2025 Took a Lot.

Some years challenge you.
Some years break things around you.

2025 took.

It took my relationship with my wife.
My it took my stepchild.
My home.
My circle.
and the life of two elderly dogs.

And for a while there-it took my mental outlook, my physical health, and my sense of orientation in the world.

That’s not poetic framing. That’s inventory.

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Isolation Wasn’t an Accident – It Was Survival

I spent most of 2025 inside.

Inside my new home-unless I was on a business trip. Inside my own head. Inside systems. Inside books. Inside code. Inside learning curves. Burning through savings. Reading constantly. Rebuilding myself quietly.

I ordered everything to the house. I rarely left.
I was in near-total isolation.

And I cried. A lot.

Not the cinematic kind-just the kind that comes from stacked loss, back-to-back-to-back, without time to process one before the next hits. Losses of people. Of routine. Of identity. Of future assumptions. Enough loss, in short order, to land me in a very dark place.

So I did what I’ve always done when reality stops cooperating:

I learned.

I turned inward and started coding therapy-teaching myself new systems, new languages, new ways of thinking. I rebuilt my mental scaffolding line by line. I learned things about myself I didn’t want to learn-but needed to.

How to protect the parts of me that matter.
How to nurture them.
How to stop giving energy to systems and people that quietly drain it.

I gerrymandered the bejesus out of my circle.

No apologies.

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It Didn’t Kill Me – It Honed Me

It took some unorthodox approaches.
Some uncomfortable honesty.
Some brutal internal audits.

But no-it didn’t kill me.

I’m stronger now. More than ever.

I chose comedy.

That’s always been a side effect of trauma for me: I get new material. I find angles. I sharpen language. I learn how to articulate pain in ways that land without bleeding everywhere.

I have great jokes now. That’s not trivial. Humor is a survival skill. It’s also a pressure valve.

Some people get worried when I get all “sad bot.”

But here’s the reality: sharing is how I release pent-up negative energy. It’s how I metabolize it instead of letting it rot. And it’s also a reminder-to anyone else going through their own thing-that some of us are still about as real as they get.

Yep. We go through our stuff.
And yes-it only gets worse as you get older.
Woopie.

I’m not going to mask myself.
Sorry. Not sorry.

Remembering Who You Are

One of the most dangerous things about a hard year isn’t the loss – it’s the amnesia.

When enough things fall apart at once, it’s easy to forget who you were before everything broke. Easy to mistake survival mode for identity. Easy to think you’ve changed more than you actually have.

So I went back and looked.

Photos. Old projects. Old gigs. Old systems. Old notebooks. Versions of myself stretching back to 2005.

And the thing that stood out wasn’t how different I looked.

It was how consistent I’ve been.

Same curiosity.
Same obsession with learning all the things.
Same urge to tinker, build, fix, rewire.
Same refusal to stay in boxes that don’t fit.

Different tools. Different eras. Different scars.
Same person.

That mattered more than I expected.

Because 2025 didn’t turn me into someone new – it just buried me under enough noise that I forgot my own signal for a minute.

Seeing those photos was grounding. Proof that this isn’t a reinvention arc. It’s a continuation. I didn’t lose myself — I temporarily lost sight of myself.

And that’s fixable.

So yeah — I’m remembering who I am. Not by reinventing myself, but by reconnecting with the throughline that’s been there for two decades.

The work didn’t start recently.
The curiosity didn’t appear overnight.
The builder instinct didn’t come from trauma.

I’ve been this person since 2005.

Everything else is just iteration.

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Quiet Work, Loud Results

While all of that was happening—while things were breaking externally—work was still happening internally.

Real work.

I currently have two patents being filed, with five more actively in progress. I’ve been developing systems, projects, and product ideas aimed at making the world better—not louder, not trendier, but more resilient, more accessible, more human.

There are many things I haven’t spoken about publicly yet.
That’s intentional.

2025 wasn’t a year for announcements.
It was a year for foundations.

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Re-Emergence

And now?

I’m finally leaving my house again.
I’m finally ready to deal with NPCs again.

The isolation served its purpose—but it’s over.

I’m re-entering the world clearer, sharper, and far less interested in bullshit. I know what I’m building. I know why I’m building it. And I know what I’m no longer willing to sacrifice in the process.

So yes—

Sayonara to 2025 and here’s to a harder, stabby-er 2026 + my quest for understanding why the hell I’m here and my never ending urge to tinker and fix all the things.

Expect a ton of content and projects from me this year. I have some catching up to do…