WTF, January 27th?

Trust me - it’ll make sense.

January 31, 2021

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As you think, so you become.

Our busy minds are forever jumping to conclusions,

Manufacturing and interpreting signs that aren’t there.

- Epictetus

“Dates matter, folks. They matter in history like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division matter in math.”

I told my students this all the time, and it probably sounded as snide and arrogant to them then as it does to me now (even though it’s true!). But my larger point was that understanding history starts with knowing what happened when, which leads to understanding why, how, and what it means. If we don’t know that World War II happened after the French Revolution - or when each event actually happened - we can’t really explore those events or their relevance to our daily lives. 

Dates matter in our personal lives as well, though these are much more slippery. With the important dates in our own lives we are the sole arbiters of their meaning. Unlike historical events, the dates of our lives [Editor’s Note: Like sands through the hourglass…] aren’t really subject to peer review or broader objective analysis — unless we’re talking to a therapist. Which I do – a lot. 

That’s where I found today’s topic. It’s lesson about a hugely significant date in my life, one that I have defined a certain way for over a decade. It’s a lesson that I only learned this week that, in retrospect, feels like it should’ve been so obvious to me long before now.

But that’s okay – I’ve also learned over the past decade that Big Lessons in life seem to arrive right on time.

I’m sure you’ve deduced that the date I’m talking about is January 27th.

For the past dozen years, I have assigned this date an enormous amount of negative value. This takes a little bit of explaining, because it’s NOT just about that date in one particular year.

If you listened to last week’s episode of my new podcast, This Show Is All About You, you heard me refer to this already, though I didn’t say the exact date of January 27th. I mentioned that it was twelve years ago where all my self-destructive, addictive behavior that I’d been hiding for years finally started to come to light. That was January 27, 2009. It was horrible for me, but my loved ones - those closest to me - were badly hurt by these revelations. Then, three years later to the date, I finally broke down and asked for help around even more things that I’d been hiding. I’d reached the end of trying to fight my demons alone.

I did get the help I asked for (thank God), but I had to leave my entire life behind to do it. And, the way I’ve defined that in all the years since — including my most recent podcast episode — was that I had “blown up my life.”

At the time, it was a very accurate description. That’s exactly what I had done.

The problem though, I just realized this week, is that I’ve allowed that particular narrative to continue to define me today in ways that no longer serve me. Because in remembering that date so negatively every year, I’ve ended up doing some things that haven’t been helpful for my life today.

It’s all based in how I wove together a shame-driven idea that January 27th is an accursed day for me. The three years to-the-day thing started it. The next year, the first anniversary of “blowing up my life,” another event that I deemed negatively significant happened. Something else happened the following year. And the year after that. And the year after that. They involved things like deep disillusionment with a former friend, a minor car accident that ended up costing way too much to resolve, the need for emergency dental work, and bad things happening to close friends. It even happened this year, when one of my closest friends received news that a dear loved one was about to pass away. 

As each year passed, I dreaded the arrival of January 27th weeks before it arrived. With my friends in the know, it became a bit of a macabre joke that we’d share. When the day arrived, and something bad seemed to inevitably happen, I’d let this circle of people know with a “WTF, January 27th?” It was my way of coping, to find acceptance with it, and in a weird way to make sure I never forgot where I came from or what happened all those years ago.

That doesn’t sound fun or healthy or effective, does it? But it took me until this year’s January 27th to realize it.

Actually, I didn’t realize until the next day. And what I’ve learned has everything to do with the power and the ability I have to shift my framing of the negative events that have happened in my life in ways that better reflect my present reality.

And that tells me that we all have that power. Every one of us.

Here’s what shifted and how. On Thursday, I had my weekly phone appointment with my therapist (damned COVID). As usual, she listened and listened and listened until I was done relating the entire story of January 27th in The Lore Of JDK. Then, as she tends to do, she asked me a series of simple questions that, in minutes, blew apart the narrative I had spent years building and breathing.

Her first question: “Have you ever made a list of all the good things that have happened in your life because of what happened all those years ago when you ‘blew up your life?’”

Why, no… I, uh, have not.

So I began to form a list in my mind, and soon the list was longer than I could track.

Here’s a clue — it includes pretty much everything I have done over the past decade, and am continuing to do now:

• I would never have repaired and built stronger relationships with my family.

• I would never have developed the strong, intimate, vulnerable relationships I have with my circles of friends — both the ones I have made in the past decade, and the ones that I’ve had for longer who stuck with me in the aftermath of my disaster.

