My Year in Review: Kintsugi

I didn’t plan for my year to split in half.

No one wakes up thinking, this will be the year my chest is opened, my heart is stitched, and my entire identity is rearranged like backyard furniture after a storm. 

But life has a strange way of forcing you to face truths you’ve been dodging, carrying, or numbing your way through.

I’ve come to see this year through the lens of Kintsugi, the art of repairing what is broken with gold. It is the realisation that the cracks don't just mark where I was damaged; they define how I’ve been rebuilt. I’m more because of the imperfections.

This year will forever be divided in my mind as before the surgery and after the surgery, with everything I am now shaped by the moment in the middle. 

Time seemed to pause and ask me, “Are you really living the way you want to? And if not… what are you going to do about it?”

This is my year in review.

Not the glossy “highlights reel.”

Not a productivity flex or a list of achievements.

This is the story of the year my heart broke open, physically, emotionally, creatively, and how I’m slowly stitching myself back into the man, the father, and the artist I want to be.

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Before: The Life I Thought I Had Under Control

Before the surgery, I was doing what many people do when life gets heavy.

I powered through.

I compartmentalised.

I kept moving.

Between venue management, being a dad, a husband, a music creator trying to build a personal brand, training BJJ, holding up my corner of the household… my days blurred together into a rhythm I never questioned. 

It was the rhythm of “just get through it.” The rhythm of “next shift, next bedtime routine, next composition, next task.”

On the outside, I was functioning fine.

On the inside, cracks were forming.

Exhaustion had become normal. That slow, creeping fatigue that sticks to the bones. Stress wasn’t something I managed, it was something I inhaled.

Creativity, my outlet, my refuge, had been squeezed into the late-night hours, the stolen margins of time, the moments after my daughter went to sleep when the house finally fell quiet.

But I kept telling myself the same story:

You’re fine.

You can handle it.

Just keep going.

But… my heart had other plans.

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During: The Moment Everything Changed

There’s no version of heart surgery, no matter how “routine” it may be medically, that feels routine when it’s happening to you. 

When a doctor sits you down and says you need a quadruple bypass, something primal fires through your system.

Fear.

Shock.

Rejection.

And somewhere beneath all of that, the whisper: Why me? How bad is it? Am I really going to be okay?

I remember the days leading up to the surgery more than the day of the procedure. Those days were filled with a strange blend of stillness and chaos. 

Work didn’t stop. Parenting didn’t stop. Life didn’t pause itself neatly so I could emotionally prepare. It all just kept happening.

The initial moment was shockingly mundane. I took myself to the Emergency Room after a discomfort in my chest persisted through the night, dismissing it initially as bad heartburn after eating BBQ with a mate. 

I had literally packed my BJJ gear and was ready to coach and train that Saturday morning, but something didn’t feel “right.”

So, I took an Uber to Emergency, bringing my daughter, my MacBook, and my AirPods Pro, the ridiculous collection of tools you bring when you don't think you're going to stay. 

Once I checked in, I didn’t emerge for over two weeks. 

When I came out, I was battered, bruised, broken, and weakened from the brutal surgery.

The days I spent waiting were broken into emotional phases. 

At first, there was denial, and I was hoping for a quick fix, pop in a stent, and then I’d be sent on my way. 

But after the angiogram, the doctor told me the only option was a quadruple bypass surgery due to all four of my main arteries being severely blocked. 

This hit hard. 

From that devastating news to the day of the procedure, it was all anxiety and unease. It was rough emotionally. 

The day of the surgery, however, was quiet. I had accepted the course of action and went with it. When the anaesthetic rolled in, my last thought was staggeringly simple:

I just want to be at home with my wife and daughter.

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After: Recovery, Identity, and Everything No One Tells You

Everyone warns you about the physical recovery after major heart surgery. They don’t warn you about the emotional one.

Physically, I experienced:

Soreness (I literally felt like I’d been repeatedly run over by a bus).

Intense weakness.

The inability to lie down or sit up comfortably.

Exhaustion and fatigue.

Mental disorientation from the meds.

But emotionally?

That’s a different battlefield entirely.

When your chest is busted open, your heart removed from your body, repaired, put back in, and then you're stitched back together like Frankenstein’s monster, something metaphoric opens too.

I found myself confronting fears and insecurities I’d pushed down for years.

