Today is Thanksgiving, and it remains a Top 3 favorite holiday for me (I’ll write about the other 2 as they come up over the next 12 months). While I enjoy a day of family, food, and football, those are not the main reasons it’s a favorite. No, I enjoy it because it is a day devoted to gratitude. While that gratitude may align with the tenets of several religions, Thanksgiving Day isn’t reserved for any specific one, and I find that appealing. Considering that life itself is fairly miraculous, biologically speaking (especially for humans compared to other species), and our lives of prosperity in this place and time are filled with abundant relative luck, it just seems fitting that we spend at least one day per year reflecting on how blessed we really are. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re religious or not, if you even believe in God, or if you worship according to a different tradition.

2025, for me and my family, hasn’t exactly been an easy one. We dealt with a broken, leaking water heater in March that flooded a portion of the house and left us living in a nearby hotel for two weeks. Then we shared a single bathroom among 4 adults for an additional two months. In the summer, a routine mammogram for my wife led to an additional scan and eventually, a surgical procedure. For me, a physical exam and blood test in the spring led to some new daily medications and a few dietary alterations. Plus there were other nagging little issues throughout the year – nail in a tire here, minor illness there – the usual annoyances of life. The most bizarre incident of the year definitely happened in July, when a man (already known to Arlington PD as sometimes homeless and a frequent drug user) literally ripped the passenger side mirror off my car, walked off with it, then tossed it by the side of the road.

And yet, despite it all, I am perhaps more grateful this Thanksgiving than I have been in a while. We have had challenges, we have faced adversity, but we are still blessed in ways we need to appreciate. I honestly suspect that for me, whatever trials we did face may have actually emphasized how good we have it in the long run. I don’t want to offer a big laundry list of items; instead, I will focus on three fundamental things for which I am most thankful as we approach the end of 2025.

Good Health. “Wait, didn’t you just say that both you and your wife dealt with some health issues this year?!?” Yes, yes I did. But in the end, we’ve overcome those issues and established ourselves as relatively healthy, especially for our ages. My wife’s mammogram led, as you might have suspected, to a mention of “the big C,” but the subsequent procedures she endured revealed that it was caught early. Like, REALLY early. Designated as “Stage 0,” where it was identified and removed as particles, before any cells had a chance to organize and create the need for chemotherapy or radiation. Was it scary? Absolutely. But once the process was over, we were grateful that modern medicine has advanced to the point that it could be addressed this early. For the foreseeable future, it really just means more frequent and vigilant scanning to ensure similar particles don’t return. If that happens, we’ll deal with the ramifications. But the doctors have all indicated that the chances of recurrence are minimal.

As for me, I can say that learning about A1C levels in the blood was certainly educational, and it obviously wasn’t welcome news to hear that mine was too high. The same blood test also revealed high cholesterol, and I also found out I have high blood pressure. Fun! Time for a few drugs and dietary changes. I even tried Ozempic for a couple of months until insurance would no longer cover it. In the grand scheme of things, none of it was a big deal. Sure, I have to avoid fatty foods, sugary foods and bread now, but I do not miss them. Those foods and I had a great run, but all things change. I have to take 3 tiny pills once per day. So what. I needed to ramp up my physical activity even more, which I welcome.

As my doctor (who is awesome, BTW – Dr. Eric Hoffman in Arlington) pointed out, addressing these issues now, making the necessary changes, taking the appropriate prescriptions, etc., is far preferable to stubbornly adhering to old habits and rolling the dice with the ramifications in 5-10 years.

The bottom line is that, while my wife and I are not in perfect health (and really, who is?), we are healthy. The issues we’ve faced this year, in our mid-50s, are miniscule compared to what many, many people deal with. And we have been able to take care of these issues with minimal headache and expense. Considering what others experience versus what we have experienced – Good Health, check – thankful for it in 2025.

