By the time I finished writing last night, it was already New Year’s Day.

I spent New Year’s Eve alone in my room—candlelight, meditative music, trying to quiet my mind. Maybe it’s age. I don’t think fifty-six is old, but last night I felt much older than that.

There was a time when nights like this mattered. New Year’s Eve used to mean movement: who was hosting, where we were going, which door we’d knock on before midnight. In my twenties and thirties—and even into my forties—the question itself carried energy. Something was happening somewhere, and I needed to be part of it.

Now it feels hollow.

Not sad. Just empty.

Over the last few years, I’ve lost more friends than I care to count. At some point, rituals lose their charge. Too many chairs go empty. Celebration starts to feel like borrowed emotion rather than something newly made. Meaning doesn’t vanish all at once—it erodes. Social bonds thin. The calendar keeps asking for enthusiasm you no longer have.

A few days ago, I wrote an apology letter to my former employees. It took longer than I expected—not because the words were unclear, but because responsibility weighs more when there’s no longer a structure to hold it.

We like to think identity is internal. It isn’t. It’s bound to roles, systems, and obligations. When those collapse at the same time, the impact lands squarely on the individual. That’s where I am.

I’m tired.

And there’s something more challenging to admit than it should be: I don’t have anyone I can sit across from, in person, and talk to about this. Not right now.

I am alone.

Not dramatically. Not tragically. Structurally. The kind of alone that comes when systems fall away faster than replacements can form.

I need to get unstuck. I need work. I’ve applied and heard nothing back. I’ve sought legal counsel and, so far, nothing there either. Silence has weight. It keeps you alert, braced, never letting your nervous system fully stand down.

Some days it feels like standing as a lone pillar in a desert—upright, intact, slowly worn by wind and sun, with no reinforcement in sight.

People still depend on me. That’s the tether. That’s what keeps me standing. I hope—quietly—that when the moment comes, those people step forward too. I don’t know how long I can hold everything together on my own.

This isn’t despair. It’s an assessment.

That’s what this ledge is for—not drama, not nostalgia, not borrowed hope. It’s a vantage point. A place to take inventory. To see what held, what failed, and what can’t be carried forward.

I don’t have answers tonight.

But I’m still here. Still mapping the terrain. Still choosing not to disappear.

That has to count for something.

Chapter Two. Day One.

No fireworks. No countdown. Just a man, a candle, and the decision to keep going.

Godspeed.