As the year draws to an end I want to take a look back and try to find some growth points I’ve made.
A conversation last night with someone who had moved back to NH following a divorce made me think about how my year started.
I had tried to lay a boundary in a relationship that really had only been going on for 6-7 months at that point. It was run over and I felt like I needed to end it before things got worse. I thought about how I had gone from hopeful in my love life, really a second priority at the time, to now where I mostly don’t care aside from the passing pangs of loneliness.
I was anxiously waiting to find out if I would be promoted to Consultant from a Sr. associate. It basically would be a “manager” title and at 25 years old I thought that would be huge.
I had pushed so hard in 2023 and 2024 to be considered for it and really took on an immense amount of pressure and responsibility to prove it. I led a project to success in 3 months, doing everything it took to make sure it stayed on timeline. Hounding people, organizing, compromising, favors, persuading, influencing, leading, explaining, and understanding. My social skills were stressed to the max. As a shy person I was thrusting myself out of my comfort zone at work.
My spirit was taxed heavily by all this. I knew my career was more important than anything and couldn’t be interfered with – not by this.
I’m a romantic person deep in my heart. A hopeless romantic. The relationship I had didn’t tick off those boxes. Maybe I knew it somewhere in the recesses of my mind and I had been so preoccupied with my career that it took me so long to realize it.
My point is – if the right girl was there, my career would be secondary.
I ended the relationship poorly and was 100% the asshole. I tried twice in person. I backed out like a coward the first time because it was late at night and I had no idea what to do. It was an argument over sleeping. I wanted to fucking sleep without a warm body hanging over my making me sweat and be uncomfortable.
Earlier, I was “called out” for not walking to the train station to walk her to my house. Because there are some homeless people off to the side of the walking route. Frankly, I didn’t fucking care. Maybe that’s bad. I don’t care, still. It felt like an extreme level of meekness and dramatization and demonization of the homeless who lived in the wooded area. You’re walking in a crowd of commuters, it isn’t the dead of night, which would warrant some consideration.
Maybe I really am a jerk, but I was busy with work. And I didn’t want her coming here every fucking night after work, but I lost that battle because that was unfair too, since my house was an easier commute for her.
I don’t like or want a princess. I’m not a prince. If anything, I’m a burgher who thinks he’s a knight.
All my life, my childhood and teen years, I knew I was going to have to step up and stay ahead. My parents conditioned me to succeed in life. To grab the next rung up from them.
The pressure I was and am under is about survival. There is no “safety net” for me. If I took the safety net, then there would be nothing for my brother and sister, and no safety for my parents.
Life is a grind and a hustle. You can’t be too serious though. But you can’t be so unserious that you slip.
Its a balancing act of pride.
This year I quit my job as part of a mental breakdown in March.
I went into this year with the heels of last fall and the sudden passing of my dear aunt. A serious illness that attacked me in the weeks following, and a relationship that was slowly eating my independence.
I quit my job and broke up with my ex over text. It was awful for those first days. I created a lot of pain and didn’t do good mitigating it.
I possibly swung from a depressive state into mania. I was in high spirits for those last two weeks of March once the break-up pain was gone.
I was on the job search. High gear. I sent out at least 100 applications a week. Optimizing the resume. Trying my best to use the horrendous linkedin job search engine and google’s even worse search engine to find jobs.
I hit new highs and lows every week. The stratospheric high of hope and then the crushing fall.
By June, I was panicked.
I began pushing for hours at the event company. I was working with funny people with sad stories.
I couldn’t even get full time hours until July. I wasn’t making enough money and had burned over $10k in savings between my loans and bills.
I canceled as much as I could and bought nothing for myself.
My birthday in June was dark. It was almost as if it didn’t happen. I had a long set-up to do that day and didn’t leave until 4 after starting at 7.
I sat on a loading dock for an hour mid-way through the 9 hour set-up. I had an interview that I used my lunch break for. I could tell it was over before it started.
He didn’t like my resume. The recruiter pushed him into it. He practically told me I was out before the end of the call.
Depressed, feeling old for 26, I retreated to the loading dock to hide and take a legitimate break.
I talked with the security guard down there. He was black, from Boston. I’m white and from the suburbs.
We talked about how even the social scene in Boston is segregated. About how in a place like Atlanta, the blacks and whites mix and create a fun and diversified social scene.
We talked about football, and the trades going on, the sports drama news, gambling strategies.
