It doesn’t feel like the end. It feels like the beginning.

And yet, today is the end. Day 365 of whatever this journey of writing at the end of each of my days has been. It’s the end of the first year. Here I am. 365 days. It literally came as a surprise to me as I sat down to write this entry tonight, feeling a little under the weather from these cursed allergies, Ryan visiting, and surrounded by my wife and our two sleep pup-pups.

I’m going to save the retrospective till tomorrow, on day 1 of the new “blog-year.” I like new beginnings, after all, more than I like endings. Endings are, by their very nature, bittersweet.

I honestly have to say, however, that this milestone feels very, very different from other milestones that I’ve reached in my life. Those have tended to come at the cost of exhaustion, and usually a herculean effort in the last minutes to get whatever it is finished…this time, albeit for something much easier work-wise but *infinitely* more difficult process-wise…I cross this year mark feeling like today was much like most of my days since deciding to start writing this daily blog. And, rather than exhausted, I feel energized to keep going. Continue on.

That all may sound rather cliche, but I really do mean it with all my heart. There is still so much to be done, so much work to dive into, and I will continue to work each day towards all of it, one step at a time. One entry at a time.

I am *immensely* proud of the fact that I’ve written a blog every day for 365 days. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t have kept the number going. But, then again…it’s never been the point. The point was never to reach an entire year of writing a blog every day. No, the point was always to change my behavior. Establish new patterns that would take me where I wanted to go in my life. I sit here in bed tonight able to conclusively say that HAS happened. I work entirely differently than I did a year ago this time. I still have my struggles, I’m going through one right now, in fact, but those days are the minority.

That new sense of self and awareness and discipline is absolutely a contributor to the fact that I’m now married to the most wonderful wife I could have ever imagined, and so is this blog. This blog that she’s read every day since day one, that she’s supported at every turn and encouraged me to keep going at every turn, and that we talk about together constantly, sharing our thoughts with each other. It may seem like this is a conversation with myself, but really, it’s a conversation with her, with my family, with my friends…anyone who will listen. I have found that putting my thoughts and struggles, and musings, and humor and everything that is me into black and white words on these pages has helped me become a happier person.

I always feel like I have to modify statements like those with the fact that, again, I do not feel like I have arrived at some sort of destination. I haven’t. My only destination is what I wanted to get done or say that day. That’s it. I haven’t uncovered a magical truth and everything is different now. No…it’s a process. I have so much further to go. The rest of my life, I think. But I am finally *in* the process.

The day started with what turned out (legitimately) to be a wonderful morning with the Ho and I. As I wrote about briefly last night, Liz’s car broke down while we were down in Anaheim. Well, we were over at her mechanic’s this morning at 9am, and got him set up with it. We got word later in the day that the issue is fixable, and won’t break the bank. Great news! After dropping the car into his care, we drove to where Liz was having a commercial callback, which obviously I was driving her to because her car is at the mechanics. We got to that area, over on South La Brea, which is an old haunt of ours. Liz had a studio apartment there for a year after we graduated, and we lived together there for several months before we moved in together in NoHo. So, we took the opportunity to get breakfast at a Cafe we used to go to all the time, Lulu’s Cafe on Beverly. Then, Liz had her callback, and we drove back over the hill together and dropped some stuff by the office.

We got back to building just in time for the delivery guys from Sears that were dropping off a new dishwasher for one of my tenants, and then we were off to the mall to pick up some chocolates for Liz’s mechanic (he loves chocolates, and you want to keep your mechanic happy, am I right?), and then finally we were home. I zonked out for a good solid hour or so nap, and then it was up to do a bunch more apartment stuff, picked up a package that turned out to be an *awesome* anniversary wine box from a couple of our good friends, and got some hot dogs and guacamole ingredients for us (Liz, Ryan and I) to watch the World Series game together. Then, Ryan went off to hang with a lady friend and Liz and I watched the season finale wedding-special event for 19 Kids and Counting, which I’m sure I’ve written on these pages is Liz’s all-time favorite show. For reals. If that was a question on Family Feud, I’d totally get that shit right.

Now, I have a bit of a headache 😛 But, I’m quite content, guys. Feeling behind on my work, but content in the knowledge that I have what it takes to finish something that I’ve started. Finish something that I said I was going to do. This daily blog has been a win, for me. I’ve been able to feel like I did *something* at the very least, written this blog and spillin my feelins in the air, every day now for the past 365 days. And, we all need wins, don’t we?

Yes we do. I sincerely hope that you had a win today.

More on all this mushy blog stuff tomorrow, where I think I’ll look back and talk about really how much has changed in the past year. I hope it’s a lot. It feels like a lot 😛