Bryan Robb

My brother passed away in March 2021, after battling the brain tumor he had been diagnosed with in 2014. Last month marked four years since his death. Aside from losing grandparents, his passing was the closest loss I had ever experienced. We were just one year and nine months apart and did everything together when we were young. Our relationship became more complicated as we got older, for reasons I won’t get into here.

Losing a younger brother in his thirties had a deep impact on me, even with the complications in our relationship. I had terrible insomnia for at least a year after he died, and it created a heavy strain on my relationship with my wife, who was pregnant with our daughter at the time. We struggled to show up for each other, and for a while neither of us believed our relationship would make it.

I carried a lot of guilt about living in Oregon and not spending more time with him. He had recently gone through a divorce, which brought him closer to our immediate family, but I wasn’t there much during that transition. And when his health declined so quickly around Christmas in 2020, I had no idea he would be gone within three months. Living a couple thousand miles away with a job, a two-year-old, and a pregnant wife made it very hard to just drop everything and go.

With all the anxiety and regret, I think I mentally checked out. I avoided processing a lot of what I was feeling. I’ve been embarrassed about that and have even misremembered important details from the days around his death and the months that followed.

For example, I remembered how I felt after speaking at his memorial, but not what I actually said. I had never done anything like that before, especially not for someone so close to me. I was filled with sadness and anxiety, wanting so badly to say the right thing and honor his life. But how does someone do that, especially when the relationship was complicated?

I remember feeling sick and nervous, standing in front of hundreds of family and friends, including his daughter. I wanted to be honest about my emotions and not pretend the relationship was perfect, while still being respectful and sincere. After that day, though, his daughter never spoke to me again and still hasn’t.

Whether because of that or the general stress I was feeling, I blocked out most of what I said in the eulogy. I fixated on a few lines that might have sounded too personal or critical and convinced myself that I had made a huge mistake. Even though I had read from a script that still sat on my desktop, I couldn’t bring myself to look. My grief and shame built a story that explained the distance and silence.

Recently, I have felt a new sense of calm and self-acceptance, which I credit in part to a fasting routine I started. Today, deep into a 72-hour fast, I finally opened that document. I read the eulogy with a clear mind for the first time since giving the speech. It was almost nothing like I remembered. It was not perfect, but I had been punishing myself for four years for something that did not deserve it. I gave a heartfelt speech through tears and clenched fists, trying to speak honestly about a brother I loved and missed. Even if it had been a mistake, I think it would have been understandable, maybe even forgivable.

I needed to forgive myself before I could reconnect my memory with the truth. More importantly, I needed to forgive myself so I could begin to forgive the family members who may still be trying to navigate their own pain. Grief is incredibly complex. It can take much more time, effort, patience, and courage than I ever expected. I never wanted to learn that lesson, but it has meaning, and I know this will not be the last time I face a great loss. Love you, brother.

First time fasting and decided to break it at 42 hours with some hard boiled eggs, cucumber, raspberries, peanut butter, banana. Best meal ever.

The experience was not what I was expecting. I thought it would be miserable, but I kept my electrolytes replenished and it was pretty blissful. Focused. Introspective. Highly recommended, will do again.

Today started off pretty slow. While my wife was out for a workout this morning, I stayed home with the kids, and we watched The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Not bad! My son liked it a lot, but my daughter was a little scared by the robots at times. For lunch, we finished off some leftover tacos from last night’s dinner.

After lunch, I tackled decluttering our bedroom/office. One of my goals for 2025 was to get our house in order, and this was as good of a place as any to start. Both of us work part time from home and our desk tends to accumulate everything—papers, books, random notes and other stuff. It was covered in dust and completely overrun with cables and clutter.

I started by cleaning out my nightstand and organizing our books. I got rid of a bunch of unneeded work papers and other junk, like power cables and random guitar paraphernalia from my recent projects.

