tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54567812024-03-16T11:50:10.534-07:00John RyanJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.comBlogger468125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-16038819331876656932024-02-19T07:00:00.000-08:002024-02-19T07:00:00.128-08:00 296Just about out of the wilderness. A call next Wednesday will likely lead to another role at long last. I've come so close on a number of occasions. Thank you for being patient. This past year of struggling has been an education for me, almost breaking me. I think I've been focusing too much on one thing, chasing a goal that really I set about on a lark. Work is not life. There's more outJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-80154099826581449222024-01-19T16:41:00.000-08:002024-01-19T16:41:18.360-08:00 295I don't have much to write this time. I'm sorry I'm not better. I'm sorry I can't be the one who gets the job. I'm sorry I'm not happier. Or healthier. Sometimes I really think you deserve to be with someone who has it more together, who isn't lost in his own head, who isn't always his worst enemy. I love you. I'm sorry. I wish I was better. I always feel one step behind what I Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-52892119017317479612023-12-19T12:59:00.000-08:002023-12-19T12:59:12.256-08:00 294To my love. Happy monthly anniversary. So much happening while time feels like it is speeding up to Christmas and the end of the year. Soon, 2023 will be gone and not a second too soon. We got out of Germany, returned home and started our lives again here. You settled into your job and are doing spectacularly at it. I'm still mired in the long, drawn-out chase of trying to find a game Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-4823464620360903922023-11-19T14:40:00.000-08:002023-11-19T14:40:58.997-08:00 293Happy monthly anniversary, my love. I feel like something is going to break for us. I had a good couple weeks of interviews and while it might be wishful thinking I sense that the long cold year is going to crack open. We will both be working and we can rebuilt some of the money burned in getting back from Europe. It'll be a relief to go into the holidays with both of us secure again. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-67975400650787370772023-10-19T07:38:00.001-07:002023-10-19T07:38:03.576-07:00 292This one snuck up on me. So much happening, so much up and down, so much hurry up and wait. As the saying goes, this month has been a hell of a year. I haven't been the strongest. I haven't been the happiest. This year has been hard for us. I'm happy you love your job. I'm relieved that you found a place that appreciates you. I hope one day to find a full-time place of my own like that. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-59134852919616940942023-09-19T16:41:00.006-07:002023-09-19T16:41:42.894-07:00 291Happy monthly anniversary, my love. Summer fades to cooler air, the sweet decomposition of fallen leaves, and the excuse to pile more blankets on the bed. Thank you for being kind to me as I still sit in limbo about my writing career. Thank you for believing in me when I don't. You see the longer view. You remember the good things I've done. I got us home from Europe. I found us a Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-21968932258938312492023-08-19T22:17:00.002-07:002023-08-19T22:17:32.289-07:00 290Happy monthly anniversary, my love. The summer is starting to give up its wretched, prying heat at long last and we are both finding stability. I'm landing more opportunities for work. You are settling in at your job. We are in our home. Europe is behind us. We have the complete unclenching of the spirit that only comes when you have peace of being on familiar ground. It's more than Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-69037617601773885452023-07-19T20:02:00.004-07:002023-07-19T20:02:23.823-07:00 289Another month together, my love. We swelter in the July heat as we continue through the summer, you working and me looking for someplace to land still. A couple things might shake out, but I'm still grateful to have enough breathing space to apply and not get discouraged when I get ghosted or come in second place in the final interview. It's been a tough job market, but it'll work out. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-13961674563177737652023-06-19T15:01:00.003-07:002023-06-19T15:01:52.842-07:00 288Happy anniversary, my love. Twenty-four years. One condo, two domestic apartments, five overseas apartments. Thousands of miles travelled together. Thousands of meals eaten together. Countless struggles shared and victories embraced. I love you. I hope you have enjoyed this journey so far. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-14396725532028692682023-05-19T15:30:00.003-07:002023-05-19T15:30:31.219-07:00 287Happy monthly anniversary, my love. We’ve been home, in our new home, for a month. The moving boxes are fewer. Pictures and other memories are going on walls. The haze of Europe is fading. We’ve always lived here, among the trees in our humble home outside of Seattle. We have put the traveling circus of Europe behind us and have chosen to breathe and rest among coffee, rain, friends, andJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-70681543286809040182023-04-19T15:34:00.006-07:002023-04-19T15:34:57.091-07:00 286Happy monthly anniversary, my love. Now in the multi-clouded climes of Seattle again. We have left our European adventure behind to return to familiar ground. Both of us with new jobs, a new home, and hopefully newer, fresher selves, devoid of the limits and struggles we had with the languages, the cultural clashes, and the employment blockages for you working abroad. Now we are spinningJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-90302611245179129972023-03-19T11:53:00.004-07:002023-03-19T11:58:39.744-07:00 285To my wife. Happy monthly anniversary in Berlin, where the depressive shroud that is winter slowly gives way to spring. Where the local park has planted flowers budding white, yellow, and purple. Where the snow has stopped and the sun is lasting minutes longer per day. Where families and dogs are appearing in the memorial grounds to lounge in the greening grass. The city is coming back Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-43312271034502987392023-02-19T04:30:00.002-08:002023-02-19T04:30:34.166-08:00 284Happy monthly anniversary, and now we look west after admitting that Germany was not the destination we need. