It feels like I’m entering a new stage of my evolution, back to the beginning and who I was as a kid. There’s an innocence I crave, taking pleasure in simple things like sports, and Pokémon, and rain. But I’m not an innocent kid. In my thirty years on Earth, I’ve grown wiser through my pain — pain of the heart, and pain of the body. It feels like I’m remembering who I was at my core, and that’s all I want to be. Me.

As a kid, New York City filled me with awe. It was the city, but it was simply traveling somewhere new that did it. I’m blessed to have traveled with my family from a young age, as I believe it instilled in me a craving for adventure, novelty, and the unfamiliar.

New York was unfamiliar and seemed to be everything my hometown, Los Angeles, wasn’t. The weather was sultry in the summer where LA was dry. It was cool in the fall, my favorite season, with orange and red and brown leaves hanging from the trees. And of course, it snowed in winter, but by the time I experienced winter in New York, I was an adult. Still, the city blew me away. I always dreamed of living here one day.

So here I am.

Living in New York fills me with that childlike sense of wonder. I came in the winter; it went pretty quickly. The spring did too, and summer’s racing by. I try to slow down, but it’s hard to tell what that really means. We’re always looking toward the horizon, but I try to savor the day, the moment, because it’ll all just blow on by if we’re not careful. I already look forward to the fall, yet while the summer is sticky, I can’t deny how beautiful it is.

It feels like I’m evolving, and I’m calling it my Charmeleon era. Charmeleon is a Pokémon. In Pokémon, the monsters evolve after leveling up. There’s usually three levels of their evolution, and they go from cute, to cool, to downright powerful. One of the most classic Pokémon is Charizard — a big, orange, ferocious dragon. He starts out as Charmander, a cute little lizard with a fiery tail.

For some reason I’m reticent to talk about drinking. Maybe because it’s a stigmatized topic, and I don’t want to make people feel bad for drinking or for not drinking alcohol. I don’t know. It’s touchy, and everybody is on their own journey with it, that’s for sure.

I’ve had a lot of fun drinking. But I just don’t know how much it’s serving me. As a personal trainer, I want to be in the best health that I can be. I don’t feel like I have any days to waste.

A day isn’t wasted if it’s spent doing nothing, as I’m not stopping drinking just so I can be more productive. That will probably be an unintended side effect, but I just hate feeling less than my best, which is how I feel when hungover.

A day spent at the beach doing nothing, or with friends at the park, or just hanging in bed reading a book isn’t a wasted day if you’re present for it, if you’re enjoying it; in fact, I think that’s the best use of a day. I think it’s why we’re here, not to do, but to be.

I want to feel alive, and while drinking is fun in the moment and makes me feel alive — it makes me feel infinitely more dead the next day.

To me, wasting a day means spending it worried, anxious, or sad — all human emotions that should not be suppressed, but emotions that seem exacerbated after a night of drinking.

Alcohol isn’t inherently bad. For people living healthy, happy lives, drinking a glass or two of wine at night or having beers with friends on the weekends — do you. It’s honestly just hard for me to have the willpower to only have a couple of beers. As much as I try to be balanced, I’m an all-or-nothing guy. I figure I should just lean into that instead of fighting it. When I do something, I do it.

And if I’m not gonna do it, well, then I’m just not gonna do it. And so I’m not gonna do it. Peace of mind is the most important thing to me right now, and I don’t want to do things that jeopardize it. I don’t know how long I’ll stay off drinking, whether it’s forever or just for a season. But it feels right for me at my current stage, and I’m just gonna see how far it can go.

Part of me is like, You’re living in New York, and you’re not gonna drink? Isn’t the point of living here to be social, to meet tons of people, to have fun?

Yes, but maybe no? I can still go out with friends, meet people, and have fun without drinking. No, it isn’t the same. I’m less outgoing (I think?) and maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’ve been using alcohol to compensate for shyness, and it’s worked. But as of late, going out and drinking has left me feeling… disappointed, frustrated, and just blah.

I’ve gone on several-month sober stints before, and during those times I tried to overcompensate for not drinking by being more outgoing, by staying out late with friends, by trying to be the life of the party. I thought it was a muscle to force, but I recently had a crucial insight.

I don’t have to compensate for shit.

