Winding Forward: In 2026, I Hope to Say “Yes” More Often

Photo by Chris Antzoulis - Astoria Park, Queens, down the street from my old apartment.

At this point, I’m just a needle skipping on the same old vinyl, but I’ll repeat it: I am not a watch journalist. I’m a storyteller, a poet, a comic book writer, and a marketer who happens to also write about watches (and I do love it). I’m a person who uses watches as a conduit to talk about everything else I don’t know how to say out loud. Either way, the truth is this: I tell stories because it’s how I survive, and those stories are the only way I can make sense of myself and how loud everything is in my head. 

Writing in the store window of Carmine Street Comics in the West Village, Manhattan. The owner would have working artists and writers come in to work so customers could chat with them about comics.

In 2020, I lost the life I had built for myself.

I don’t mean that dramatically, even though it felt dramatic at the time, even though it wasn’t lost in any clear fiery moment. It just flickered out. It was a series of goodbyes without closure. My life in New York City, the friends I saw every week, the routines that grounded me, and a version of myself that felt fully realized, was a life that I realize is now gone. I moved back to Virginia, and the world I had spent a decade constructing became something I could only replay in memory. Occasionally, I’ll visit, but there are times when it hurts more than it helps. 

I’ve written before about the difficulty of this transition, and my own grief. It’s incredible how you can love a place so deeply that leaving it feels like losing a limb. What I don’t often talk about is how isolating my life became afterward. I had people around me, but I stopped allowing those people in…intentionally. 

Grief has made me cautious and sometimes avoidant. I didn’t want to rebuild something just to lose it again. So I kept myself small. I worked. I wrote. I filled my time with productivity, and in my head, that replaced the life and relationships I no longer had. And for a while, that worked. I told myself that I was fine. That solitude was chosen. That this is what independence looks like, and it is a sign of strength. 

And then came this past December 31st.

Photo by Chris Antzoulis - Phantom and I sitting in the back corner of our favorite coffee shop in Norfolk, Virginia

I spent the last day of the year the way I often do, on the couch in the back corner of my favorite coffee shop, laptop open, camera nearby, Phantom curled up beside me like a quiet anchor to the world. I call her an anchor as she is often my only connection to people. Folks will walk up to say hi to Phantom, which would force me to engage, especially since she has a lot of anxiety herself. The shop was empty when I arrived; it was a slow holiday morning that operated outside the normal routine. Everyone is somewhere else. Mornings like these make it easier for me to hide.

Will, the barista, was working that morning. We’ve known each other long enough to be familiar and have some friendly chats before I start working. He had music playing. It was the Australian band, Men at Work. We ended up talking about albums and concerts, and how certain songs attach themselves to specific moments in your life, like the tie between Men at Work and one of the best episodes of Scrubs (the greatest doctor show of all time). We got onto our favorite albums and concerts. I told him my favorite band was U2. We bonded, briefly, over The Edge and the documentary he was in, “It Might Get Loud,” with Jack White and Jimmy Page. If you haven’t seen it, it is one of the most incredible music documentaries I’ve ever seen. We discussed the shared experience of loving music that seems to understand you better than most people do.

Eventually, I settled into my work. I had a watch to photograph. Words to write. A Form and Function podcast episode in one ear. That familiar, comforting multitasking haze kicked in alongside my Adderall, and I made hours disappear. I didn’t even notice when the music changed.

Until I did.

“Ultraviolet.”

Then “Out of Control.”

Then “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.”

And finally, “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

I realized that Will had put on a U2 playlist just for me, or maybe it was for both of us. I looked around and noticed something else too: the shop had filled up. People had come in while I was buried in my laptop. People sitting with friends. Couples leaning into each other. Conversations layered over clinking mugs and plates against wood tables.

And there I was, alone.

Not in a tragic way. Just observant.

Reading poetry at the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan

It hit me then how much I’ve built a life where my forced solitude feels so much safer to me than true closeness with anyone, and how I’ve convinced myself that feeling is a strength. It never is. 

Doing a comic book signing at Forbidden Planet in Manhattan with: (left to right) Michael Dialynas, James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett, IT ME, and Fabio Valle

At one point, a man sat near me and struck up a conversation. I’ll be honest, I was annoyed at first since I had my AirPods in and I had drifted into my writer world. I didn’t want to be interrupted. But he was kind, and curious, and open. It was disarming. We talked about the year and life. We each seemed to be having difficulty finding balance. 

He told me his girlfriend had called him mean. I guess she really meant it as part of a larger issue, as that seemed to trigger something in him. He said that hearing it forced him to confront the way he’d been carrying his stress and pain and projecting it outward. He said he was trying to change that and do better.

I told him about myself. About being bullied when I was younger, and learning at an early age to turn everything inward and make myself small. I did this to punish myself before anyone else could. I told him that even now, decades later, I still fight that instinct. That even when I succeed, even when I’m loved, part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We didn’t exchange numbers. We didn’t promise to keep in touch. We just shared a moment of honesty between two people who happened to sit next to each other on the last day of the year.

That may be enough.

And what the hell does all of this have to do with watches, Chris? Well, I’m glad you asked.  The watch community saved me in ways I don’t always articulate well, but it is nonetheless true. Through it, I found my voice again and a safe connection to people. I found people who saw me, who valued what I had to say, who welcomed me in. I found a best friend in my “A Tale of Two Wristies” podcast co-host, Iman, someone who feels like family in a way I didn’t expect, couldn’t predict, and that I very much needed. 

I was with Fabio Valle and his wife, Ana, at Turntable Chicken Jazz in Koreatown, Manhattan, after Fabio and I spent the day promoting our comic at New York Comic Con.

And still, I’m learning that isolation can look a lot like independence if you let it. I’m learning that protecting yourself too fiercely can keep out the very things you crave. I’m learning that healing doesn’t always mean fixing, and that you have to allow certain things to happen. 

As I step into a new year, my hope is to say yes more often and let people in. Hopefully, I can build something new that doesn’t disappear the moment circumstances change, and that connection doesn’t have to end in loss.

I don’t know precisely what that will look like yet. But I know I don’t want to be alone in a coffee shop anymore, convincing myself that solitude and peace are the same thing. I’ll still go to the coffee shop, though! Maybe I’ll be slightly more chatty. 

Not a sweeping resolution, but I figure it’s a start. 

Visiting best friends in NY after moving away.

REMEMBER, nerds…. to keep the comments clean. Please don’t make me pull out ole Abraham-Louis here.