Supportive People. This item of thanks started, frankly, very trite. “Family and Friends,” yada, yada. And make no mistake about it, my family and friends are amazing. My wife is awesome, we still love each other madly, we get along great, and we still have enough disagreements to keep it interesting. My kids…also awesome. They’re now beyond teenage years (during which we had the good fortune of never dealing with typical teenage nonsense), they’re growing into responsible adults, and we’re able to relate to them very well. As for friends, I honestly don’t have a lot of close friends who I see and communicate with regularly. But those close friends that I do talk to regularly are also terrific – we can share details about our lives and reminisce about the past with equal energy. Also, we’re able to share frustrations about the petty annoyances of life without judgment. Just some good-natured venting at times.

But the more I thought about “family and friends,” great as they are, the more I realized that my gratitude in 2025 really moves beyond that relatively narrow scope. I have been blessed with supportive people in a much broader sphere of influence. Consider my doctor, for one, who I’ve already acknowledged as awesome. I come from a long line of stubborn know-it-alls, and part of breaking free of that attitude entails having professionals I can trust. My doctor is one of them, mainly because he pushes past any of my stubborn instincts and tells me plainly what I need, not what I want, to hear. I’m grateful for that because I know I’ll be healthier than my parents if I receive straight talk. All the doctors and other medical professionals under whose care my wife and I have been this year…also thankful for them. I’ll throw my auto mechanic in there as well – Pat Murphy in Arlington. Needed a brake pad replacement this year, and I’m not one to do it myself. Murphy’s Auto was literally the first and only place I called, because I know he’ll do it right and not try to sell me something I don’t need. If you have an honest, trustworthy mechanic, you, too, should be thankful for them.

It may seem odd to be thankful for insurance, but we’ve needed it this year – home, auto, and health. Our insurance has not disappointed. Our adjusters for the home repairs from the water heater and the auto repair on my mirror were professional and patient with us. I always felt like we were being served appropriately, never upsold, and never dismissed. In a world that often seems to grow more cynical and self-absorbed, it was gratifying. Our health insurance has also been much better than expected, even after we changed from one provider to another in September. Sure, Ozempic is no longer covered and now too expensive, and I would certainly love to see universal healthcare in the United States, but the costs we’ve encountered for necessary procedures this year have been acceptable, and the prescriptions we have are downright cheap. I know there are many Americans who cannot say the same, so I am incredibly thankful for our own situation.

But I think the supportive people for whom I may be the most thankful in 2025 are coworkers and colleagues, past and present. I retired from K-12 public education in July 2025, and the toughest part of the process was saying goodbye to many coworkers who are just really good people. Fortunately, I am able to communicate periodically with some of them. I also took a part-time job with my long-time church parish in October, and I’ve learned that my new coworkers are also incredibly nice, decent people. I’m truly thankful for coworkers who are drama-free and easy-going. We all need to appreciate people like this more. Reflecting on past coworkers has also generated much gratitude in my heart this year. One of my friends and coworkers from Summit High School lost a 6-year battle with cancer earlier this year. Of course, I miss him and was sad that he passed away, but the occasion also led many of us from years past to gather as we shared memories and supported his current colleagues as they dealt with his death. I was the first to say, “We need to gather together like this more often, and next time, let’s make sure it’s not just because someone has passed.” And I mean it. Like I said, I don’t have a bunch of close friends, but I am thankful for all the colleagues I’ve had over the years, because I consider so many of them friends despite the fact that we don’t see each other every day anymore. “Don’t be a stranger” is a mantra we need more often, and I hope to stay connected to some degree, particularly with many of my more recent colleagues who are still in the trenches of public education. I am thankful for the support of so many, and I hope to reciprocate as they traverse the nonsense that the current education system brings their way.

Retirement. Ah, yes, I saved the easy, long-hanging fruit for last. And it IS easy, right? You would think anyone who retires in a given year would say “I’m thankful for my retirement.” Who wouldn’t? But my retirement has proven serendipitous on several levels in only a few months, and that really fuels my gratitude for it.

