This is my journal entry from January 2, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I went in today working on my memoir book with my life history. Working title right now is Automatic Escape: I Didn't Need Fixing. The manuscript now is up to 58,000 words already, and I've just barely got over halfway. This is going to be a longer book. I also laid in bed in the morning for a while and made a plan for what I'd want to do going forward. I've now got a list of eight different books I want to write that I'll be able to hand out in all different circumstances and test different reactions, see if any of them actually make me some money. I took about an hour to dictate part of the book before I went to boxing training with my personal trainer today.
My personal trainer showed me how to do a one-two punch with the jab from the left and then the cross from the right. He showed me how to duck down and avoid a blow and just slide my face over at the last second when the punches are coming. It was a good workout. And I thought I was damn near going to pass out at the end when he had me just do a burnout. I told him I'd like to start doing it like every other week or so and work on using him as a teacher. Like now I can do a much better boxing workout now that he walked me through some of the very basics. And I want to work on having him teach me workouts. Plus, I'll go to HIIT classes and things like that. The goal is that I can do my own workouts myself and go lift weights. And he's helping me be accountable and be a part of that process. Having my trainer keep me accountable reminded me how much faster I grow with people in my corner, which is exactly why I built the Jerry Banfield Family for anyone who wants that kind of support too.
After I finished that boxing workout, I came home, dictated the rest of the chapter on getting sober, and then went through ChatGPT and took all the dictations I had and put them into the manuscript. I guess there's some good material in here, but that's just the real story of my life too. I get the utility switched over and I realized I missed paying my electric bill last month. Whoops, I thought I had auto pay on. And they're pretty nice about it. It's like, okay, well, pay the last month and pay this month. I'm like, okay, let me pay that shit as soon as possible. I call Duke Energy to fix my name, which somehow has been misspelled for eight years. Get that fixed. Then finally get through after 30 minutes on hold to the St. Pete Utilities and get my water set up. It's cool. The phone has this feature now where you can essentially put the hold music on hold. If you're on hold, you just type that you're on hold and it'll stop playing the hold music and then it'll ring when you're off hold, which worked great twice today. I'm going to meet the owners of the house tomorrow and grab the keys from them. I'm so excited to move in.
Then at 4.44, I met a woman I'd been talking to, who's proving more interesting than usual. I hope things will go well with her. She's a friend that a friend of mine and I have in common, but we'd never met. My friend was saying that she thinks the two of us should hit it off, and I messaged her yesterday, and we set up our little walk in the park today. She's available and ready to go and meets me there at 444. I park along Crescent Lake so I can walk a block to meet her there. I see a woman sitting on a bench and wonder if that's her. Thankfully, then I see another woman who looks great, and she starts waving at me. And my friend had told me she was like mid-50s. And as we talk, we spend the next couple hours walking and talking. She says she is mid-50s. And I'm like, damn, you are still looking fantastic. Anyone can have a hot body in their teens, 20s, 30s. It takes work to keep on having a hot body. And of course, she's very much into healthy eating. We're on the same page. I'm like, God, this is so nice. The more we talk, the more things that my ex-wife and I didn't have in common, this woman and I do have in common. Like, we both didn't get vaccinated. We both quit things that paid well last year so that we could pursue more of a passion. And we both kind of burned our lives down last year. And I'm like, wow, I really like this girl. She's cool.
So we talk. We end up sitting down on a bench. She's into astrology, and she gives me an astrology reading. And she gives me a lot of validation. She's like, based on your astrology reading, writing books makes complete sense, especially the way you described it to me. That looks perfectly aligned for you. I'm like, thank you. I feel like that validation is really helpful for me. I made a point of bringing up the subject of intimacy a few different times, and after we moved on to other subjects, she brought it up a few times too. As the afternoon went on, the chemistry between us started to feel pretty intense. There was real chemistry building between us. I walked her back to her car and held her hand, and I could feel a strong physical spark just from that, more than I'd felt on walks with a woman I went out with, or other women I'd been talking to and interested in. I'm like, damn, this girl's got some real energy, and I like it.
