Why am I here?
Starting a blog in 2025? WTF? Like the old Romans did?
Here is a story to anchor you in.
My name is Michael, currently living my 46th lap around the mother star. Did everything “right”: college, steady job, got married, two daughters (13 and 10 years old now), a dog that I did not want but ended up being the only caregiver. Eventual trips to Europe and Disney. New Years at the beach. Raising our glasses. Being grateful and hopeful.
But marriage is like being on a train. You have your cabin. You wander around, go to the dining car, interact with other fellow passengers, have a drink, and go to sleep. But the real driving is not done by you.
The only way to get out is by jumping.
Fantasizing about a divorce
Life plateaued on the predictability of the tracks. Without too much effort, life would go on as written in the ticket. Parenting was less physically demanding. Existential questions rose. The tolerance for personality incompatibilities, whether big or small, was shrinking by the minute.
Sex life was long gone.
I started fantasizing about my own place. Grey walls, black marble kitchen countertop with wooden frames, no dishes in the sink.
A place that worked on my schedule.
I started fantasizing about being alone. Purely alone. Being silent. The kind of silence that embraces you like a hug. The hug of an old friend who wants you well.
It’s hard to put a timeframe. Did I fantasize for months or years?
Doesn’t matter. The fact is that I knew the suggestion of a divorce would come around, as it did every year or so. She had been fantasizing about her own place. White marble kitchen countertop, beige lacquer frames.
So this time, to her surprise, I promptly agreed.
Taking a new path
To be fair, it was a perfect divorce, as divorces go. No battle for custody or money. We sold our apartment and both left on the same day, January 16th, 2023. There were no winners, no losers. Let me correct myself; all the immediate four of us lost something that day.
She slept with the girls that first night. I drove around for an hour. Cried the whole time.
With a trunk full of clothes and a small hotel room, I experienced the most profound lostness (yes, that’s a word according to Google).
My humble attempt
And that, my dear reader, is when I found the need for a blog like this.
That spoke the truth about being a man in the current day and age. Attempting to help shape the best version of ourselves, whether in health (including mental), fitness, sex, relationships, parenting, style, aging, traveling, and so forth.
This blog is a recognition that in the last fifteen years – give or take – I wasn’t the best version of myself. The search for this version will be shared here. No BS. No AI.