Journal

August was a hard month.
I don't really know another way to say it.
There were some very difficult days, and even now I don't think I have completely worked through all of them.
What I do know is that the ordinary days still carried on.
Work still happened. Life still happened. People still needed things from me. I still woke up every morning and carried on with whatever was in front of me.
And I think that is probably why Ordinary Days is starting to mean more to me than just the name of an album.

I am still working on the album, and on one of the hardest days in August, Both of Us came out of it.

There are still days.
Days where I struggle with things I thought I had dealt with.
Days where I feel shame about the pain I caused.
Days where I want to move past something because sitting in it is uncomfortable.
August forced me to look at that properly.

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At one point I was willing to leave my relationship.
Not because I was angry.
Not because I had stopped loving my partner.
And not because I wanted to give up.
I think I was willing to leave because I could see how much pain I had caused, and I could see how much healing was still needed.
There was a part of me that honestly thought maybe leaving was the right thing to do.
Maybe I had caused enough damage.
Maybe removing myself was better than continuing to be part of the pain.

But I realised something.
Leaving would have been easier than staying and facing it.
What was actually being asked of me was not impossible.
It was just difficult.

I needed to be willing to go back into conversations about things I was ashamed of.
I needed to understand that something being in the past for me does not mean it is finished for somebody else.
And probably the biggest thing I realised is that I need to show up differently when I feel shame.
That has been a big problem for me.
When I feel ashamed, my instinct is to shut down, withdraw, get defensive or want the conversation to end.
I am trying to change that.

I am learning to stay in the conversation.
To listen.
To answer honestly.
To accept that sometimes healing means going back over something I wish we never had to talk about again.

That doesn't mean nothing has changed.
Actually, I think the fact that I can sit in those conversations differently now is part of the change.
I am not pretending everything is fixed.
It isn't.
There is still work to do.
There are still difficult days.
There are still moments where old habits show up.

But I didn't leave.
And strangely, I think August helped me understand that staying is not about simply remaining in the same place.
Staying means doing the work.
It means showing up differently.
It means allowing someone you love to tell you how you hurt them, even when hearing it hurts you too.
It means not making their healing about your shame.

I'm still learning that.
I'm still learning a lot of things.
Maybe that is what Ordinary Days is really becoming about.
Not some big transformation where suddenly everything is better.
Just ordinary days where I get another chance to be better than I was before.
Some days I get it right.
Some days I don't.
There are still days.
But I'm here.
And the work continues.

I didn't make this site to be an influencer. I didn't make it to build a brand. I made it because I spent forty-nine years carrying something I didn't have the language for, and I know there are men out there carrying the same thing right now.

Men are not supposed to talk about this stuff. We are supposed to get on with it. Be strong. Provide. Don't show weakness. And so we drink, or rage, or go numb, or people-please our way through life wearing other people's faces. And we call it being a man.

It isn't. I know that now. And if knowing it at forty-nine can save someone else from getting there the long way, then this site is worth every uncomfortable word on it.

Playing Man was the first time I said any of this out loud in a way that had structure. Writing those lyrics forced me to look at things I had been circling for years. The father who died on Christmas morning. The cycle I repeated. The woman who stayed through all of it.

But it wasn't until I started writing 49/5 that I understood what was underneath all of it. The music went deeper than I expected it to. That's what it does when you let it be honest.

The hardest thing about healing is not the hard days. The hard days make sense. You know what to do with pain — you've been doing it your whole life. The hardest thing is the good moments. When someone loves you and you feel yourself flinching. When someone is kind and your first instinct is to figure out what they want from you.

I am learning to just let it land. To say thank you and mean it. To not immediately undermine it or deflect it or find a reason it isn't real. Some days I get it right. Most days I'm still working on it. That is the road.