Unfortunately, while I was finishing up my cleaning I took a pretty big spill down the stairs. It really scared the hell out of me. I was running down the stairs with some trash and a bunch of other stuff in my hands when I slipped on the third or fourth stair from the bottom and landed right on my back between my shoulder blades. For a few minutes I was really worried I might’ve broken a rib or something, but I feel mostly better with just some slight pain. I’m hoping it’s gone over the next few days, but I really need to be more careful. 

Anyway, I’m hoping to tackle some other problem areas soon, like the fully stocked and disastrous craft cabinet, our unorganized filing cabinet, and the sometimes terrifying mail area. My goal is to have everything sorted and organized by the end of January. I’ve schedule some days in February to clean up the garage, too, which has slowly become light chaos in the aftermath of the holidays.

Lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, like I never take the lead on plans. I’ve noticed that the weekends just come and go, and I often haven’t thought about what I’d like to do with them. At the same time, I felt myself getting snippy and frustrated when I forgot about days being booked up with things I’d forgotten about or missed. I think my ADHD plays a role in this, as my executive functioning is not great and tends to take an even deeper nosedive in the winter. The short days make it hard to stay motivated, especially after 5 PM, and the post-holiday clutter in the house only adds to the mental load. So I decided to try and get a handle on it. 

My wife took the kids to the park this afternoon to hang out with her friend and their kids. While they were out, I took the opportunity to grab some groceries and stopped by Powell’s to pick up a new yearly planner. I spent a little time at a coffee shop looking over the year ahead and thinking about plans for vacations, time off, and trips—both for myself and with the family. After laying it all out, I’m feeling much more settled and positive about the year ahead now that I’ve got a rough idea about how the year might look.

In addition to life just being life, and busy as hell at that, my son now being in kindergarten has thrown all sorts of wrenches into our normal routine and we’re still adjusting. In particular, the kid has so many days off school now and we have to make arrangements for all of that. While not unexpected, it just adds a whole new layer of complexity to planning, PTO, vacations, everything. 

I’ve also been feeling off physically and wondering if something more than seasonal depression is at play. I’m planning to schedule an appointment with my doctor and get some lab work done, just to check if my medications or something with my metabolism might be contributing. Depending on the results, I may need to reassess my treatment plan.

For now, I’m trying to stay focused on what I can control. Cleaning up the house and creating a better environment is a good start. I know things will improve as the days get longer, and having a plan for the months ahead will help. Still, I’ve been thinking about how much I’d benefit from a weekend away on my own—a chance to recharge and clear my head.

One step at a time. Today was productive, and that’s a win.

1. Declutter my home. I've never been very good at this, but it's proven to be so much more difficult with two young kids. Still, I know I can do a better job and keep a cleaner house in the process. To start, I might do a packing party.
2. Consistency in planning ahead for weekends away and other trips. ADHD makes this hard, but I’m always happiest when I have a well-conceived plan to execute. So many times I feel like I'm being led around by plans that are made for me, or feeling bummed out that a weekend was wasted due to poor planning. While rest is important, my goal this week is to look ahead six months and start marking down weekends for both family and personal getaways and then prepare a list of possibilities to discuss with my wife.
3. I've started to be more intentional about making friends instead of complaining that meeting people is hard. A couple months back, I began going to a meetup group for writers. I put my fears and imposter syndrome aside and said "fuck it". I've really been enjoying it, and I plan to do more of this sort of thing in the year ahead.
4. Continue to work on my mental health. I don't want to get into too much of this here, but I've been taking my mental health very seriously and making positive changes to support my growth, including reducing anxiety, improving my focus, setting healthy boundaries with people, thinking positive thoughts about myself, working on my emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity. In addition to continuing therapy, I plan to look into microdosing psychedelics and ketamine therapy, under supervision.
5. Consuming music more intentionally. For too long, I’ve let the algorithm guide my consumption, and that’s what it feels like as opposed to enjoyment. On Wednesday nights (or midweek), I’m going to make it a habit to find a new artist or album to listen to while folding laundry. This will hopefully help me do better at folding and putting away my clean laundry, which again, my ADHD makes seem like an almost insurmountable task at times.
6. Improve my photography. I’ve been inspired by others who post a photo every day, and I would like to try that this year. I got some new camera gear this year and I’ve learned a lot. I’d like to bring this to the next level.
7. Read more books. After grad school, I got out of the habit of reading consistently. It felt like a chore. This year I almost made my goal of 12 books, and even though I didn’t succeed in meeting the goal, I successfully started building it as a habit. My goal this year is 21 books, or roughly one every two weeks, with a little wiggle room for grace.
8. Put my phone down more when I default to doom scrolling because of exhaustion. No explanation needed.
9. Part two of the previous goal is to be more present with my kids. Again, no explanation needed.
10. Make more time for myself in healthier ways than retreating. Whether through physical activity, weekends away, community college classes, or just an hour at a coffee shop to write or read, my goal is to improve the ways in which I choose to relax, recreate, and/or create.