To start, if I’m being truthful, I’ve been “ready to retire” for easily about 7 years now. I decided that I wanted to pursue voiceover as my official second career back in 2018, when I created my LLC, signed up for coaching, attended VO Atlanta, and really started taking the business seriously. In my last couple of years in Mansfield ISD, I was able to utilize and build my VO skills within the context of my education career. When I left for Birdville ISD, my VO career came to a not-quite-screeching halt. My boss there (who was horrible in several ways) kind of resented that I had a VO business because it meant I wasn’t going home and working 2-3 extra hours on assessment and accountability nonsense. During my 5 years in Grand Prairie ISD, I did what I could on the VO side, but the two careers were clearly separate and not terribly symbiotic. My education career very much “crowded out” my voiceover career. I realized during these years that I couldn’t fully embark on voiceover like I wanted until I was free of education. Based on my age and where I was in that career, that meant retirement. I even tried to retire in 2024, but much like Michael Corleone, “they pulled me back in.” Only to experience a year that was at once farcical and tumultuous and idiotic and exhausting and unintentionally comical. At least I finally pulled the proverbial trigger this year and didn’t look back.

And it’s worked out for my VO career to some degree. Thanks to a nice reference from UT-Arlington’s Associate Director of Bands, I made my way into PA announcing for UTA men’s and women’s basketball. They’re auditioning several different voices in 2025-26, and I’ve already announced three NCAA Division I basketball games so far. There might be more later this season, and I have a legitimate chance to book that gig full-time by Fall 2026. And I’ve continued to book other PA work for Spring 2026 and beyond. Besides PA work, I’ve had more time for coaching, the ability to record a new demo and revise another one, and I still have additional coaching and events to come before the end of 2025. 2026 should definitely be my year for aggressively marketing my VO business and pursuing a wider range of work. (Finally!)

In the meantime, as you might expect, retirement has improved my health. It turns out not having the daily grind of waking at 5:00am, spending time in traffic, working 8 or more hours each day, and spending more time in traffic has been beneficial. Who knew, right? My initial diagnoses regarding blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol came at the end of May. My last day dealing with the idiocy of educational assessment was June 17. In September, I had a 3-month follow-up appointment – my weight was down, along with my blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. Coincidence?

And yet, I did try to mess it up. Another district had a Director position in central office, and I applied and interviewed, foolishly thinking that a higher salary might be incentive to stick with K-12 education for at least another 3-5 years. Maybe this actual logic, or simply trepidation at the thought of not getting an ISD-based paycheck. And I was the leading candidate…but in the end, the district hired someone else. Not sure why that happened, but I don’t care, because sometimes we end up grateful later on that things didn’t actually work out. See, I received the news literally while I was in the waiting room at one of my wife’s medical procedures. My retirement – and enhanced free time – allowed me to be right by her side for all of them during her ordeal. I didn’t have to take time off, go back to work and focus on stuff that I had missed, or really ever think about anything but supporting her. Coincidence?

Then in September, the opportunity to work at my longtime church parish became available. It’s essentially a record-keeping job, 4 hours each day, in a low-stress environment, with great people (as I noted earlier). The work may seem like mostly menial tasks to an outsider, but it’s rewarding to serve the church I’ve attended since I was 3 years old, and it certainly matters more to me than any of the standardized assessment noise had become. (Read more about that here.) And the salary from this job more than offsets the difference between my retirement income and my previous salary. So I am literally making more money now in a low-stress, high-satisfaction situation than I was when dealing with high school testing tasks ad nauseam. Coincidence?

I am thus incredibly thankful for retirement, not just in general, but specifically at this time in my life, and in this year. Considering all the pitfalls I seem to have encountered since about 2019, throwing me off-track, to have all of these things working out in my favor now falls somewhere between magic and divine intervention.

It is not lost on me that we have, in the end, received good fortune in 2025, be it from God, or fate, or karma…whatever. I am thankful for all of it. I refuse to get caught up in self-pity over health challenges, or an added expense here or there because of “sh** happens,” or a lost job opportunity. We’ve been the benefactors of decent insurance coverage and excellent care from a host of professionals, medical and otherwise. I have been the recipient of camaraderie and support from some fantastic people, and my primary intention is to ensure that I match that support and show proper appreciation for them. And I have finally retired from my first career, in which I had clearly advanced to the “negative returns” phase, to pursue the next one, and enter the next phase of a life that I consider far from over. 2025 wasn’t a challenging year; it was really a watershed year. And I am absolutely grateful for what it has given me.

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