I don’t have to be the life of the party. I don’t even have to talk to people when I’m out if I don’t want to. I can just sit in the corner and observe, or I can leave early, or not go at all. I can just be with my friends, and I don’t have to be engaged the entire time; I can just be there. In the moments when I’d usually grab another beer, now, I might just sit and try to listen to what I’m feeling.

I can sit back and just be myself, and I’m relearning who that truly is.

It’s somebody who savors the quieter moments.

It’s the kid who loved to play, make up games, smell the grass and the leaves and rain on concrete. I’m going back to the beginning, so I ordered a Japanese Charmeleon Pokémon card to remind me of the mission.

God, it feels so good to wake up on a Saturday morning without a hangover and do what I love, which is to write this, or more specifically my book, which is with my editor right now so I have some time off 🙂

I may have been a little lonely last night, and I may have cleared an entire pint of ice cream. But the night is always harder when you’re going through a change. I wake up and remember why I’m doing this — because I love the day. I watched the sun come up, made coffee, read, and now I’m writing. I’ll work out in a bit, with a full, beautiful day in store. Life is good.

People who don’t know about Pokémon probably think it’s a childish game, and sure, it is. I played as a kid, and some of my fondest, most nostalgic memories come from it. I embraced my childlike nature while living in Japan, which is Pokémon-obsessed. I’m embracing my nature here in New York, because Pokémon is a part of me — the silly, adventurous, curious part of me — my favorite part. I’m looking at the Charmeleon card that I bought right now. It’s on my corkboard in front of my desk, a reminder of who I am and where I hope to go.

It’s a new era, and I’m evolving from Charmander to Charmeleon.

I played soccer as a kid. My brother was exceptional, and we were both super into the culture. Throughout my twenties as I battled with chronic pain, I never thought I’d play soccer, or any sports, again. I dreamed — literally — of playing all sports again, but soccer specifically. In my dreams I’d be pain-free, playing with friends, sprinting down the field. I’d wake up and I might cry, thinking that part of my life was over.

But just like with basketball, surfing, tennis, and running, I’m back to playing soccer. I can’t describe how amazing it feels. I bought cleats and a ball this week and walked down to a field on the East River under the Williamsburg Bridge. The turf field was empty, with full-sized goals and thunderheads in the sky.

I laced ‘em up and was soon running goal-to-goal sprints, feeling this profound connection to that kid in me, eight-year-old Vinny with long hair and a headband and a beaming smile. Well, that’s me again, and I simply can’t believe it. I even bought the same cleats that I had on in the picture when I was eight! Coincidence? I think not . . .

New York loves soccer. There are fields everywhere and people always playing! I thought I moved to New York to party, make friends, etc. That’s all happening, but I think I’m here for the quieter moments that help make life slow down.

This was one of those moments, one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

It started pouring. I kept playing through the rain, having the best time. The rain stopped, the dusky clouds blushed, and I hopped on a Citi Bike heading home. The world smelled like damp leaves and wet concrete, and the air was cool, and I thought about how nice the fall is going to be, and it was quiet and the world was still, and I just couldn’t believe that this is my life. I live in New York. I signed up for intramural soccer in the fall. It’s a dream come true.

Ten, fifteen years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that this would be my life at thirty years old. It seems simple, and it sort of is. It feels so good to be pursuing things that feel authentic to me. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to pretend to be somebody I’m not in my career — be it writing or personal training. In fact, my individuality is my strength. It’s taken a decade to find work I care about, where I can be myself, and where I can grow — a decade of working jobs to help me understand what I’m not.

I’m just grateful. I believe in what I’m doing. I believe in myself and my mission. I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m changing, I’m returning back to myself, my peace, my core, the kid. I love these summer storms. Last night, after a sultry day the clouds rolled in, and it poured.

I was walking to the river, and just as I got there it started gushing. I stopped under a scaffolding for a while with some other folks, as we couldn’t walk home in the rain without getting soaked. But there was nowhere I’d rather have been than on the side of the road, watching the lightning illuminate the sky, the thunder roaring. Eventually it settled down, and I walked home through the thunder.

It doesn’t really matter where I am, just that I am.

I get to be, become, evolve, return. I’m the kid who loves the rain, Pokémon, and soccer.