Chapter 12: The human side

Thank you to the 1222 subscribers who follow along on my journey and to everyone else that takes time from your busy schedules to read.

This month's chapter focuses on the past 2 months and the human side of being a solopreneur and life.

The juicy details

This month's newsletter is going to be different. I'm not going to be talking about numbers or anything other than the person behind the news letter.

Simply, the past month has been hell across most parts of my and my wife's life.

From the professional, mental, emotional, and physical, it's just been shit.

I'm scared to even call it rock bottom because I don't want to convince myself things can't get worse.

Let's start back in February, when I realized I didn't have a great grasp on what I wanted to do.

After riding a high of 8 straight months of consulting, I was starting to realize that I was back at square 1 and needed to learn (not relearn) how to build a consulting business.

Every conversation I had led me to doubt myself and rethink everything I was doing.

You can read more about that here.

Then, we took a trip to the US. The plan was to be there 3 weeks. Our last trip to the US didn't go smoothly with our little one having a tough time adjusting so we were already nervous.

The first 2 weeks of the trip were amazing. So much so, that for the first time in 4.5 years after moving to Amsterdam, I was open to the idea of discussing what life could be like.

I had put the doubts about my consulting life away and given better timezones with people I was able to have more conversations and really get a purpose of what I thought I wanted.

Then enter, March 1st. The start of hell.

While in line for a roller coaster on vacation, we got a call about one of our best friends from their partner (who is also one of our best friends). Our friend was really sick and so it was best for us to go see them as they were nearby.

On March 3rd, we saw our friends and had a beautiful day eating pancakes while our kids played and we all laughed and reminisced. We then stayed a few more days on vacation and flew back home to my parents house.

On March 9th, the day before we were supposed to fly home we get a call that my wife's grandmother had been admitted to the hospital. She's 99 so this wasn't unexpected but she's also the matriarch of the family and obviously beloved.

The entire family rushed to the hospital and we extended our trip a few days to be there and say our goodbyes.

On March 14th, we flew back to Amsterdam. We had one week of normalcy.

On March 18th, my wife's grandmother passed away.

On March 21st, we watched her funeral via zoom.

On March 22nd, we got a call that our best friend who we had just seen 19 days ago passed away. I won't replay the emotions we felt but you can imagine what it felt like.

On March 23rd, we flew back to the US.

We spent that whole week helping the family plan the funeral and a beautiful celebration of life. We got to see all of our friends come together and support the partner through the most difficult time of their life. We could also be there for both families.

On March 31st, as we were packing up our hotel and emotionally and physically exhausted from a week of mourning a friend, we got another call.

My wife's father passed away that morning from a heart attack.

Hearing your wife scream in emotional agony was the worst thing I've ever heard. That moment will forever haunt me.

Between March 1st to March 31st, we've lost 3 people.

But life works in crazy ways:

1. We happened to vacation in an area close to our best friends. Even though we knew they were in the area, we didn't know their schedule when planning the trip and so it just happened that it worked out and we could see them. We were the last of our friends to see them.
2. If my wife's grandmother hadn't gotten sick, we wouldn't have spent that extra time in the US so my wife could spend more time with her dad.
3. Given where our best friend is from, we happened to be only 2 hours away from my wife's family when we heard about her dad.
4. Our flight back on the 31st was at 6 pm. If it was any earlier, we would have been on a flight and my wife would have turned off airplane mode to messages about her dad.

These are not "positives" and I'm not trying to find silver linings but you can't help but take a step back and go what the f*ck.

Anyway, I found writing this newsletter out to just be therapeutic.

Sometimes, you wonder if you did something to deserve all of this.

Then you write it down and take a step back and just realize it's sheer dumb luck.

For everyone that's reached out, we really appreciate the support . Your words have helped us stay strong and helped heal us but as we all know time is the only thing that heals.

Starting this week, I'm going to ease back into my regularly scheduled programming but give myself a break if I'm not ready to be back 100%.

Thanks for reading y'all.