It uplifted me. He was driving the conversation at first. I don’t think he could see my mood where it was. He just had some things to say. He wanted to talk about attractive southern women, and the allure of the American South.
The next month, I had gotten another interview with a company in NH. I thought it had gone so well. It was two people, a guy and a girl. We clicked very well. I got a positive call immediately afterwards.
The next day I woke up to another call. An offer. It was over.
It was more money, easier work, different industry, and closer to where and what I wanted to be doing.
I was still nervous. My excitement was temporary. The rug could be pulled out at any moment.
I quit into probably one of the weakest and worst economies in the last 15 years with the exception of the several months of COVID.
I was working physical labor, sweating through my entire set of clothes in the beating heat, going home with shin splints so severe I couldn’t get out of bed until the morning where I had to get up and do it again.
I was worried about getting shifts every week. On top of the stress of applying for jobs. By late June, I had dwindled my applications to just a mere few a week. I was buckling in for a fall and winter at this job.
That next day I was on a farm on the western edge of the Boston metro. It was 90 degrees and clear skies.
I got sunburnt so badly holding a backdrop up while we tried to weigh it down. It was being taken to flight by the powerful wind over an open field. A giant metal stand nearly flew off the stage and caused an injury.
I leaped forward and caught a portion of the backdrop and yelled for someone to get the other edge.
We stood on it for an hour, with the sun reflecting off the white of the backdrop straight into our faces.
I was so sunburnt afterwards it didn’t even hurt.
I received another phone call. I stood in the back of the box truck, accepting my offer. The event coordinator was barking about it. I didn’t give a single fuck what she had to say. This was my golden ticket.
When I got home, I signed my offer. It would be another month before I could start.
More fear.
Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I must’ve lost a year off of my life during those 4 weeks.
I stayed working full-time. Waking up at 4, or 5, or 6 or whatever the day called for. Staying out until 10, 11, even 1 am. Working hard.
All this while, I had been losing weight again.
At the start of the year, I had gained back 10-15 pounds. I was back at 245.
A miserable, fat 245lbs for someone who is 5’8″/5’9″ (depending who’s with me), my only saving grace being a wide set of shoulders that distribute the mass stealthily.
In June, I was 233. In November, I was 220.
I look different. I can see it. Now, all of a sudden it is a visible loss.
When I began my new job at the end of August, I committed to exercising 4 days a week with weights.
I can feel my muscles now. There is a hardness, and not as much squishiness.
I had started my job with a normal haircut for a guy.
My roommate, ever the truth teller, asked me “when that happened” pointing to the top of his head.
A little confused, I said ‘oh it’s been going on for a while’. I turned and went into my room, took a picture of the top of my head, and felt my soul ascend from my body.
For the first two weeks of my job, everyone who walked in the room or stood behind me was staring at a giant fucking moonroof at the peak of my head.
My crown had thinned to baldness, in a baseball, nearly a softball, sized circle.
Devasted. I canceled my weekend plans. I was embarrassed to death. I was angry at my parents for not telling me the truth.
I realized I’d worn a hat for months. Nobody could’ve told me.
I found a barber on a Sunday and asked for a buzz.
My stress relieved.
I would not go fully bald just yet, but I would not have a delusion of “long hair”. It would be military buzzed and faded to the bone.
I started taking the hairloss medicines in a last ditch effort.
I can’t tell if its working. Probably not.
I dropped $1.5k on weight loss medicine to continue on with it in October.
It paid off enough. Though I know the most significant factor has been cutting out ordering food, buying snacks, and maintaining a workout routine.
Right now, I need to go workout.
I have motivation clips playing because I’m slightly hungover and dehydrated. Let me go fill up my water.
I work with a great team of people. There’s always going to be friction, but I have a really solid relationship with the 2 guys I go out with on every Thursday. The other 5 team members simply don’t join us.
Last night was a blast. One of the guys had been dating this girl from the company. She came out. But she gave another dude a ride. He was all over her, talking to her and trying to box people out.
My friend insisted he did not care. This girl is definitely into him the most.
Nevertheless, I fooled myself a month of two ago into thinking that perhaps she liked me! I let it go when I convinced myself that I had stolen a look not meant for me.
Well, I don’t really know what’s going on now. I have ideas but can’t trick myself into “knowing everything”.
Like I said, my friend doesn’t care. It’s obvious he’s a bit callous towards the relationship and seems to be going through the motions.
I introduced myself to her formally last night, after being around her many times since I started as I shadowed my friend. After introducing myself, that other guy physically boxed me out!