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for being ready to move again, and now we will look at a place where we can both work. It's only fair, even if it means we have to give up Europe and return to the brutal battleground that is America. We would be back, hopefully in Seattle, Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-82480428265489159102023-01-19T10:48:00.006-08:002023-01-19T10:48:59.013-08:00 283Happy monthly anniversary. We have gotten through the gauntlet of the the holidays and now we go through the the dark of winter in Berlin, a special gray kind of darkness that is still haunted from its days east of the Wall. At least things are getting stable with work and we are finding the city less alien. Especially with us finding our way around the city. It is becoming our home.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-7720796322863794852022-12-19T11:10:00.005-08:002022-12-19T11:10:43.879-08:00 282Happy monthly anniversary, my dear. We are approaching the end of the year having survived an international move, a new role, and adjusted to life in a massive city again. Better food and strangely cheaper groceries. Harder to find an apartment. A greater hustle after being locked down in Copenhagen awaiting our visas. But we are here now, about to celebrate Christmas with a surprise Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-55813624133967725782022-11-19T09:00:00.002-08:002022-11-19T09:00:20.791-08:00 281Winter as come and we are making our Berlin home as cozy as possible. It's the darkness of Copenhagen all over again, but with more life and culture. Definitely better food and a better office. The worst of it is, we will again be away from family for the holidays and our family is smaller due to the loss of Seamus, poor sweet bear. It'll just be us and Liam in a quiet Berlin Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-36547405035024191732022-10-19T08:54:00.005-07:002022-10-19T08:54:48.927-07:00 280Happy monthly anniversary, my love. It is another month in Berlin, and we are finding the ground beneath our feet. We are cutting through the bureaucratic obstacles, building our residency, getting the odds and ends to make our place at home. We are finding our restaurants, our grocery stores, our patterns, our rituals to make this city of millions feel like its ours. We are settling in,Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-57862031447623462652022-09-19T09:13:00.001-07:002022-09-19T09:13:04.137-07:00 279Nine days since we arrived in Berlin. It's like we always lived here. At least now the government recognizes that we're here. One more step, but it opens up two more thanks to the German bureaucracy. But we are here and we are safe, in our new apartment that looks out over the Berlin Wall, that old relic of our childhoods that we've seen on television be chiseled apart in 1989. Now Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-32508989115027450102022-08-19T01:36:00.004-07:002022-08-19T01:36:46.079-07:00 278A holding pattern on our monthly anniversary as we wait in our growing-bare apartment. Soon, but still unknown when, I’ll get my visa and we can go to Germany. Thank you for being reassuring as we sit in the uncertainty. I know we have time to get from here to there before my new start date. It will all work out. I love you. Happy monthly anniversary. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-17720014638612629132022-07-19T04:13:00.003-07:002022-07-19T04:13:42.287-07:00 277Another month, a waning month, in Denmark. We wait for the paperwork to clear. We have a destination waiting for us in Germany. We are paring down. We are preparing, pruning, packing, plodding. We want to go; we have to wait. At least we wait in peace, in quiet, and in Scandinavian sunshine. There are worse fates. For now, we have a quiet monthly anniversary in the Danish sun. I Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-86609287944411813502022-06-19T00:00:00.001-07:002022-06-19T00:00:00.168-07:00 27623 years. Happy anniversary, my love. For today, we agreed no gifts. Nothing we would have to drag with us when we leave for Germany. So, we visit places we always wanted to go to but never had the time before, thanks to COVID. But now we have our passports and an apartment to arrive at. Now we have to disengage ourselves from here. It'll be like relocating to Amsterdam all over Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-78661681039411855122022-05-19T04:51:00.004-07:002022-05-19T04:51:23.207-07:00275We await the bureaucracy to click into place so we can relocate to another country. We await the signal to start our future. We hurry up and wait. At least we can do it together. At least we know things are in motion. This is merely a delay. If all goes well this is our second-to-last monthly anniversary here before we say goodbye to Denmark and start another adventure together.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-16128185753755867822022-04-19T07:34:00.003-07:002022-04-19T07:34:45.977-07:00 274Happy monthly anniversary, my love.So much happening as we recover from spring sickness. We returned from Iceland on a birthday trip and now we look forward to the bureaucratic and logistical leaps into our next big thing. Another country, another job, another new city. I know we can do this. We have done it before. Now is just the paperwork. A calm before the storm.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-3114131463019837872022-03-19T01:00:00.003-07:002022-03-19T01:00:52.333-07:00 273Happy monthly anniversary, my love. We finally made it through the darkness of winter and we are on the edge of a big change. I can feel something about to break job-wise, and with it likely relocation. Another adventure. Another transition. Thank you for being there through all this. I love you and I hope you are happy.Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5456781.post-77726519836897033022022-02-19T06:53:00.000-08:002022-02-19T06:53:02.366-08:00272To my love, a happy monthly anniversary. I do not deserve you. I love and appreciate your kindness. Thank you for putting up with my ups and downs. Thank you for being open to another adventure. I wish I was more sedate like you. I wish I was better. I try, inspired. I hope you know. I hope you see it. I love you. To another month together. Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08986455079110860096noreply@blogger.com0