She said she consistently has dated guys that were much younger than her because the guys in her same age demographic are often not active. She's like, all they do is sit on the couch. You go back and look in these daily autobiographies earlier, I thought I said at some point that I was thinking a nice older woman might be really good for me. It could be a great opportunity for both of us to learn and grow together and enjoy each other. I know I sure love the idea of dating a girl 16 years or so younger than me. That would be awesome. I would feel very validated by that, especially if she was really active and into me. And I'd love to be on the other end of that. She ended up talking about how she's dated some younger guys and sometimes she just felt like it was kind of the utility of being this older woman that someone they could learn from. And I said, well, if I was to date a younger woman, it'd be utility. It'd just be a different kind of utility. Instead of maturity, I'd be getting youth and the chance to have kids. That's utility also. And you should be proud that you have utility and people are into it. I'm like, everything in life is ultimately a transacting of utility. And that felt really good.
I walked her back to her car and I looked to read her body language to see if she was interested in making out. My read on her was that that'd be a bit too soon. We literally just met two hours before. Things had gone really well. I'd held her hand, which felt great. And I asked her immediately, what are you doing tomorrow night? She's like, oh, you want to see me tomorrow night? I'm like, hell yeah. I got time. I'd rather investigate her and see if there's some reason we shouldn't date as soon as possible. Because if there is, I'd rather just check that off my mental to-do list. Because she's very much taking up space in my head right now. I've got to investigate further.
And honestly, I want to talk more with her about intimacy, because physical connection matters a lot to me and I never want to be with a partner where it feels like a chore for either of us. That was something I felt was missing at times in my marriage, and I don't want to repeat it. I don't ever want to be with someone where it would feel like an obligation. And if I'm going to consider dating somebody, because I'm definitely going to be monogamous, I'd rather do serial monogamy than polyamory. Polyamory is just complicated. Serial monogamy is easy enough to focus on. If a girl is happy to live together and we have a great connection, along with doing all the other stuff too, that's exactly what I'm looking for.
She was a little self-conscious about her body, some cellulite, some loose skin. I'm like, so do I, don't worry about it, you're beautiful. Right now she doesn't have a place to live, because her last place got destroyed in the hurricane and she'd just quit her career. This might be a nice opportunity to work together. I do have a place to live. If she can live there and we can make a great partnership and enjoy each other's company, help each other learn and grow and make healthy meals together, and if she could contribute anything to the rent, that'd be great. I love things that are perfectly aligned. I'm really into this girl, and this is so cool.
I've never dated a woman older than 41 before, and I'm really drawn to her. But we need to talk more first and not just jump into anything, because once you get physical, it can be harder to step back. And at the same time, one thing that's important for me is, yes, I still want to have kids. And while she's definitely not going to have any kids, I'm happy to commit and be exclusive. But at the same time, I'm going to have my eyes open. If some girl that's 16 years younger than me comes along and falls in love with me and wants to have my babies, then that'll be the time to either do polyamory or break up, which more than likely would be break up. Like, I think every relationship is just temporary. All relationships are temporary. And what's nice is if you can make a partnership and be teammates. And to some degree, it doesn't matter whether you do that for a month or a few years or like 15 years like my ex-wife and I have. And my ex-wife and I are still teammates. Helping each other learn and grow together is everything to me, and if you're rebuilding your own life, I'd love for you to come grow with us in the Family.
After the date, I go over to my ex-wife's house. I stop at my house, grab some stuff to take to her house like my compost. And then I go over, having brought air-popped popcorn for the kids. I serve the popcorn up and talk to my ex-wife a little bit. And some days she's a little defensive, a little distant. But today she was very warm. She accidentally called me handsome, which she's been trying not to do since we're divorced. But she's like, you know, you still are handsome. And it was funny, it's like some other girl is validating me and getting her sights set on me, and my ex-wife can feel that. But at the same time, she was so warm and tender. She was happy to see me. We had a nice conversation. I'm like, thank God for this kind of ex.
And going forward, I'm going to make sure to tell this woman this: I would love to be great teammates and have fun together, but I want someone where, when the romance part of the relationship is over, and if we live together, when that's over, I'd like someone who'd still want to be friends for life. Someone that would always be a part of my life. And that's a big honor. My ex-wife's always going to be a part of my life because of our kids, and I love that. And I love how cooperative our relationship is. My ex-wife could just feel that I felt really good after this date. But she asked me not to go into the details of my dating until I get serious with somebody and want to introduce the kids or something. So she could just tell I was feeling so good. She's like, I'm glad you're doing well. She wants me to do well. As I've documented earlier, she's like, I know things are going to go well for you. You're definitely going to find someone.
