The reason I haven’t been around is a mix of things. Depression, anxiety, anger, disbelief, are the first words that come to mind. I feel like I’ve been frozen in my steps, unable to do the things I normally do. I was emotionally and spiritually broken, then angry and frustrated, and having these layer on top of one another put me in a place where I needed to withdraw. I couldn’t build stuff anymore. I had just enough strength and resolve to do the day to day. I could only focus on my wife and son, my local community, and take each day as it came.

Here’s why 2025 was a really tough year. Aside from my Mom passing away, three other family members from her generation also died, including her brother, just three weeks after her death. I also had a good friend pass from cancer. I had some of my own physical challenges in the fall, including a cyst on my pancreas and some blown tendons on my left hand. There were some major upheavals in a couple of my close relationships that are still unresolved.

And crazy as it may seem, I renewed my passport and now keep it in my backpack, just in case. I was born in Oxnard, California, but still found myself scared enough to feel like maybe that wasn’t good enough to keep me out of a detention center. I don’t understand it.

And yes, there’s more. I’m scared of how we, as humans, are handling AI. In the thirty-plus years of being a technology professional, I’ve never felt like this about any technology. There is an unraveling and breaking down of the knowledge worker space that I don’t feel like anyone in L&D is really acknowledging. Maybe because it’s too scary? I don’t know.

Altogether, I’d say it was the most challenging year of my life. I don’t even think I can really put it in a “year” format, things are still tough. But I do think I’m feeling a level of recovery, or at the very least, some coming up for air. I’m not sure how long that will be, but I have to do the best that I can while I can.