Every time I post, I urge people to keep pounding the rock. This phrase comes from the story of a stonecutter told by Danish-American muckraker Jacob Riis. “When nothing seems to help,” Riis wrote, “I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.“

We must keep pounding the rock, because we don't know which blow is finally going to make things break loose.

It is that way in life, too. Great changes come very slowly, then all at once. The Berlin Wall existed for decades, and in one night, it fell. Things slowly build and then explode all at once.

Rocks split. Walls fall. In what feels like a moment.

There is such a period of great change happening for my family right now.

Barbara and I have separated.

This is hard, and a new chapter is being written in the life of our family.

We have a plan to minimize disruption for the children still at home, and we are doing our best to navigate our new reality. After 32 years together, this feels daunting and there is a period of complicated grief to work through, with all of the conflicted and jumbled feelings that come with grieving a loss.

I am telling you this because you as a group have been incredibly supportive and encouraging over the last couple of years. I want you to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Or the horse's ass' mouth, depending on your perspective. I know, I know. But you have to laugh in the face of things sometimes.

I will be writing occasionally to commemorate important things - my 6 year sober anniversary is next month, and I turn 50 in May. More regular posts will return when I am in a different place.

My main focus right now is on my own journey of individual healing, and helping our family as we sail choppy new seas.

If you would like to stay connected, please email me at combatsnuggles@gmail.com and we'll talk about how to make that happen. I will tell you that physical letters - yes, good old-fashioned snail mail - will be my preferred way of communicating for a bit.

Your support of me and my writing endeavors has always been SO incredibly valuable to me. Thank you for that gift. It matters.

Be well, y'all.

Hold your people close. Love as much as you can, with as much heart as you can muster.

And keep pounding the rock.