Blah, blah, blah. I'm listening to Pandora while driving home from delivering a patient, and this song comes on. And just like that, the fog of the past couple weeks lifts like a summer day in San Francisco, leaving brilliant sunshine in its wake. So much drama, angst, and self-induced pain over these past few weeks. As I often say, clarity comes in an instant. I am the master of my own fate and my attitude. I know who I am. The recent events in my personal life can be a revelation of who I am, not a failure of who I am not. One little 4 minute song speaks to me and brings clarity. I love it when that happens. I've got dozens of lists and notes to myself laying around the house right now containing research and planning topics for executing a circumnavigation.  These are all lists that require a strategy and a plan for execution - how to buy a boat, how to outfit one for a circumnavigation, route planning, meals at sea, customs and immigrations requirements for taking a cat to

 Another catch-up post, and the Universe speaks to me. The emotional roller-coaster continues but diminishes daily. Each day is filled with 6-8 hours of work (gotta keep the paychecks coming) and another 10-12 hours researching everything about circumnavigating and sailing. It's an education, and it's tiring. I'm not sleeping well partially out of excitement, fear and worry.  All the bad things that could happen weigh heavily on me. All the doubts and fears are given full voice, and boy are they loud! And insistent - is this really a smart thing to do at my age? I also feel myself getting stronger every day. I have a home for me and the Hammy cat for 2-3 months - a base to build from. I'm going to be okay. My MO with relationship breakups is to circle a day on the calendar, give myself permission to do whatever I want or need to do to heal in the meanwhile, and on the date I circled, I'm officially over it and moving on. It's my way of indulging and honoring the

As an artist, I dislike cliches. They're lazy and often inaccurate, but they can sometimes serve a useful purpose as a shorthand to get a lot of backstory out of the way quickly. When I listen to myself tell Ryan about my plan to sail around the world, I realize that I'm coming across as a cliche that I could pitch as a Hollywood movie. "Broken-hearted guy is ditched by his girlfriend, kicked out of his home, loses his job, and even his cat runs away, so he buys a sailboat to go find himself." If the lead character in this Hollywood trope was a woman, she'd find romance and the love of her life on her journey. Because it's a male lead, he learns what a loser he's always been, suffers greatly for his past sins, but dies performing some heroic act that saves the life of an innocent child who goes on to do great things. Guys don't get happy endings. We have to die to learn our lessons. Either literally or metaphorically. ----------------------------------

It's been a busy, emotional and very draining week. I'm exhausted, upbeat at the moment, still prone to random crying spells, and sometimes feel a little overwhelmed. I also feel like I'm getting refocused.  I'm not the kind of person who reaches out when I need help. I'm not boasting about that - it's a flaw and something I'm trying to improve on. I generally don't let people see me genuinely vulnerable unless I'm getting rewarded for it on stage in a role. That's twisted, I know. I became an actor in part because it's easier to 'be myself'  more deeply on a stage under lights in front of a paying audience than it is in a lot of personal interactions. I'm sometimes a little verbally and socially awkward. I *feel* a lot, but am way more eloquent when someone else tells me how to express it. ---------------------------------------------------- But I reach out to my friend Ryan after the breakup when I'm at my rawest, most vulne

It's a dark day. Dark. Dark. Dark. A total lack of light.  Lots of anguish. Sense of failure. Rejection. There's no end to the list of things that I can beat myself up over, and layered on top of that are these nasty feelings of panic. I had the next 20 years or so of my life more or less mapped out. Now in the span of a few moments, I didn't even know where I'm going to sleep tonight. I'm not exactly being kicked out, but my heart can't take the pain of staying and I don't have anywhere else to go.  I am unwanted.  Then, the (ex)gf surprises me with a gift late in the day, a respite, or rather, the space to find it. It's uncomfortable with us both staying in the same small house while we figure out how to split up, so she texts me today that she is going to spend the night at her sister's.  I'm grateful for the solitude. At least I can randomly cry in peace for awhile. I know it's pathetic. I've been a bit of a drama queen, and it's

 The day after the Super Bowl is called 'Black Monday' in the NFL. It's a day of reckoning where anywhere from 4-6 head coaches and dozens of assistant coaches get fired as the official end to the NFL season. It's a brutal tradition. All told, hundreds of lives get irrevocably shaken up on the day after the Super Bowl. I got my own Black Monday today.  I got fired from my relationship. After a long, tiring day driving 200+ miles, I came home to find the gf sitting and waiting for me by the front door, obviously distraught and nervous. She opens the conversation with "we have to talk" as I enter from outside, and before I could fully sit down and ask what's up, comes the phrase "this isn't working for me any more." My heart sinks. I've had a few relationships in my life. That's a relationship-killing phrase right there. There is no coming back from "this isn't working for me." It's over. Much of the conversation that