• I would never have found the help I needed to face my addiction and work through its consequences

• I would never have met or reconnected with the people who have become easily the most important people in my life — and they know who they are.

• I would never have entered new career fields, or written my novel, or started my own website, or two podcasts, or started to write a play, or a second novel, or reengaged with poetry. 

• I would never have learned what it means to live life on my own terms, in my own way, answering only to myself and to My Maker.

• I would never have discovered and experienced the true depth of the following terms — Peace, Joy, Forgiveness, Grace, Compassion, Healthy Risks, Play, Possibility, and yes, Love.

I could add a ton of specifics for each of those. Massive, right?

Her second question: “So, with that list in mind (and keep adding to it), does it make sense for you today, in the present, to keep saying you ‘blew up your life?’”

Why, no…it, uh, doesn’t.

It might be factually correct from those years ago, but today it’s more of…something far better?

Her third question: “So, what could you call it instead?”

Why, I…don’t know. 

So I tried on a few — “A Rebirth?” “A Do Over?” “Life: Part II?” “The JDK Awakens?”

Those are interesting, but none of them quite fit. I’ll keep working on it. What I do know is that I will not longer refer to it as “Blowing Up My Life.” What happened back then gave me a new one. A better one.

Then I mentioned to my therapist that I had jokingly been calling the day before “My Second Ninth Birthday,” and that next year’s would be my landmark “Second Tenth Birthday” – double digits! Which led to…

Her fourth question: “And what soon-to-be Ten-Year-Old Kid dreads the approach of his birthday?”

 Why, I don’t…you’re exactly right. Damn it.

That’s all it took, after twelve years of mythmaking, to blow up my false foundation. Four fucking questions. Only four!

It was humbling and illuminating and exciting and liberating all at once. The truth had become so obvious, yet it had been sitting in front of me the entire time. I felt like the guy who can’t find his keys until he realizes he’s holding them, or looks all around for the glasses that are on top of his head. 

I had built January 27th into something it wasn’t, at least after those first two incidents twelve and nine years ago. In the years since, I’d manufactured something out of that date that only served to keep me trapped in shame, regret, fear, and self-doubt. I had told myself it was accountability, when in reality I had paid those “bills” for my past - in full - a long time ago. I’d created a story as True that no longer had any basis in Fact.

It is really easy to do that - especially with all the things we’ve done that we regret. Or events that hurt us. Or those times when we hurt ourselves and others.

What we often call accountability or consequences, after a point, can become figments of our imagination, inventive stories that we think help us and “teach us lessons.” But we often don’t take a look at those lessons themselves after a while. Once we “pay the bills” for our pasts, those dates/events/mistakes/regrets should become mere footnotes in the continued story of our lives. But, instead, we can keep holding onto them as if they are still present.

How did I respond to these cascading revelations in the moment? I started laughing.

Pretty soon, I couldn’t stop. My therapist laughed along with me. Then, she extrapolated a bit:

“JD, your potential today cannot be found in those past failures. It can only be found today in how you frame that past and allow it to affect the present.”

I asked, “So, I pretty much invented the “Doom of January 27th,” didn’t I?”

“Not ‘pretty much.’ Totally.”

“Wow.”

Her Fifth Question: “Can you think of any other days in this past year that were really shitty?”

Why, um…Yes. Several, in fact.

Her Sixth Question: “Can you remember the exact dates?”

Why, no…no, I can’t.

Her Seventh Question: “So you aren’t telling yourself stories about those dates or giving them meaning from the past?”

Why, no…no, I’m not.

Her Final Question: “So if the shitty things that have happened on past January 27ths had happened the day before or after you wouldn’t have assigned them anything about your past or present?”

Aw, hell…No, I wouldn’t have. And they wouldn’t have seemed all that bad.

Done and done. Game Over. Passing Go and Collecting My $200. Touchdown spike in the end zone in overtime. I could have sworn I heard her Drop The Mic on the other end of the line.

As I processed this in the remaining minutes of our session, I told my therapist that next January 27th I should throw myself a big “Second Tenth Birthday” party. She loved the idea, then made sure to insist that I choose a theme. Right now, the leader in the clubhouse is something having to do with Star Wars. Of course. We shall see. Instead of dreading January 27th, I choose to anticipate it every year, to be excited by it because it will remind me of all the good things that have happened in the years since the historical fact of blowing up my life actually happened.

That was one day in history. A bad day. But every day since has been an opportunity to move beyond it. I’m only just seeing now that the power is completely within me to redefine that day for myself today - and every one since.

