november first

the lives we almost lived / the life we’re still living

the dates that stay with us

There are dates that stay with us.

Birthdays. Anniversaries. The days something wonderful happened. The days something terrible happened. The days that divided our lives into a before and an after.

And sometimes, a date becomes so closely associated one particular memory that we forget it can ever mean anything else.

For me, November 1 has always been one of those dates.

It was the day I met the man I would spend nearly twenty-four years of my life with. The man I would eventually marry. The person with whom I built a home, shared countless experiences, made plans, and imagined a future that, for a very long time, I believed we would grow old together living.

For almost a quarter of a century, November 1 meant the beginning of us.

And then, this year, us became something that existed in the past.

the tomorrows we imagined

I don’t think there’s a particularly graceful way to describe what happens when the future you’ve been living toward suddenly stops being the future you’re going to have.

It isn’t simply losing a relationship.

It’s losing all the ordinary tomorrows you assumed would come with it.

The places you’d planned to go. The conversations you thought you’d have. The familiar routines you expected to repeat. The milestones you assumed you’d celebrate together.

You don’t just grieve what happened.

You grieve what never got the chance to happen.

And perhaps that’s one of the strangest things about the end of a long relationship: you find yourself missing memories that were never actually made.

and i kept writing

I’ve spent much of this year writing music about that experience.

Some of those songs were devastating to write. Others surprised me with their anger, humor, tenderness, or optimism. Some were written while I was still trying to understand what had happened. Others came from moments when I realized I was beginning to understand myself differently.

Along the way, I met new people. I experienced unexpected connections. I made mistakes. I laughed at things I probably shouldn’t have laughed at. I found myself in situations I never imagined I’d be in.

And I kept writing.

Not because I had figured everything out.

Because I hadn’t.

Music became a way of making sense of a life that was changing faster than I could always understand it.

the story i didn’t know i was telling

Eventually, I found myself with twelve songs that seemed to belong together.

I didn’t set out to make a concept album. In fact, when I began arranging the tracks, I was almost entirely focused on how the music moved from one song to the next. I wanted the transitions to feel natural. I wanted each song to lead into the next because it sounded right.

It wasn’t until I had settled on the running order that I noticed something.

Without deliberately planning it, I’d arranged the songs into a journey that felt remarkably familiar.

They began with reflections about myself. Then came the possibility of connection, the excitement of something new, the complications, the contradictions, the endings, and the process of finding my footing again.

It was almost as thought the emotional journey I’d explored across my first three albums had found their way into this one.

Except this time, I was looking at it from somewhere different.

I wasn’t only writing about what had happened to me.

I was beginning to wrote about what might still happen.

And that’s how the lives we almost lived / the life we’re still living came together.

the lives we carry with us

The title means more to me than I can easily explain.

Because I don’t believe the lives we imagined simply disappear when they don’t come true.

They remain part of us.

The marriage we thought would last forever. The opportunities we didn’t take. The people we almost became. The relationships that might have worked under different circumstances. The decisions that could have sent us in entirely different directions.

Those possibilities shaped us, even when they never became reality.

But there’s another side to that thought.

While we’re remembering the lives we almost lived, there’s an actual life happening right in front of us.

One that hasn’t finished telling its story.

One that may not look anything like the future we once imagined.

And one that still deserves our attention.

Our curiousity.

Our affection.

Our love.

giving november first another memory

When it came time to choose a release date for the album, I selected November 1, 2026.

A Sunday.

Not exactly the traditional way to release new music.

But I didn’t choose it because it made sense from a marketing perspective.

I chose it because November 1 was the day Steed and I met.

And I wanted to give that date another memory.

Not a replacement memory.

Not something intended to erase nearly twenty-four years of my life.

Just another reason to look at November 1 and see something beyond what I’ve lost.

I wanted to be able to say that November 1 was also the day I released an album about everything I’d been through, everything I’d learned, and everything I was still discovering.

That it was the day I took something deeply personal and put it into the world.

That it was a day I chose for myself.

1:11

And then, something rather curious happened.

Some time ago, I had a tarot reading in which I was told to pay attention to 1:11, because something monumental was about to change my life.

I hadn’t thought much about how that might relate to the album.

Until one morning, after I’d already submitted the release and chosen the date, something occurred to me.

What if 1:11 wasn’t a time?

What if it was a date?

And what if the date wasn’t January 11, but November 1?

11/1.

I have no idea whether that means anything beyond an interesting coincidence.

And I’m perfectly comfortable not knowing.

What struck me wasn’t the idea that a reading might have predicted something.

It was the realization that a decision I’d already made suddenly seemed to carry another layer of meaning.

I hadn’t been waiting for a sign to tell me what to do.

I’d already done it.

And somehow, that made the connection feel more significant.

perhaps the change has already begun

Because perhaps the monumental change isn’t something that’s going to arrive unexpectedly on November 1.

Perhaps it’s something I’ve already begun.

Perhaps it’s the decision to stop measuring the life I’m living against the life I thought I would have.

Perhaps it’s recognizing that I can honor my past without allowing it to determine everything about my future.

Perhaps it’s accepting that I can still love the memories of a life that ended without wishing away the possibilities of the one that continues.

a life worth loving

The album closes with a song called epilogue II - a life worth loving.

It follows an earlier epilogue, where we become, which ended with a simple promise:

You got me this far.
I’ll take it from here.

At the time, those words felt like an ending.

Now, they feel more like a beginning.

The new epilogue contains four lines that have become something of a personal declaration:

My life doesn’t have to become
The life I imagined
For it to be
A life worth loving.

I think that’s what I’ve been trying to understand all along.

I don’t have to pretend that everything worked out the way I wanted.

It didn’t.

I don’t have to pretend I wouldn’t change certain things if I could.

I probably would.

And I don’t have to pretend that the past wasn’t beautiful simply because parts of its ending were painful.

It was beautiful.

There were years of laughter, companionship, discovery, and love. There were experiences that shaped the person I am today. There are memories I will always be grateful for.

Those things don’t become less real because the relationship ended.

But neither does the life that’s waiting to be lived.

the life that’s still mine to live

So, on November 1, I’m releasing this album.

And when that date comes around, I know I’ll remember the day I met Steed.

I expect I always will.

But this year, I hope I’ll also remember the day I chose to celebrate the life I’m still living.

The one that’s imperfect, unpredictable, occasionally ridiculous, sometimes heartbreaking, and still capable of surprising me.

The one where I haven’t figured everything out.

The one where I still have songs to write, people to meet, places to go, mistakes to make, and memories I can’t possibly imagine yet.

The one that is still mine to live.

The lives we almost lived deserve to be remembered.

The life we’re still living deserves to be loved.

And on November 1, I intend to celebrate both.