Mom's ukulele stylings in backdrop of the storm. Sunday — February 8, 2026 11:45 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. We were running late to Leilani’s memorial service at Reflection Church in Rockport, led by Pastor Kevin Saegert. Not late in the ordinary sense — not the kind of late that means missing the opening song or slipping quietly into a back pew. On the drive there my father mentioned the time, and I snapped. The words came out sharper than I intended: We’re not late. She’s already gone. There’s nothing to be late to now. Leilani is gone.  The second I said it, I felt the weight of what I meant. Death has a way of stripping language down to its bones. There is no schedule once someone has crossed that line. I had to reframe my thoughts in real time, sitting there in a car full of grief and Hawaiian-style button-ups, trying to honor someone we loved. Midway through the drive I asked my father if he had thought about bringing his ukulele. It was a big part of Leilani’s life. It was a ...

This weekend handed me a reminder so blunt it almost felt scripted — a collision of certainty and uncertainty arriving all at once. I’m still up and it’s already past four in the morning. I just completed a letter to my company — a letter I never should have had to write — and decided to turn to this blog entry. You can read more about that situation in Drowning . No one should carry that much anxiety into a weekend because another human being decided to sit on a power trip. I’m standing at a point where I’m willing to face financial uncertainty just to preserve my dignity and peace. That’s not a comfortable place to stand. I don’t like any of those choices. I don’t like debt. I don’t like taxes. And I don’t like the possibility of stepping into the unknown just to escape a toxic situation. But it’s my truth. In a few hours, my father and I will be at Leilani’s church service , honoring her memory. She was my mother’s best friend — woven into the fabric of our family. We thou...

Now let’s talk about my new blog at LifeisaStorm.com . After writing all of my books — which are essentially memoirs told and examined through different lenses — I realized they were a form of venting. They were releasing what needed to be released. Toxins out. Something executed, and pressure released.  I never set out to write a book, much less ten of them. And now, with the recent publication of Grief First Aid Kit , that makes eleven. You can find my books here: My Author Page . The eleventh book was different. It wasn’t meant to be a memoir. It was meant to serve a purpose — not only to help myself, but to help others standing where I was and still am.  After my mother passed, I used a pamphlet-style piece of literature to stabilize myself, and that’s where the idea for the grief kit came from. The other ten books were releases of what had been building inside me. I published them becaus...

Today I made the decision to continue moving forward in my work as a Level 3 commissioned security officer. In many ways, this is that day — the point where long-standing concerns turn into deliberate action. Since I started my remote job about four months ago, it’s been in the back of my mind that the position might not be permanent. Over that time, the company has steadily reduced staff. Yesterday, I was told by the program manager that a significant number of employees have already been let go and that I’m likely among the last remaining members of the team. With that knowledge, it’s clear that I’ll probably need to secure something stable in the near future. Combined with a recent situation involving a new supervisor that I fell under only a few days ago, it reinforced the sense that this role isn’t as stable as it once appeared. Over the past year working with my security company, I’ve gained experience in the field and learned the structure of the work. Up to this point, I’ve...

When pressure rises and the waters close in, survival isn’t about escape — it’s about learning how to breathe where you stand. Today didn’t start as a battle, but it turned into one anyway. I was already in job-search mode before the day even unfolded — a quiet admission to myself that something in my work environment had shifted. Someone had stepped into a position of authority over me earlier this week — fairly recent, just a few days — and almost immediately it felt less like collaboration and more like a tightening grip. Every exchange carried the weight of hierarchy. My paycheck, my household stability, and my sense of footing all felt tethered to a dynamic where I was expected to absorb pressure without resistance. There were moments where I wasn’t just interrupted — I was erased mid-sentence. Fixed viewpoints met every attempt I made to explain myself. I could feel the imbalance like a physical force. Authority narrowed the conversation into a corridor where only one voice...

Yesterday unfolded as one of those rare days where accomplishment, grief, revision, and absurd humor all found a way to coexist within the same stretch of hours. At 4:00 p.m., I republished my newest book, Grief First Aid Kit — not just as a launch, but as a refinement. I had released an earlier version, then went back in to expand a section that matters deeply to me: the creation of new neural pathways. My stance on neuroplasticity is strong. The brain is not fixed. Even after loss, even after trauma, we are capable of building new routes for thought, emotion, and healing. I wanted the book to reflect that more clearly, so I revised it and released the final version the same day, along with a cover change from white to black. That change wasn’t cosmetic. In Western cultures, black has long been considered a respectful color for death — a symbol of mourning, solemnity, and grief, with traditions dating back to Roman times. It represents a quiet, non-flashy way to pay respect...

  Am I Healing… or Just Surviving Better? Am I really on a path to healing — or just stability? Or is the mind so good at protecting itself, and gaslighting itself, that I’ve written ten books just to convince myself I’m on some kind of remarkable journey? Because if this is just self-gaslighting for survival, then I guess it works… some days better than others. Some days are unbearable. And yet, somehow, I’m still keeping momentum. On the harder days, it feels like all the books and all the frameworks are just stacked on top of something that never went away. That’s when I realize I don’t want to be here — not in a dramatic way, but in the way where you wish you could wake up and find out this was all one long nightmare. Cognitive dissonance still feels strong. Grief makes everything heavier. There’s a constant battle between what I feel, what is real, and what I want reality to be. It’s not just the pain of loss. It’s the acceptance of reality that hurt...