something so funny that my sister’s friend literally put her head down so she wouldn’t laugh out loud in the middle of the meeting. Later, when it was my turn to share, I talked honestly about going through divorce, being sober, and feeling that heavy sense of hopelessness—the “why bother” feeling that creeps in when everything feels stripped down. One of the guys came up to me afterward and told me how much what I said had impacted him. He shared that he’d felt exactly that way a few years ago, right in the middle of his drinking, and that now he was sober, engaged, and had a new baby. He said he was genuinely grateful he’d made it through that phase of his life and that what I shared really hit him. He told me he felt like I was there for him in the meeting that night, which was honestly beautiful to hear.
When we got back to the house, my sister, her friend, and I all sat around talking. My nephew came downstairs too, and the whole thing just turned into one long stretch of laughter and shit-talking. I mostly sat back and listened while the three of them carried the conversation because they were absolutely killing me. Every once in a while I’d jump in with a comment, but mostly I was just enjoying being entertained. Eventually, after my sister made some tea, we all started winding down. We didn’t get to bed until around 11:00 p.m., and that hot tea in the cold Michigan climate hit perfectly. I finally understood why tea is such a big deal in the UK—drinking hot tea in Florida just isn’t the same. In winter, it lands differently. It settles you. I figured I’d probably sleep better on the couch that night, especially since my sister and her daughter took the cats upstairs with them. With any luck, that meant a quieter night and a little more rest.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.