Earlier today, I was reminded in roundabout fashion that almost exactly 25 years ago to this day I quite spectacularly and recklessly ripped apart both my professional and personal lives with almost no planning or forethought. It would take a few months before the chaos subsided and the immediate repercussions fully worked themselves out. That period was by turns – and sometimes a combination of – scary, exciting, worrying, dizzying, disconcerting, and awe-inspiring. The suddenness with which I did it also inspired quite a bit of introspection and self-reassessment.

Flashing forward to the summer of 2003, it felt like the decision pull it apart and put it back together had been the right one. Oh, there was lingering regret over the carelessness with which I carried out some of my actions. As a result of them, I hurt someone in the process and lost a couple friends before the aftermath properly began to settle. However, I was happy with the life I had, and I was eagerly anticipating the Brandon’s birth, which was just a few months away.

Less than five years after his arrival – in under four, actually – the woman for whom I brutally ripped my own world apart proceeded to do same with her life and in the process upended mine. By the summer of 2008, it felt in some ways like the only lasting good thing that resulted from the summer of “One Week” was my son. Of course, I wouldn’t have changed anything about the summer of ’98, even if it were possible. I wouldn’t have been the person I was, and Brandon wouldn’t have been there without it.

Now, 25 years later, there’s almost nothing but thankfulness for the decisions that 26-year-old me made during that summer. This isn’t merely a case of how our past experiences made us who are as people. It’s also a case of how old decisions and actions alter our lives in ways we never could have anticipated at the time they were made. Without the momentous summer of ’98, it seems unlikely that I’m hired by Major Defense Contractor in early 2007, when I desperately needed a total career change that made use of the skills I possessed. There’s also no way I meet Sally in the summer of 2009, because I’m certainly not living in Loudoun County, VA. Without leaving New York City to return to the DC Metro area, there’s no way I meet some of the people I now count as good friends.

More importantly, thanks to that eventful summer I’m living my best life right now. A life where I’m happier with myself than I’ve ever been. A life shared with an amazing woman whom I simply cannot imagine a life without. A life that by just about every measure that matters to me is pretty damn awesome. A life that in many ways is strikingly different than the one I hoped I was making for myself when I decided to blow apart the one I had 25 summers ago.

It’s ended up so much better than I imagined.