One year ago today, I wrote my last piece for ESPN.com, which had been my home for a long time. Exactly that same day, I was launched into a completely unrelated personal crisis that left me in a depressive, sleep-deprived, generally food-free state for about three months.

I'm lucky. I've got a thousand friends who were there whenever I needed babysitting, and apparently I'm not predisposed to chronic depression. So eventually I came out of it, and learned a hell of a lot in the process. Still learning, actually.

I can't really recommend quitting a great job and feeling like your life's been destroyed all at once. But so far it's actually worked out pretty well for me.

(thanks to Lone Star Ball for the reminder)