New Year, Same Me

I wrote this five days before my husband died. I had no idea what was coming. Nobody has read these writings — until now.

A few weeks ago, I said I was going to start sharing some of what I wrote before my husband died and everything that came after.

I’ve gone back and forth about where to begin.

There are things I wrote that I’m not ready to share. There are things involving other people that may never belong here. And there are things that feel almost impossible to read now because I know what the person writing them didn’t know.

This is one of those.

I haven’t rewritten it with hindsight. These were the thoughts I was having on January 1, 2026.

Five days later, my husband died.

JANUARY 1, 2026
PORT CHARLOTTE, FLORIDA

First time writing the date for the new year. This socially constructed new year holds weight because I am a human who is part of the social construct. By this age it is hard to fight. I cannot simply not take part in the passing of time and the marking of time in the way the world does it, as much as I wish I could.

And so here we are on January 1, 2026.

It’s a very unremarkable date.

Although when I think about the years that came before, I think of moments in my life that made me who I am today. Is that true? Would I be who I am today without those moments, or with different moments?

For example, ten years ago already I was on a TV show, Shark Tank. Did that change the course of my life? It’s hard to argue that it didn’t.

Ten years ago now I packed up my Fiat with a KitchenAid and a handful of belongings, strapped Donald into the front seat, and headed west for Los Angeles.

Did that change the course of my life?

It’s hard to argue it didn’t.

And now as I sit here ten years later, I wonder:

Am I making any decisions that will change the course of my life?

And here I go spiraling back into typical common thought.

“New year, new you.”

Says who?

New year, same you is more like it.

Nothing has changed between me going to sleep last night in the socially constructed year of 2025 and me waking up this morning on the first day of 2026.

The question is — am I going to make any big changes or decisions or moves this year?

Or will I continue going through the motions day after day and change nothing?

Even though I am thinking more philosophically, and writing it as well, I still need to think about my own life and make day-to-day decisions to impact it. I can’t merely live in my head and rely on thought or else nothing will happen in my life.

Where do I want all this writing to go?

What do I want to write?

Where do I want to live?

How do I want to spend my days?

What do I want to do to make money?

Am I okay with my story ending here and nothing big happening again?

What do I do to keep living and building my story?

Or does it matter to even keep building it?

Is there any more to tell?

To experience?

To accomplish?

Maybe this year is the end.

If that’s the case, do I do anything special with it?

Or just pass time waiting for the end to strike me?

I don’t remember writing that last line.

That’s one of the strange things about going back through these entries now.

I can tell you what I meant when I wrote it. I was depressed. I was restless. I felt like the interesting part of my life might already be behind me. I was questioning almost everything about the life I had built.

I was not predicting what happened next.

I didn’t know.

That’s the part I keep coming back to.

Five days later, my husband died.

And suddenly every question I was casually asking myself about what to do with the rest of my life became a question I actually had to answer.

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