And looking at this is perfect, we could have a nice relationship for a while. And if another relationship comes along for me, if my second wife comes along that wants to marry me and have babies, then I'm sure she'd understand that our time together would be valuable. So while she was standing at her car, I asked her immediately, I'd like to see you tomorrow. She was a little surprised, pleasantly. She's like, yeah, I'll be available for dinner. She's like, have you heard of this vegan sushi place? I'm like, oh yeah, that plant-based sushi spot? She's like, yeah. I'm like, I love that. My ex-wife made fun of me and didn't want to go there. I would love to go there with you tomorrow for dinner. So she said, all right, I'll see you tomorrow night for dinner. I gave her a nice hug.
And again, I could feel the energy between us. She said she hadn't been in a relationship in a couple of years, although she's been on a date here and there. And it was cool, she said somebody recently told her, maybe it was my friend, that she feels like she's going to meet her next partner soon. And I'm like, this is great. I love this. I love how I'm able to see how beautiful she is. She's got this beautiful blonde hair, a Southern accent, and yeah, you can tell she's been on this planet long enough to almost be my mom, but at the same time she's got a spark in her eyes and so much energy about her, and she takes great care of herself. She's one of the best-looking women her age that I've seen. It's so hot that you can take care of your body over time. I remember seeing a lady at the tennis club who really inspired me that way too.
I love how open I am. Even though I definitely want to have kids, I have time to have kids. If anything, dating a woman for a few years like this might be really good while my kids get older. And then when they don't need me as much, it might make sense to start having my second family like five, six, seven years from now. When my son's 14, he's not going to need his dad around all the time. He's going to need rides to and from sports. He's going to start having girlfriends. He's not going to want to play and snuggle up with his dad all the time. But I don't want to miss that time while he is. And that was the biggest concern my kids expressed. And ironically, dating a woman like this could perfectly fit in with my life right now and we could really help each other. So I'm so excited. I'm so grateful. Just a few days after I gave up on trying to date, I finally have the first date that I've been really wanting, like walking around Crescent Lake and having such nice chemistry with someone who's actually single, who looks like she likes me and she's been told nice things about me and she loves what I'm saying. Wow. If you're weighing a big life decision like this and want to talk it through one-on-one, I'd be glad to meet you on a private Zoom call.
After going to my ex-wife's house, I went to an AA meeting to meet my sponsor there. And there was a woman I hadn't seen there for years. And I think she's close to 50. She said she just had a baby a couple years ago. I'm like, that's so awesome. She's like, it was a miracle baby. I didn't think I could have kids. I was so happy. I'm like, man, this is nice. And I got called on to share. The topic was fear and intrusive thoughts. And I'm like, I live mostly in faith now. There have been hard days too, but I'm glad I hung on, because what a great day this was.
I talked with a couple of guys for like 30 minutes after the meeting. One of the guys tells me that he'd like to go to the Philippines and find himself a second wife and have more kids with her, and I think he's like 50. And he's like, I'd love for you to go with me. I'm like, tell me when you've got more concrete plans. I'm not ready to go right now, but maybe by this summer I'll be ready. I'm down. And then we talked to this guy who's newly sober, and we encouraged him. He just asked my sponsor to sponsor him, and I'm like, that's so awesome. My sponsor is over 40 years sober. He should be sponsoring several guys. He has so much to give, and he has time to talk to people. It's great. It's good for all of us.
So I went to the meeting and then called my mother. I hadn't talked to her in a little under a week. And she seemed like she was in a bit of a mood, not very happy with me, so I just let her go after a couple of minutes. I said she could come down tonight if she wanted. She said she was busy, so I said, okay, it's no big deal. Talk to you another time. She responded to my text message this morning saying, that's fine, tell me when we can do something. And I'm glad I've had time to record this tonight and to edit my book I'm working on, and yeah, I'll let you know what happens tomorrow.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.