One of the loudest was insecurity itself.

More specifically: Imposter Syndrome.

It sounds ridiculous on paper.

I’ve been making music for decades.

I’ve been signed, toured, played with legends.

I’ve built a new creative personal brand from scratch while raising a family and working full-time.

And yet, sitting alone with my thoughts post surgery, I found myself asking, as I often do:

Who am I to still be chasing music at my age?

Who am I to think I can build a brand?

Who am I to share my story, my beats, my thoughts?

Who am I to show up publicly as “Bobby Makes Music”?

Who actually gives a single fuck?

Recovery has a way of stripping the bullshit away. There’s nowhere to hide. No distractions left. No coping mechanisms that work. Just you, your thoughts, and the truth you’ve avoided.

Mine was clear:

I’d been living scared.

Scared of being seen.

Scared of failing.

Scared of succeeding.

Scared of what people might think.

Scared of stepping fully into the identity I wanted because it felt risky, vulnerable, and real.

This wasn’t just about my life post surgery anymore. This is a battle cry to reconnect with the parts of myself I had lost over the years during lifes little beat downs. 

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Showing Up Anyway

As the weeks went on, and I regained strength, something else started to shift inside me.

A quiet resolve.

A decision.

If I made it through this, I wasn’t going to keep living half-in, half-out of my creative purpose.

I was done shrinking.

Done hiding.

Done delaying.

Done letting fear dress itself up as humility.

I want to show up.

Even when it feels uncertain.

Even when a post feels “cringe.”

Even when my beats aren’t perfect.

Even when my inner critic is screaming.

Even when it feels like no one is watching.

“Bobby Makes Music” became more than a brand.

It became a promise to myself:

Show up as the man you want your daughter to remember.

Show up as the artist you’ve always been.

Show up because time is limited and precious and unpredictable.

Show up because you still have something to say.

My surgery didn’t give me that identity. It just stripped away the bullshit that was keeping me from owning it.

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What This Year Taught Me About Support

This year reinforced something I already knew but never fully appreciated:

Support is everything.

The support of my wife.

My daughter.

My family.

My friends.

The people who follow my music.

The people who quietly cheer for me.

The people who remind me who I am when I forget.

There’s no “self-made” anything. Not really.

We’re shaped by the people who hold space for us when we fall apart and cheer for us when we rise again.

And when you have that support, even imperfect, even messy, there’s only one thing left:

You have to use it.

You have to honour it.

You have to step toward the things that scare you, because the people who love you want to see you become everything you’re capable of.

I learned this the hard way, but I’m grateful I learned it at all.

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When the Fun Fades and the Fear Arrives

There’s a moment in every dream where things stop being fun.

When the dopamine rush fades.

When the early wins slow down.

When the work becomes the work.

When uncertainty creeps in.

When things get real.

When fear moves into the passenger seat.

That’s the moment most people stop.

This is the moment you commit.

This year taught me that commitment isn’t fireworks or motivation or hype.

Commitment is quiet.

Commitment is consistent.

Commitment is choosing the thing you care about even when it feels uncomfortable, inconvenient, or impossible.

If you wait until you “feel ready,” you’ll wait forever.

If you wait until you “know everything,” you’ll never begin.

If you wait for life to hand you the perfect window of opportunity, you’ll die with your gift for the world still inside you.

Commitment is what you do when the fun is gone, the fear is loud, and the dream feels bigger than you.

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Do the Thing While You’re Here

If there’s one message I want to leave behind in this year-in-review, it’s this:

Do the thing.

Whatever your “thing” is.

Whatever you ache for.

Whatever you daydream about.

Whatever version of yourself feels the most alive.

Do it because your life is happening now, in real-time, with no guarantees.

Do it because someone out there needs the story only you can tell.

Do it because your family believes in you, even when you struggle to believe in yourself.

Do it because your daughter will grow up watching not just what you say, but how you live.

Do it because you survived the year your heart broke open, and that means you're here. You’re breathing. You’re capable. You’re still in the fight.

The surgery didn’t weaken me.

It clarified me.

It reminded me that this whole fragile, unpredictable life is worth showing up for.

And next year?

I’m stepping into it with a heart rebuilt, a purpose renewed, and a commitment that no longer wavers.

This is my year in review. And I’m just getting started.

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