With the long-awaited arrival of 2026, the usual sense of renewal feels somewhat hollow this time around. I mean, don’t get me wrong – last year was a shit year for me and mine. We lost a dear friend, Jonikka lost a job, money’s beyond tight, our health insurance is about to go away… it’s not been easy. The holidays have largely passed without comment in my household. And that probably contributes to the malaise.
So I don’t feel ready to make any resolutions, brook any big announcements or predictions for the new year, or even wax philosophical about our hopes for the future. For now, I’ve decided upon a different tack: I’d like to revisit some of the moments in my life that have proven truly pivotal. Many of them aren’t large productions at all; we all understand how marriage and divorce, the death of friends and family, the arrival of new children in our lives – how all of these things herald change. But what about the moments you didn’t see coming. The decisions that were easy in the moment, but had lasting repercussions.
For example… I was an imaginative child, but I remember being a little trepidatious when my friend’s older brother – who was generally very sarcastic and kinda mean – decided he wanted to run some D&D for his sister and her friends. I agreed to sit down and play, and that afternoon was so instrumental in how it affected the course of my life that it’s one of the very few real memories I have from my elementary school years. I can draw a fairly straight line from that afternoon to running TsunamiCon.
About a year prior to that, when I was 7 years old, we had a landlady who taught violin in a little studio over her garage just across the street, and I would sit on the steps outside and listen to them play. I can similarly draw an only slightly crooked line from that experience to cranking out music with my blues band all these years later.
Of course, childhood holds all kinds of wonders that often shape the direction of our lives in one fashion or another, so it’s kind of a cheat. It’s just as easy to look at decisions I made as an adult that had far-reaching implications, but they are often more complex. Less crooked lines and more spiderwebs hoping to catch a tasty nibble. That job I took because it sounded like a cool experience, leading to a career that spanned well more than a decade. Or the decision to send my podcast crew to local events, where they secured guests with whom I would later start a business.
I think that’s what I’d like to do in 2026: find opportunities to create pivotal moments. Do the thing, whatever it is. Finish projects and start new ones. Reach out to people who can enrich my life, and find ways to be of service. I’m 50 years young now, and it’s a good time to keep moving forward.
So.
How ’bout that Stranger Things finale, yo? Dude!
