Happy one-year anniversary to the ‘Great Fallout’. Yes, it’s been exactly one year since I experienced what I can only describe as the most traumatic thing to ever happen to me. It’s funny how a single day can redefine everything you thought you knew about stability, but here we are. A year later, and I’m still standing—though perhaps with a bit more of a cynical squint in my eye.

Since that fateful day, my life has undergone a radical shift. I find myself teaching more than I ever have before. It’s not just about the hours; it’s about the realization that in the grand scheme of things, very little is actually worth the sacrifice. The only thing that truly matters, the only thing worth pouring my energy into, is leaving a lasting legacy. Everything else? Just noise.

To get through the day, I’ve developed a somewhat questionable coping mechanism: listening to emo Adele songs on a loop. You know the ones. They’re great for when you want to feel like you’re starring in a monochrome music video while staring out a window at the rain. It’s cathartic, if a bit melodramatic.

It also doesn’t help that I have a student whose name is quite literally an extension of Adele’s. Let’s call her Adelaide. Every time I see her, call her name, or check her work, I half-expect a piano to start playing a haunting melody behind me. It’s like the universe is playing a very specific, very niche joke on me. However, I have to admit I’m thankful for her. She actually helped me see the real beauty in those Adele songs, beyond just the wallowing. So, thanks, Adelaide, for the musical education—even if your name does give me a momentary existential crisis every Saturday afternoon.

But it’s got nothing to do with you; it’s got to do with everyone else who has decided to do the impossible. So it’s not your fault, and I enjoy the music, even if it is just a phantom playing in both my ears. And thanks for entertaining me with Brazilian jujitsu stories – I am no fighter so I can’t teach you how to counter those moves.

Well, enough of the pity-party. Life moves on. I move on.

Here’s to another year of teaching, legacy-building, and hopefully, slightly fewer world-ending fallouts.