Now, she’s a pretty, shy, thin black-Irish looking girl. I think her particular look triggers something in a lot of us in New England with Irish ancestry. Something deeper, maybe a “one of us” type of thing. Centuries of biological conditioning.
I caught her eyes many times last night. At one point we were left sitting near one another, and I turned to speak and she met me instantly. I forget what I said to be honest.
As I looked into her eyes, I was curious of their color. Brown, but in the moment they were so dilated that it was just a brown rim to a big black iris. She has beautiful, big teeth. A slight overbite, and thin pretty shaped lips. Really, just so gorgeous to me.
I imagine some guys, namely my roommate, would see her as plain. Well, I view the girls he likes as plain, very pretty, but to me it’s nothing.
But this girl, with her long black hair, thin frame, high cheekbones, her little black eyeliner — is near perfection.
Her soft voice, so quiet and sweet, one has to tune out the world of a noisy bar to hear it.
She wasn’t super talkative or inquisitive. But when I asked her questions she offered quality long answers. She was funny, playful. She wasn’t drinking either. I had asked about it and she wasn’t a fan of the taste.
I must note that I resisted flirting past being friendly with what qualifies as introductory banter. I couldn’t dive in like that – like how I may have wanted to. It would be betrayal. There was a lot of questions I wanted to ask. What can I say, I am very curious about her.
She stayed late, left with the last of us.
The hanger-on had left, despite arriving in her car, and only my friend and other coworkers remained. She opted to move closer in from her position on the outside of the group.
Closer in right next to my friend and across from me.
I had several beers and was in a high spirit. I sung along to don’t stop believing, which she appreciated and found entertaining.
An older guy we work with, derided my 2 teammate friends as IT guys and that they were “nerds”, but pointed to me, while addressing her, and said that I wasn’t like them.
It was a fascinating night of twisting table turns.
Ultimately, I supported my friend and fucked off. I didn’t talk to her 1 on 1 past that second conversation between the hanger-on box out and the joining of our circle.
I cannot lie that I was struck by her beauty. My best friend’s girl. Ugh. The hopelessness.
Was there something in those big, brown eyes? Or was it just a type of general kindness and simpleness she employs with all people.
I don’t claim to know. I want to take those dilated eyes, the occasional eye lock and smile, and other fun interactions as something with potential.
Have I grown this year?
I know what I want in relationships and recognize it quicker. I stood up for myself and quit a job that sucked. I pulled myself by my bootstraps, used my safety net that I created out of diligence, worked a job that other people from my college graduation class would scoff at. I battled back through the job market and won a decent prize. I prayed to St. Michael and renewed my faith in God.
I lost my grandfather in August, just two weeks before my start date. I spent all day in the hospital with my family. We waited all day for him to pass. Finally, when it was just my aunt and young cousin who had witnessed the fall that brought him here, his breathing had changed and a nurse arrived to do something to ease his pain.
He passed on. The next few days happened quickly. I was given nearly all his clothes. Many of his personal affects.
I was grateful that I had seen him so often since I had moved to my grand uncles house.
I would see the two of them at the dunkin donuts and I would always stop and say what’s up.
I asked him, “whats up Grampa what have you got goin on today?”
“Ohh, Darren – as little as possible”
He worked his whole life. Was a kind man. Served 6 years in the army national guard. Drove delivery trucks. Became a plumber for the college near their house. Everyone loved this guy.
He was a girl dad. My mom and her two sisters.
Budweiser and the Bruins remind me of him at our house when I was a young child.
As we got older, he became more of a Corona guy. My 21st birthday there’s a picture of us and my dad with “my first beer”.
I went from peak loneliness. Isolated in a one-sided relationship, a remote job, and no social life past my girlfriend – who was essentially a shut-in.
To a team of friends. A job that I don’t fear waking up and going to.
I’ve changed my tastes. More like…expanded them.
I’ve Gone Country to quote Alan Jackson.
I still love classic rock, rap, hip-hop, pop, disco, metal, alt rock, soft rock, southern rock, southern rap, blue eyed soul. I guess the only thing I’ve stopped pretending to like is reggae.
2026 I need to get out and be social again. My friend wants to go to this line dancing bar in Salem. I would love it. I have to go when she goes. I have to.
I’m going to keep working out. I’m going to keep liking my job and trying hard. I’m going to keep my work buddies and try to make more.
I’ve never resolved to make changes at the New Year. But I’m trying it now, because I want to feel hope this season.
Blanc Thoughts 