And honestly, right now that has me feeling like a superhero. It’s lifted a weight off my back, or to stick with the superhero idea, given me a burst of super strength to push that weight off of me. So now I’m wondering if I can fly.

As I thought more about it in the past couple of days, I’ve seen that the so-called “lessons of the past” can easily become anchors that sink us rather than stand as markers that identify passage on our road through life. I don’t know exactly when January 27th became an anchor, but that isn’t as important as hoisting it up and setting sail again. I didn’t realize I had been weighing myself down every single January, but what’s important now is simply not doing that again.

Those are the real lessons of our personal histories — we can remember them, yet move beyond them. The latter need not negate the former. I think that’s what I was worried about, concerned that if I let go of the regret, of the pain that I had caused, of the damage I had done to myself and my relationships, that I somehow would forget the vital lessons of that January 27th a decade ago. But I’m learning that’s not the case. At best, to hold on to the old story is limiting. At worst, it becomes self-flagellation and shame-mongering.

That’s what got me into trouble in the first place. I gather that’s probably true for all of us.

How many of the so-called “life lessons” that we hold onto have become self-created anchors rather than signposts? I have been making such an inventory in my own life in the days since my session, and I’ve seen that I have a few other anchors in my life, too. For example, the narratives that I hold onto about how I “always” struggle in romantic relationships. That was true once, but need not be true now. Or, the narratives I’ve told myself about how I can’t really do anything other than “just teach history.” As long as I tell myself that’s true, it will be. Fortunately, I stopped listening to that narrative a little while ago, too.

What I have denied myself, and we all end up denying ourselves when we let lessons anchor us instead of guide us, is one key thing — Possibility. I keep coming back to it.

Such a powerful word: 

• Possibility that our past need not be defined just by one event, or that the event must mean the same thing forever.

• Possibility that we could be denying ourselves new perspectives on our present and our future.

• Possibility that we are not the sum total of our past mistakes.

• Possibility that we can discover, explore, and cultivate new ideas and relationships and beliefs and perspectives and interests.

• Possibility that the dire circumstances we’ve experienced in the past are actually…just that. In the past.

The list goes on and on for me, and I would guess for you as well. It certainly is important to know our limits, but that also doesn’t need to negate possibility. For me it feels like congruence, a mutual recognition of the impact of our past alongside the power we have inherently to define it by its positive effects rather than its negative.

I’m still working through all of it, but wanted to share this snapshot of where I am right now...today. I’m excited by the possibility of what reframing January 27th will look like going forward.

So save the date — January 27, 2022. I’m going to do something big for my Second Tenth Birthday, and it’s going to be fun and I want you to be a part of it. If I go with Star Wars, it’s going to be a Millennium Falcon or a Mandalorian theme. If it’s Marvel, be thinking of what superhero you want to be (I’m leaning towards Dr. Strange - because he’s wicked smart, has great swoopy hair, and rocks a Magic Cape while he cuts holes in the fabric of existence). If it’s baseball, come on up to Seattle and let’s go to a Mariners game or three. Or maybe I’ll do my own birthday tour around the country (or overseas?) and pull up in your driveway wearing my Dr. Strange costume. I’ll bring you Slim Jim’s and Red Bull.

Who knows. Possibilities, possibilities, possibilities. I have a year to plan. So do you, actually, for wherever it is — and however it is — you want to be a year from now. Let’s compare notes then over birthday cake.

I know for a fact it will be a guava cake. Look it up. It’s amazeballs.

Time to weigh anchor. Anything that matters might be just ahead.

Chins Up, Everyone. 

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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Here are some important updates from my past week:

Soul Book of the Week: Rediscovering Life by Anthony De Mello

Book On My Nightstand: Circe by Madeline Miller

Best Show / Movie I Watched: Barry (HBO) - I’m so late in catching on to this one. Wow.

Strongest Earworm Song: Here Comes the Sun by Richie Havens

Best Meal I Ate: Lemon Garlic Chicken (Instant Pot) with Spinach and Rice

Longest Walk / Run of the Week: 5.5 mile run / 16 mile ride (Tuesday)

Best New Podcast Discovery: Common Ground - The Podcast with Tennyson Jacobson (you gotta hear her story and what she’s doing with it)

Best New Discovery: The Old Fashioned Hot Water Bottle (how did I ever live without this?!?!?!)

Best Foreign Word Discovery: “Dreikäsehoch” - “Three Cheeses High” (Vertically Challenged)

Weirdest Moment: Leaving the house with two different shoes on. I blame COVID - somehow.