First full week back after the holidays. Back to work, back to routine, back to trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life.
Work was fine. Still adjusting, still feeling like I’m playing catch-up. I don’t need to say the “i” word again. I feel like I’ve said it enough this last month (it’s still there). But I’m showing up, doing the work, trying to learn. That’s about all I can do right now.
Wednesday was New Year’s Eve. I could’ve stayed home, but some friends were doing a low-key, game night thing. The weather was shit: snow, ice, terrible driving conditions, but I went anyway. Drove through it, showed up, hung out with people. It was nice to spend some time with people and not think about all the other crap going on.
I posted something on Facebook a few days ago about how 2025 has been a lot. About the tailspin in September, stopping drinking, trying to be better at all the things I feel like I’m failing at. I wasn’t really expecting much from it, just needed to get it out there. But a bunch of people reached out. Messages, comments, people checking in.
Here’s the weird thing: it helped. I still feel a bit lonely but it’s nice knowing people are there. That people care and want me to succeed. Do I still feel like I’m failing? Of course. But this was a nice boost for me to actually do something about it. My job has an employee assistance program that includes counseling. So I got the ball rolling; I don’t know what’s going to come from it, but it feels like the right move. I’ve been trying to work through all this stuff: the separation, the job change, the sobriety, being a better person. And I’m realizing that maybe I need some real help to do it.
It’s not like flipping a switch where suddenly everything’s better. But it’s a step. Another thing I’m showing up for, even when I don’t feel ready or confident about it.
The documentary stuff is still moving forward. Working on grant applications, editing sample footage. Ultimate is still happening. The weekly posts are still happening. Life keeps going whether I feel ready for it or not.
Today I’m taking some time in the kitchen. Pickling some vegetables, brining salmon, making spreadable tofu, and frying up spicy cabbage pancakes. It’s one of those things that helps me work through stuff. Being creative with food, experimenting, making something with my hands. It’s a good reminder that not everything has to be about solving problems or fixing things. Sometimes you just make savory pancakes.
I drove out to my parents’ place this week for Christmas, five hours from home with all the usual holiday logistics spinning in my head. Coordinating schedules, making sure everyone could be in the same place at the same time, the weight of trying to make it all work. It’s exhausting before you even arrive.
Christmas Eve, I tried to let that go. Just be there. Sit with my family, be present instead of managing everything. It’s harder than it sounds, but I needed it.
Christmas Day I drove to drop off Luka and Teo. That particular drive, that handoff: it never gets easier. You do it because you have to, but it definitely sits heavy.
Then a storm hit. What was supposed to be a few inches turned into nearly a foot of snow, and suddenly my dad and I were out stacking firewood he’d been meaning to get to. Thirty-plus years he’s been heating that house with wood. Thirty-plus years of this same rhythm: split it, store it, stack it, burn it. Winter after winter.
There’s something steadying about that kind of work. Physical, simple, necessary. After all the emotional logistics of the holiday, it was exactly what I needed. Just move wood; get it done. No complicated feelings, just the task in front of you.
I grabbed some footage while we worked, talked to my dad, and put together this short piece about it:
Sometimes the simplest things are what ground you when everything else feels like too much.
This was supposed to be a video week, but I’m not really feeling it. Between being sick, some heavier stuff going on, and just generally feeling kind of lonely and depressed, sitting in front of a camera wasn’t happening. So here’s another blog post.
Last weekend was rough. I was sick from Saturday through Monday and still recovering Tuesday. It kind of threw off my rhythm for the week. I didn’t have Teo, I didn’t go anywhere, I just laid around and rested. It sucked. I was sweating, I had no energy, and worst of all I couldn’t really do anything about it. I had to just… wait and see when I’d feel better.
I think that’s what I hate about being sick: not being able to plan for it. Not having that control. And I think that was probably the theme for this week: control. Or I guess… lack thereof.
On top of me being sick, I’m also going through some bigger family health stuff. It’s not exactly light so I won’t really get into it, but regardless, that kind of splintered its way into all the other crap I have going on.
I’m working on a grant application for this ultimate documentary, and it’s something I’ve never done before. I need to show that I can pull off what I say I can and stick to a certain budget, but I’m still new to this. I’m still trying to figure out how to plan things. What questions to ask in interviews, how to frame shots, what story I’m trying to tell. I’m learning as I go, which is fine for personal stuff but feels different when I’m asking for money.
For this application, I wanted to cut together one of the interviews I already have and guess what: I can’t control what I’ve already shot. The best I can do is make the footage I have tell a story. Will it be perfect? Probably not. But I will at least try to make it work.
