These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
I keep glancing at this girl in Starbucks. She’s been sitting here half an hour, mostly staring into space. I’ve been sitting here half an hour, mostly staring at a screen. Which of us is the weirdo?
2
The guy serving is from Venezuela. He estado, I tell him. He’s surprised, asks me what I was doing there, if I was working or traveling. I try to explain that I was doing both. Then I start feeling self-conscious about my privilege. Few people have the opportunity to do what I did.
3
One year today since we moved to Andorra. We arrived in a big taxi with everything we owned and nowhere to live. It’s been a mad year getting settled, but we’ve made a ton of progress and laid a solid foundation for the rest of our lives. Proud of us.
4
Got a new passport in 2013. Back then I was single, traveling the world, scraping by financially, optimizing for adventure. Got a new passport this week, 2023. Life is very different now. Married, settled, optimizing for health and wealth. Next new passport will be in 2033. Who will I be then?
5
Felt an urge to be outside today, running through the woods. So here I am, making my way around a mountain. I end up going up and over to get back to the car, scrambling up a steep trail, sweating and panting and loving life. But the enjoyment doesn’t last long.
6
Could have pushed through and done that chunk of work yesterday, but it would have been a tough slog. Today I had a better head for it and the work was a breeze. Funny how procrastination can work to your advantage sometimes.
7
Been working hard the last few months to detach myself from the day-to-day tasks in the business. Once something is working and I have a good process in place for it, I need to be training someone else to do it so I can focus my energy on unraveling the next knotty problem.
8
I get excited about organizing things. Lots of plans to organize things better on the website. But also at home, looking at our mess of a laundry room, eager to dive in and design a whole setup there so there’s a place for everything and easy to keep super tidy.
9
If someone like Robbie Williams suddenly died tomorrow, I’d go listen to his greatest hits and lament that I didn’t appreciate him enough when he was alive. Even though I realize and acknowledge this, I have no intention of listening to his greatest hits anytime soon.
10
Less than 6 hours sleep last night, a big travel day ahead, and technically I can skip today’s stretching session with no penalty. But I still go ahead and stretch. It’s such a habit now that it feels weird if I don’t do it. That’s the place to get to: where you crave doing the thing you once had to force yourself to do.
11
Flight was delayed 3 hours yesterday, long day, got to bed late, feeling sick today. We still go to dinner with my best friend and his wife. It’s a nice evening, but my brain is in a bit of a fog. I think I feel my eye twitch at one point.
12
I’m more anxious about some things now than I used to be. Coming back to Ireland and driving on the other side of the road, never used to bother me much, now it’s stressful. Might be because back in the day I was single and had few responsibilities. Now it’s not only about me.
13
Two things on the streets in Cork that you never see in Andorra: homeless people and live music. Not sure if there are any laws against living on the street in Andorra, but I’ve heard you need a permit to do any kind of street performance. Hard to imagine why anyone thought that was a good idea.
14
Middle of the day and this woman is sitting on a kerb, smoking cigarettes and and downing two bottles of cider. I wonder what her life is like, what pain she’s been through. I don’t think you can end up like that unless you’ve experienced a lot of pain.
15
It’s good to have high standards, but I get in trouble when I try to have high standards for everything. Pretty much impossible to do everything to a high standard, or have everything to a high standard. Life is ultimately one trade-off after another.
16
There’s an old gimmick I turn to when being social across a language barrier: ask them what sounds various animals make in their language. For example, a dog says woof-woof in English, but how-how in Polish and wow-wow in Spanish. But the best animal to ask about is usually the rooster.
17
I worked in this department store 20 years ago, had dropped out of college, was getting very comfortable as a low-rung employee. Then I looked at the people who’d been working there 20 years and knew I didn’t want that to be my life. Major turning point.
18
Weddings aren’t a great concept overall, are they? Usually months and months of stress and expense, and they’re still often underwhelming. What if instead you had several small holidays with friends and family? Lots of time with a few people instead of a little time with a lot of people.
19
The venue is a townhouse in Dublin. 180 years old. There are portraits on the walls, people long dead who roamed these halls. 180 years from now there might still be the occasional wedding here. Maybe they’ll still dance like we did below these high ceilings.
20
McDermott’s Castle. A castle on an island on a lake on an island. This particular castle is about 800 years old, a spectacular ruin. Lots of these in Ireland. All good reminders that everything comes and everything goes. A good day to remind myself of same.
21
I’ve barely been online for 2.5 days, many years since I’ve used my laptop so little. It makes me anxious, not checking in on things, wondering what’s piling up in my absence. I have to talk myself down, remember that I’ve set things up pretty good in the business, no big deal to be offline for a while.
22
Spent most of the day on Achill Island. Visited the beach from that movie, the tower built by a pirate queen, took a drive along a rugged coast, ran over rocks and around sheep shit, felt ocean spray on my face, screamed across the Atlantic. Back to town late for some live flute and fiddle music to top it off.
23
After a couple of hours at Kylemore Abbey, we’re on a riverbank watching salmon jump up a waterfall. These fish would have been born somewhere upstream, then migrated thousands of miles north towards Norway or Greenland. Now they’re back home to spawn.
24
Downpatrick Head. There’s a big blowhole in the peninsula, a ruined church with a statue of St Patrick, words and numbers marked into the ground to guide fighter pilots in WW2, and the impressive sea stack that was apparently attached to the mainland and even inhabited until a storm severed the connection seven centuries ago.
25
This castle in the middle of the country has a massive telescope in the garden. Built in the 1840’s, it was the biggest telescope in the world for 70 years. It was used for the first observance of the spiral nature of galaxies, the image sketched out with chalk and charcoal.
26
I’m embarrassed by my past preaching. For example, I used to preach veganism, despite knowing very little about nutrition. I had no idea how much protein my body needed, or how much I was consuming. I guess that’s the arrogance of youth. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
27
Wish I’d handled that differently, young guy working at the restaurant accidentally spilled coffee on my shirt and jeans. I wasn’t rude exactly, but I wasn’t gracious or kind. Remembered after that I used to be that young guy, made plenty of mistakes like that.
28
My hometown doesn’t feel like home. Which makes sense; I’ve spent half my life elsewhere. Plenty of spots trigger memories, but I rarely recognize a face. In the 2.5 weeks I’ve been back in Ireland – my longest stretch in a decade plus – I’ve bumped into and chatted with just one old familiar.
29
Manual drive this morning on the left side in Ireland. Auto drive this evening on the right side in Spain. Striking how different the countryside is. Not just the colors, but the population. The Irish countryside is dotted with houses. The Spanish countryside often won’t have a single house for a dozen miles.
30
Silly movie, all the problems could easily have been avoided if the characters just talked to each other, had a few heart-to-hearts. But I guess that’s what often happens in real life as well. Tempting to avoid those awkward or tough conversations, but that leads to bigger issues in the long run.
31
Words from a video I watched today…
When you perform every workout like it’s your last, you increase the probability that it actually is.
My workouts used to be hard, and I’m sure I did myself damage that way. Now I exercise and stretch every day, but sustainably, nothing too crazy.