My 40th Birthday

When the wheels fell off. Again

December 18, 2025

Here’s a print from 1997 or thereabouts. I shot it one day as I wandered around my house, in a state of shock.

“Reaching” © jody frost

I was in Santa Fe, and the wheels had just fallen off my life. Again.

I was catapulted into sudden chaos on the day after my 40th birthday bash, which was a memorable one despite the copious amounts of drugs and alcohol everyone consumed.

With a throbbing head but still basking (and still a little high) in the glow from the night before, I wandered into the kitchen/dining room area. I smirked at the mess of empty plates, remnants of food and birthday cake, abandoned wine glasses and champagne bottles scattered over every surface, remembering the wickedly decadent night.

Everyone came dressed in sexy lingerie or other exotic costumes and masks. I had a live band set up in the backyard. I had some of my exotic dancer/model girls that I’d photographed come perform on the stage with lights we’d set up in the Great Room. I had a couple of male strippers come too, all of whom moved through the crowd and kept the energy jacked up. And as I mentioned, there were plenty of party favors besides the flowing champagne.

Oh, what a celebration it was! My fourth decade was starting out with quite a bang! Little did I know in that moment just what kind of bang it would be; one that would reverberate for years.

On my big, beautiful, hand-carved mesquite wood dining room table that fateful morning, I spied a note. I could see from the handwriting that it was from my partner and lover, “K” whom I shared our charming adobe home on Malaga Rd. My heart filled with loving anticipation, thinking, “Oh, he’s written me one of his inspired and creative poems as a birthday gift!”, one of many he’d penned for me.

But no. On it were just a few simple lines with a brief message of apology.

First, I must tell you what precipitated this note, this moment in time. Six months before, I gave my love a limited POA to do some trading on my Schwab account. He was a savvy, clever, and resourceful guy when it came to money. Or so I thought. He’d already, at 46, created and sold to the tune of millions, a couple of businesses.

It was the late 90s during the dot-com bubble, and everyone was investing in the stock market, churning big bucks, quickly doubling and tripling investments. I mea really, if you had the funds to play with, you’d have to have the brains of a nat not to make some bank.

He had been dabbling in some trading on his own accounts and showed me earnings of 80 and 90 grand in a matter of days. Impressed, I asked if he would see what he could do with some limited funds of mine.

I gave him 25 G’s, which he turned into 50, 60, 80 in a few days. This went on for weeks. But each time he’d do a trade, he’d need my signature. There were reams of paper coming in daily that required me to sign off on.

Eventually, after months of dealing with the stacks of envelopes for each trade, he suggested I give him full POA, so he didn’t have to get me to ok each transaction.

Mind you, at this point, we’d been together three years, owned this beautiful home, and there were wedding plans on the table. I trusted him implicitly. He was that guy who encouraged me and urged me to explore my creative instincts, to dive deeper into my photography, own it, and show in galleries. He was my best cheerleader. Without him, I may never have had the confidence to really pursue my photography work.

As a skilled photographer himself, he taught me how to develop and print my own film. He was my playful conspirator and accomplice. We’d go out into the night, “gorilla shooting” as we’d call it. Fueled with cocktails, he’d photograph me dancing around and posing in the streets half-naked, at public landmarks and spots like the train station, the downtown Plaza, and the San Miguel Chapel. And we shared a passion for dance. When we’d met at an Argentine tango lesson, sparks flew immediately. He was a kindred spirit on so many levels. I adored him. And I know he worshipped me.

So, I said yes. I stopped looking at the mail coming in, letting him handle all things related to the trades. He showed me stuff on the computer from time to time - my account and the gains.

He was riding high on the wins. So was I! I was thrilled to let him roll with it! With full POA, he was able to make instant trades.

Biggest mistake ever!

I don’t often reflect back on my life and challenges, and experience regret. Even the bad shit, and there was plenty, offered me valuable lessons. But this decision was indeed regrettable.

What I came to learn from that note on the dining room table that morning was that my love was an addict. A gambling addict. And maybe he wasn’t alone during those years. I suspect not just a few lost life savings, eager to cash in on the windfalls the stock market seemed to be offering exuberant traders.

Eventually, I would learn what happened and what caused him to crash and burn on my dime. He got cocky. He began to not second-guess his picks, to become reckless with fear driving his choices. He made one bad trade, then another, then kept upping the stakes, putting in more dollars, praying that he’d hedged his bet correctly. In his panic to win back what he was losing, he kept escalating the amount of each trade until he realized he’d fucked himself. He’d fucked me.

So, in that catastrophic note that morning, he informed me that my nest egg of a little over half a mil was gone. Nada, zip. My Schwab account had exactly 375.00 bones left in it.

Devastated doesn’t quite capture the feeling I had as I read the note: disbelief, anger, fear, outrage, and adrenaline shot through my veins. I felt dizzy and sweaty, as my hands holding the note trembled. Nausea clutched and spasmed my guts. I ran to the bathroom and violently retched.

I wobbled around the house in a state of shock, completely clueless about what to do, how to handle this capsized boat that was suddenly my reality.

Where was he, you ask? He went MIA for three days, rightly suspecting I would have gone ballistic on him.

I couldn’t decide if I felt homicidal and suicidal.

This was just before mobile phones were standard issue, so all I could do was call around to friends asking if they’d seen him. The concern that he might be so wrecked by what he’d done that he might be considering taking his life entered my mind.

But I would soon understand, I had been deceived by him on a number of counts. When I called his best friend, who had been at the party, to find out what he knew, he was vague and said, K would be back when he felt ready to face the music.

I fell into some kind of fugue state. My world had tilted once again on its axis, and I was sliding off the face of it. This was the second time in 10 years that a person, a man I’d put my trust in, had backfired.

Not that I blame him entirely. I came to the table with my fifty percent - the half that had my head up my ass, not paying attention, and being too scatterbrained to stay on top of what I should have been. I brought it on myself in some ways.

Here’s the kicker to this deal: He finally returned, sheepishly like the caught dog that he was, but I took him into an embrace, despite it all, tears flowing, hoping against it all this was a giant accident, a clerical error of some sort.

He stood stiffly, and it was then that I got a good whiff of him.

He smelled like SEX.

I was blown back as if he’d actually hit me. A wave of anger surged through like wildfire, just as fierce as when I read the note 3 days before. I can only imagine what it was he saw. A mad woman, no doubt! The insult to injury was beyond my control.

With a force of its own, my body reacted violently. I hauled back and unleashed all my pent-up rage, smashing his face with clenched fists and continuing to pummel him until he was able to wrangle my wrists and keep further punches from landing.

I finally sank to the ground, an exhausted, sobbing puddle of tears.