Speaking of trying… I had a very difficult time this week finishing up a gift for a white elephant party. I had this grand idea of customizing Lego minifigures; basically making them look like 7 players of an ultimate team. I had all the pieces themselves but the tricky part was making the jerseys.
I got sticker paper and printed the designs out with the intention of cutting them with a machine. A friend of mine has a Cricut and I asked if she would be willing to help me with this and she agreed. In retrospect, I would have told her to steer clear if I knew what the next 2 days would be like.
Lots of test prints and reprints and cutting tests and more testing and aligning and failing. So… so much failing. We were both frustrated with how the printer software wasn’t doing what we expected and just kept trying. We eventually got it to cut close enough for us to stop caring. That and it was just a couple hours before the party.
The party itself was good though. Got out of the house, saw friends, and there were actually a lot of other handmade and well thought out gifts. It felt good to be around people (and the Legos were well-received too).
So yeah. That was my week.
I think what hit me the most this week was how little control I actually have over most things. I can’t control when I get sick. I can’t control what footage I’ve already shot. I can’t even fully control a Cricut machine, apparently.
But I can control how I respond. I can edit with what I have. I can show up for the white elephant party with imperfect Lego minifigures. I can write this blog post instead of forcing a video when I’m not feeling it.
And that’s life. It feels like most weeks are just about maintaining the status quo. Making progress? These days that seems like the exception, not the rule. This week…was a getting-through-it week. And that’s fine by me.
If you’re going through your own messy week, drop a comment. We’re all figuring this out as we go.
I’m documenting my transition period, week by week. Sometimes video, sometimes writing, but every Wednesday there’s something new.
This week: Protecting creativity, maintaining connections, and preparing for what’s next.
Wednesday after dropping off Teo, I met up with a friend during their lunch to just shoot the shit and relax a bit. It was good to get out of the house for a bit. I also decided I was going to shoot a small video at my park so I had some of my camera stuff with me and went straight there after lunch. I had this idea in my head and I really wanted to give it a try, maybe I’ll try to fit it into the next video I post.
Thursday morning was a little frustrating. I was talking about holiday plans and if you don’t know…having 2 split households and family that live 5+ hours away doesn’t make for easy discussions sometimes. When I get frustrated and need to vent a bit I usually go between 2 different options: do something creative or do something busy. I kind of picked both and made some cookie dough to let my brain reset.
Over the pandemic I got really into cookies; not just basic things, but the science behind it too. After I made a bunch for a friendsgiving last weekend, I had an idea. I’ve got a friend who runs a cocktail bar in the city and we had loosely talked about cookies and baking and this creative outlet. So I asked him if he’d be interested in me making some cookies for him to taste and maybe if he liked them, he could sell them as a dessert at his place. It’s a lofty goal, but I wanted to see if I could make something like that. Something that could actually sell to his patrons. If it works out, great. If not, I still love his place and will continue to go there (especially because he makes mocktails too).
After messing around with cookie dough, I co-worked with a friend for the rest of the afternoon. We took a break and walked their dog around my neighborhood. It was surprisingly gorgeous outside, so we took advantage of it before getting back and finishing up our work.
I’m still on Thursday (I apologize if this is a lot of info, but it was a long day)…that night was a member screening for RocDocs: a work in progress about women who elect to go flat after mastectomies. It was a really productive session and great discussion afterwards. These screenings remind me why I like being involved in documentary work; it’s not just about the films, it’s about the conversations they start and then the ideas that branch from there.
Friday I met up with my bar-owning buddy and we did a taste test. We talked through the cookies and some potential options for how things could work. I felt pretty good about it. Like I said, I don’t know if it’ll turn into anything, but I’m glad I’m exploring it.
I’m realizing that I need to keep doing creative stuff like this. The cookies, RocDocs, filming, this blog. I’m about to start a new job that’s going to be a lot more logical problem-solving and possibly less creativity. I know I need the financial stability of the work, but I also need the creativity stimulation for my mental stability. It’s going to help ground me when things get frustrating, but it’s also going to help expand who I am. I’m trying to be intentional about staying involved with all of it and hopefully I don’t burn myself out.
Speaking about intentionality, I think this also means I need to change my posting schedule. I think it makes more sense to post on Sundays instead of Wednesdays. With the new job starting, trying to coordinate stuff in the middle of the week is going to be tough and I will likely need the weekend to pull stuff together. So this will be the last Wednesday post. Next thing you’ll see from me will be a video in a week and a half, on Sunday. And then Sundays from that point on.
