I thought it was the year I failed at life

Turns out, it was the first year I really started living

When I first moved to Lubbock, I had one goal: survive, on my own, for one year.

That was it. That was all I had to do that year, in order to succeed: just stay alive.

It was a huge risk on my part, and I poured everything into it. I knew I had to change — and I knew that meant moving (literally and figuratively) so far out of my comfort zone, it would be impossible for me to ever go back to the life I had before.

Honestly, I didn’t believe I would make it. I’d become so comfortable in my lifestyle, I didn’t think I could change.

I thought I would crumble under the pressure — but I also figured, “What if I do? What’s the actual worst that could happen?”

And I decided the worst thing that could happen would be I’d become more afraid, more depressed, more hopeless, and everything would fall apart, I’d be a huge failure, and I’d want to die. And I thought,

“Well, I’ve already felt all those things before, and if I do die in the attempt, so be it. But, if I can survive for just one year… what an achievement that would be! That would prove to me that my life isn’t over, that I’m not hopeless, that this second chance God has given me, really means something…”

And anyway, I couldn’t stay where I was.

I love my parents, and I’m eternally grateful for all the support they gave me, but I wasn’t happy spending all my time alone in my bedroom, withdrawn and isolated from the people I love, not doing anything, not going anywhere, just hanging out all day, watching each day bleed into the next, the years piling up behind me, taking me nowhere.

It wasn’t the life I wanted. I needed to go through all that, so that when God did give me a second chance, I’d take it and really make it count.

But it was still really hard to go through.

I faced a lot of challenges my first year in Lubbock. Some big, some small, but every one was something I wouldn’t have had to even deal with if I’d stayed with Mom and Dad. Any time things felt too scary, I’d remind myself, “I only have to hold out until January 1, 2024,” and that made it feel easier, because that put a time limit on how long I’d have to fight my way through this transition.

I got the idea firmly fixed in my mind, before I even moved, that if I could just endure one year, all my problems would be solved, and I could walk right into the wonderful new life God had planned for me! And I really thought that was true. I really believed it, deep in my soul.

That belief, misguided as it was, helped me push through every challenge that came my way in 2023.

But once 2024 rolled around, and I had completed my goal, I started to lose my focus. I was still alive… still in Lubbock… still managing to get through every day… but without a big, all-encompassing goal to guide me, things started to fall apart.

I landed my dream job, working for AWAI in their Facebook groups, and quit four months later because it was making me frantic.

I spent like half the year visiting Mom and Dad, partly because I missed them, but mostly because living alone was making me so depressed I was having suicidal thoughts again.

I went and met Amanda in California, and I was really hoping we’d hit things off and fall deeply in love, and she’d be the one God has been saving for me… and I was really sad at first, when it didn’t go that way.

I went to an AWAI event in Austin, and I told a group of 60 or so copywriters,

“I’m not succeeding in my business because I hate everybody.”

I knew what I meant – but apparently, my colleagues did not.

I think a lot of them started looking at me differently after I shared that realization.

I spent Christmas that year at my brother’s house, and that was a good way to end the year. It’s hard spending major holidays alone.

I hated 2024, though.

As much as I loved 2023 (and I still believe 2023 was a huge success for me!), 2024 feels like the year everything started to fall apart.

I started getting in fights with Tara that year. Big fights — ones where I wouldn’t talk to her for days. One time, I got so angry, I turned my phone off for 3 days and refused to talk to anybody.

I also had a huge fight with Amanda, and we almost lost our friendship over it. And I feel like it was all my doing. I got my feelings hurt, over what I don’t remember, and I didn’t know how to react, so I tried to push her away.

I think I spent 2024 pushing everyone away, honestly.

I stopped going to church. Stopped texting the two casual friends I’d made here in Lubbock. Stopped networking on LinkedIn.

I want to say in 2024, I was overwhelmed by my anger and my darkness… but I don’t know if overwhelmed is the correct word. Certainly, I leaned hard into darkness, and I allowed it to guide my thoughts, words, and actions.

But I think what really happened was I finally stepped into the mess I was avoiding this whole time, and started trying to clean it up.

2024 was ugly. And difficult. And painful.

But it was also necessary.

I had to learn to have those dark and painful thoughts and feelings, and not control them, not fear them, not avoid them, not prevent them, not try to pretend like I’m somehow above them…

But just allow for my own humanity to simply exist.

I’d been carrying around tremendous grief and anger, and trying to act like I wasn’t. Like if I could just spread enough cheer around to other people, my own darkness will go away and I’ll finally rise above…

But I’ve never “climbed out” of my darkness by constantly going around it. Sooner or later, I have to go through it, and assimilate it… integrate it into my being… accept that sometimes, I will do things that make me feel bad — things I feel are unforgivable — and there’s no way to get around it… because it’s part of who I am, as a human being.

It’s something everybody does, but most people don’t like to talk about. We’d rather point out other people’s shortcomings, than to admit and thoroughly examine our own.

And it seems like all I did, in 2024, was just pile up one shortcoming, after another, after another.

I failed at keeping my dream job.

I failed at making Tara fall in love with me.

I failed at being the “perfect friend” to Amanda and never getting in a fight. (Although, in 2026, Amanda is the most perfect friend I’ve probably ever had… so that wasn’t a failure; it was just a stop along the way.)

I failed at making everything magically fall into place, the way I really believed God was going to make possible, if I just survived 2023.

I failed at making it look like I was winning.

Oohhhhhhh…………

I failed at maintaining the image of “Michael Glenn who had everything together.”

And thank God for that.

Because one by one, all the fake Michaels had to sit down.

The survivor.

The dreamer.

The fixer.

The guy who thought he was supposed to have all the answers.

The guy who thought he was supposed to be okay by now.

And somewhere underneath all of them...

The Real Michael Glenn finally stood up.