After several months of asking questions, trying to understand the coordination of benefits between my dental plan and my wife’s in preparation for some orthodontia, here’s the email I finally received from Delta Dental. 🦷

I have an employee under Redacted who wrote in asking how COB works when a married couple both have family coverage through separate employers under Delta and the family is about to initiate an Orthodontal claim. The spouse is an employee of Redacted hospital ($2K ortho limit is the plan they are considering). The husband read his policy documents and then called into Delta to confirm his understanding. He feels he has become more confused. Can you confirm:   · The primary (which plan will process the claim first when there is dual coverage) is determined by the birthday rule: the parent whose birthday falls first in the calendar year has the primary plan (note it’s not who is oldest but who celebrates first in any given calendar year). This is correct.

· Orthodontia has its own limit and under your policy that limit is $1500 and separate from the overall deductible. Correct, though I think you meant “and separate from the overall annual maximum”.

The $1500 is lifetime per insured. True and they will check to see if there have been any orthodontia treatments under previous plans, Delta or otherwise. 

We would only consider if the lifetime maximum has been used under the Redacted plan. 

So dual coverage for Dental would only be beneficial for Orthodontia if the 2nd policy had higher limits. 

The lifetime maximum is per plan. For example, if they use their lifetime maximum through Redacted, and move to another Delta Dental employer plan with ortho coverage, they will have a new lifetime maximum through that new plan.

· I’m not sure what Delta meant when they said “that they would not double cover” unless they were trying to make the point that a $1500 claim under policy one can’t be filed as a $1500 claim under policy two ($3000 of payment).  

Some employer plans do not allow coordination of benefits. Without knowing any information on the other plan, I am unable to review this. (note: they are the same provider and know the other plan number provided on day 1).

· If you are currently enrolled under both plans, perhaps the best plan of action would be to have the provider submit a letter of predetermination referencing coverage under both plans. 

Correct, we always recommend a pre-determination. (WTF so they think I’m doing now?)

· If you have dual coverage and file a claim you want the primary plan to have the poorer coverage. Whatever that plan doesn’t pay can be processed against the second richer coverage.  

The Redacted plan has standard coordination of benefits rules, so if it is the primary coverage, it will pay according to the schedule of benefits. If the Redacted plan falls as the secondary insurance, it will pay up to the higher allowable amount (but will not exceed). Again, I don’t know the details of the spouse’s plan, so I can’t really provide any additional information.

Here are two very high-level ortho examples. These are very general, as I do not know all the details of the other plan.

With Redacted as primary, and the other plan as secondary (if both plans have standard COB)

· $6000 orthodontia claim

· $1500 à Redacted (as primary) will pay 50% up to $1500

· $4500 à remaining charges will be sent to secondary insurance

· Secondary insurance could pay, but will not exceed what the primary allowable is, in this case $1500. Even though they may have a $2000 lifetime maximum, secondary would pay up to $1500 (based on the primary allowable).