Let’s get back to my week, or really my weekend. Things were pretty mellow. Saturday I did some bug fixes for Ultivids, some historical data processing for GRADA, and a whole bunch of laundry. Sunday I tried a new recipe for dinner and it was delicious. Basically…it was asian-style dumplings, except without folding and pressing all the dumplings. Instead, you make meat patties, press them onto dumpling wrappers, sear them meat side down, flip and finish by frying the dumpling side in the grease from the meat. Super easy and not as much work as folding 2 dozen dumplings.
Monday I went into the Rivet office to help close some accounts and get things ready for me to not be working with them anymore. It was a little weird being on a different floor in that same building, but it’s always good to see people I enjoy working with. After that I went and played indoor. I was so exhausted by the time I got home that even my toes were tired, if that makes sense.
Tuesday I picked up my laptop from the new job and did some basic account setup. Nothing too crazy. When Teo got to the house he wanted to finish the set he’d started last week, but there was a problem: a piece was missing. We looked everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE for this piece. It wasn’t a normal piece so we could just replace it with something from his loose legos. This ended up working out as I was thinking about taking him to an unofficial lego store nearby; this gave us an actual reason to go. This place is pretty cool. They have spare pieces you can buy along with new and used sets. The people there helped us find the part we needed, and we also picked up a small set of one of his favorite characters.
Once we got back I reheated leftovers while he finished his set. Then we ate, played a little bit, and started something new: a video of him building. He wanted it to be like an unboxing video mixed with him building and talking about legos. So I got out some camera equipment, some lights, and we recorded a bunch of stuff that I plan to put together into a single video for him. Who knows, maybe that’s something we can do together going forward (and maybe it can fuel his undying need for more lego sets).
And that’s been my week. A bit of the “calm before the storm.” I don’t know what the next few months are going to look like. The job is going to take up a lot of my energy just trying to get acclimated and I know I’ll need the creative outlets. Not as a luxury, but as an essential. Something that keeps me grounded and keeps me moving forward.
With the new schedule coming, I figured I’d end with a new beginning:
I’m documenting my transition period, week by week. Sometimes video, sometimes writing, but every Sunday there will be something new.
I’ve been staring at job listings all week. Scrolling through pages of “Senior Developer” and “Software Engineer” positions, trying to figure out where I fit. The problem is I don’t really feel like I fit anywhere. I look at the requirements and I can check most of the boxes, but there’s this voice in my head saying I’m just faking it. Like, I’ve been stagnant for so long that I didn’t really progress and now I don’t actually know what I’m doing.
This isn’t limited to just the job search either. The documentary stuff I’m trying to put together has that same feeling creeping in. I know that it’s something very new to me but I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m either figuring it out as I go and hoping it works, or I’m so unfocused that I just can’t seem to follow through with any one particular idea (I literally have 3 floating around right now).
One thing that has been constant is ultimate. And this past weekend was one of my favorite tournaments: Danse Macabre. Before you start, no, this isn’t about medieval art; it’s a Halloween-themed frisbee tournament that RIT hosts every October. A collection of college, alum, and other teams get together, wear costumes, and play. It’s usually a big highlight and this year was no exception. I got to throw with friends, eat some hotdogs (our team was grilling), and just let off some steam. Ultimate is still just easy; I don’t have to think about all the things crumbling down when I’m playing.
When I’m not playing, I’m also on the board for my local ultimate organization (GRADA). I had to tell one of the sub-committees that I’m on that I need to step away. I’ve been part of this group for years, and even though I know stepping back is the right move, it feels like I’m letting them down. Like I’m giving up or not being there when they need me, but I know that I need to focus on other parts of my life.
I’m trying to make an effort to see my kids more than I currently do. On Monday I made my way out to Buffalo to see Luka. I dropped off some stuff, we grabbed some food, and we talked about school and how they’re dealing with their own focus issues. It’s weird how much of myself I see in them. I ended up talking about some of the stuff I’m going through too and it was really nice to just be present with them for a bit.
I know I just said I want to see my kids more often, but sometimes shit happens. Like yesterday, I was supposed to see Teo, but I was sick and had to cancel. I was really looking forward to working on some lego projects with him, and instead I was stuck feeling like garbage. Even though canceling was the right call for his health, it still felt like I was letting him down.
That feeling of letting people down, of not being enough, thinking I’m a fraud…that seems to be eating away at me. I have to tell myself that everyone feels this way sometimes. That figuring things out is part of the process, but it’s hard to believe that when you feel like you’re drowning.
Still, I showed up this week. I stepped back to make more time for myself. I haven’t had a drink in almost a month. Even when it was hard. Even when I really wanted to. Next week is another chance to do better; to be better. That’s all I’ve got right now, and hopefully that’s enough.
