Looking Forward Through the Rearview
I didn’t plan to write this today.
This morning, I opened Facebook, scrolled past a few things, and then—boom—it did that thing it does and served up a memory I didn’t go looking for. Actually… it served up two. One from 2021. The other from 2022. Both deeply honest. Both from very different emotional places.
Reading them stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with past versions of myself—one who was barely hanging on, and one who had found his footing again. It caught me off guard and sent me into a spiral of reflection I didn’t expect.
And that’s what led me here—writing this update four years later.
Choosing Integrity, One Year Later
A year ago yesterday, my professional world was shattered.
There’s no dramatic way to dress that up. A routine request. A meeting I believed was ordinary. And then—without warning—the ground disappeared beneath me. No explanation. No conversation. Just an ending I didn’t see coming and didn’t understand. One moment I was fully employed, invested, and planning for the future. The next, I was untethered—left holding questions that never received answers.
The year that followed has been anything but simple.
Cashing in my Mulligan
2025.
Well… that was... a year.
Like so many of you, I’ve been reading the year-end recaps — the honesty, the exhaustion, the collective sigh of “2025 was hard.” I feel that deeply. I see so many people saying they’re ready to let the heavy stuff go and finally receive goodness, peace, and joy.
Same. Loud same. If I’m being honest, 2025 sucked ass. It was a total kick in the face kind of year. One of those years where just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, the floor drops out again. And again. And again.
There were moments I truly didn’t know how much more I could take — physically, emotionally, spiritually. It felt relentless. Exhausting. Heavy. Painful. Some days, survival was the only goal. Some days, I questioned everything.
And yet…