With Spouse’s plan as primary, and Redacted plan as secondary (if both plans have standard COB)

· $6000 orthodontia claim

· $2000 à likely 50% up to $2000

· $4000 à remaining charges will be sent to secondary insurance

· Secondary insurance could pay, but will not exceed what the primary allowable is, in this case $2000. But, the Redacted plan pays 50% up to $1500, so in this case, $1500 could be paid.   Also in the event the primary plan’s non-ortho limit is exhausted, does the secondary plan become primary for the remainder of the plan year with the full limits of that plan minus whatever it has paid out already as secondary?

In the event that the annual maximum on the member’s primary plan is exhausted, then the member’s secondary will continue as secondary because we will still need the $0 payment EOB from Primary to process as secondary. But the secondary COB rules will still apply.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions!

All the best,

Home sick today and feeling a bit wistful. I get this way a lot when I’m lying around alone with too much time on my hands. I went down a 90s nostalgia rabbit hole and found a couple gems.

The first is from a podcast episode titled “What did the 90s smell like?” by We Don’t Wanna Grow Up.

The other is a YouTube video of a guy flipping through a Seventeen School Zone Special magazine from 1996 that I remember purchasing on a grocery store run with my mom when I was 15. I used to love seeing how kids across the country dressed in the wake of the grunge era.

Isn’t the internet amazing?

The strangeness of putting yourself out there. The mere act of expressing that you indeed have social needs, that you crave the connection of others, is one that creates repulsion, in myself (and seemingly with others). The effort required almost makes the desired outcome somehow less desirable. 

Even in social situations of late, there is something different in the way we all speak to one another, something missing from the way things used to be. We are all tired, we are all distracted. Going through the motions. Feeding each other the requisite smalltalk. Single-serving “friends”.

Someone converted a dating app into one for making friendships. All you do is swipe right, how hard could it be? Except even if a connection is made, there isn’t enough time or energy to put in any effort in responding. Astonishing? Perhaps. Surprising? No. 

It’s easy to start to question what you have to offer the world, other people. That rabbit hole of self-analysis can engulf you too, if you’re not careful. To dilute all human interaction as transactional, conditional. To begin to see others as if through a small clerk’s window where someone on the other side is always expecting you to dance, or to make them laugh, or to provide them with some other entertainment or pleasure or connection. 

I start to question if I really even want what I think I want. The current assignment is to find shared activities and friendships will bloom naturally. I’m tired and retreat inward. Find comfort in others who might as well be fictional people on a screen. 

“Maybe I should sign up for a class,” I tell myself. Start writing more and care less about what others think. Maybe that’s what losers tell themselves, I think. 

Going through my memory of the people whose social lives you envied, the people who seemed to be a spiderweb of connection between everyone and everything. They all had something in common. They were the people who showed up to everything. Had dinner parties. Volunteered on boards and commissions. Went to happy hours. Played adult group sports. I remember one in particular falling asleep at the table while we ate dinner at her house. But everybody loved them. I still think fondly. 

This is certainly all my fault, the loneliness. Who else made the decisions that got me to where I am?  I’m not carving out enough “me time”. I retreat inward. Find comfort in others who might as well be fictional people on a screen. 

Wait, no. It’s our environment. The American built environment is killing us. The suburbs, it’s all their fault. It’s just middle age, this is normal. It’s the children, they take up too much of our time. It’s other men. All they want to do is talk about sports and play golf. Right? Female friends, wouldn’t that be great? Oh wait. We can’t form new, close relationships with women at this stage of life. They’ll think you’re a creep. Trying to pull something on them and sneak around behind your wife. What will be people think? 

Why do you need anything more than you already have? Isn’t that a sign of insecurity, of weakness? 

I retreat inward.