THE PONIES: RESURRECTION SEASON

Twenty years in, and somehow this season became the mirror I didn’t know I was walking toward.

Spring opened with uncertainty for both of us.

The Colts entered the year on a strange, uneven footing — a quarterback competition no one fully understood, a fan poll putting optimism at 7%, Ballard and Steichen framed as “one wrong move away,” and a Jones signing that immediately triggered panic:

“Are they giving up on Richardson?”

It felt chaotic. Tense.

Not quite rebuilding, not quite believing.

My spring wasn’t any different.

I spent those months in legal filings, protection orders, defending what I built the same way the Colts were defending their direction.

Oh Boy was something I believed in deeply — but like Richardson, like the franchise — it wasn’t ready.

It wasn’t the year.

Some things need to sit on the bench so the next thing can actually grow.

THE FALL CUT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

September changed the tone for both of us.

I lost the studio — the physical one, not the idea.

And the collapse didn’t destroy me… it forced an upgrade.

Utah broke something open in me I still don’t have perfect language for — neurological pain, second puberty unraveling, the last pieces of the anemia era finally falling away.

I walked out of that month with new legs.

New lungs.

New clarity.

A new mind.

And watching Jonathan Taylor this year was the same energy.

Quicker.

Sharper.

More explosive.

More controlled.

A runner who looks like he’s been rebuilt from the ground up.

Like the injuries didn’t ruin him — they made him precise.

People doubted him the same way people doubted me:

“Has he lost a step?”

“Is he still that guy?”

“Is the peak behind him?”

But this season… he didn’t look like the old JT returning.

He looked like a new JT emerging.

That’s exactly how I’ve felt the past few months.

THE YEAR THAT MEANT MORE IN RETROSPECT

2024 gave flashes — for both of us.

The Colts had moments.

I had moments.

Richardson pulled himself out of a game.

I had days where my cognition vanished again.

The playoffs slipped away.

My momentum slipped too.

But 2025?

Both of us blindsided everyone.

The Colts rebuilt their identity — quietly, intelligently, without theatrics.

Steichen doubled down.

Ballard trusted his evaluation.

Richardson matured.

JT put the league on notice.

And I rebuilt myself — mentally, physically, creatively — in a way that finally felt real.

Books underway.

A website that actually feels like me.

The shop reimagined, not abandoned.

A career expanding, not shrinking.

A direction forming without forcing anything.

It wasn’t a comeback year.

It was a resurrection year.

THE GEOMETRY OF ALL OF IT

This is the part that hits the deepest:

Every major movement of my recovery

lined up with every major movement of the Colts’ reboot.

Uncertainty → pressure → collapse → reconstruction → clarity → momentum.

Same timeline.

Same arc.

Same pacing.

My body came back online.

Their offense came back online.

My life needed a new foundation.

Their franchise needed one too.

I lost the studio so a better version could grow.

They lost the narrative so a better identity could form.

It’s eerie how precise the parallels are — but geometry always reveals itself eventually.

And now, everything funnels into Seattle.

For the Colts.

For the books.

For the shop.

For me.

Both of us walking into this next era with new legs.

Resurrected.

Sharper.

Wiser.

Stronger.

Unexpected.

No one saw the 2025 Colts coming.

And no one sees these books coming either.