it's later

things have been hitting me hard lately. i have a near perfect balance of work and free time. i treat my job as an opportunity for exercise and social interaction in addition to what it provides me financially. i do not go without when it comes to things i need and want. i am living the version of my life that i envisioned a few years ago and i am learning to accept that i can achieve anything i want. i am learning to be proud of myself without letting my ego put me above others. i remain aware that bad things will happen just like good things do. i focus my attention and energy on reacting to the now instead of worrying about what could happen and what has happened.

i am comfortable with my gender identity and sexuality. i am learning to love my physical appearance, perceived flaws and all. i buy myself nice things when i want them and i talk myself out of things i feel may do more harm than good. i own nothing yet i have everything i think i may need or want. i do not equate happiness with material possessions but understand how fulfillment from rewarding oneself can make a positive change to a person's mood.

the universe is teaching me things every day. when i am willing to pay attention and listen i learn a lot and am grateful to have enough free time to meditate and ponder each lesson. over the last 4 years i have learned when to listen, when to speak and when to reel it in. i've been able to accentuate the positives and minimize the negatives of my mental illness. i've become more aware of when my brain is doing the things that lead me to self sabotage, acting out, self harm and all the other things that have prevented me from reaching my goals. i remain grateful throughout the good and bad.

i continue to work toward goals i have and remain confident in my ability to reach them. it's been refreshing to look forward to the future and clearly see the light ahead. reaching this state of mind has been quite the journey and i look forward to what the future holds.

𝚝𝚏𝚙𝚇𝙴 pt. 1

april 2022 i was excited but also dreading performing this comedy set closer for the first time, that i had originally thought of in 2013. the premise was basically that i'd go from my therapist suggesting something vague to help with my depression to me launching into an original dance routine. i originally came up with one to helena beat by foster the people but that song is pretty long and i couldn't dance at all back then. eventually, i gave up on the idea of ever closing out my set with a dance routine.

somewhere around 2019 i was living in belvidere. the girl i lived with claimed to be single on social media but treated me as her life partner otherwise and my mindset was pretty fucked at the time. i didn't trust her at all. i had completely caused this to be the dynamic in the first place because my inconsistencies. so while she balanced 2 jobs, a social life and making time for my goofy ass i was binge drinking and feeling sorry for myself. i was struggling holding down a job but still doing comedy. on the nights where i was alone and in my head and usually reaching the point of blackout drunk i'd put my headphones on and dance until i wore myself out. i'd usually do it in almost total darkness so i didn't have to see myself. over time i got better without realizing it.

she broke up with me in june 2019. it's safe to say i'll get to that in another post down the line. i fell into an even worse depression and eventually quit drinking and assumed my desire to dance would be gone too. at the end of 2020 i started to develop an exercise routine and boxing was a big part of it. my footwork isn't the best but learning the techniques i did for my boxing workout helped me out big time with dancing. i forget when the song choice itself hit me but i went with dirty sexy money by charli xcx and david guetta because i already knew it so well and it was fun to move to. i came up with an easy routine and decided i was ready to try it out on stage so i contacted matt drufke to see if i could try it out at still not friday in aurora. he was very welcoming and booked me for either the last or second to last show in april. i was pretty stoked.

i remember going to bed on april 3rd 2022 and casting a youtube playlist from my phone to my tv like normal. i rolled over, facing away from the tv, and the playlist stopped and the tv went dark but not off. i rolled over and the chromecast connected to my laptop which was shut and in sleep mode and a wrestling ppv i had downloaded and tried to cast to my tv from VLC on my laptop like 24 hrs prior started playing. it weirded me out and i remember going over all the technical reasons it probably happened but overall i remember just having this feeling of changes coming and i turned the tv off entirely and went to bed.

i woke up the next morning and the first thing i thought about was my dance routine and i got really nervous and then took a deep breath and had a thought that was along the lines of "things are going to change and you'll be ready for it" and i remember shrugging it off and picking up my phone. i had a text from matt drufke saying that they had some updates with their schedule and the show i was originally on got cancelled but they were getting me on the one for that week. so i now had 3 days to fully prepare to do the closer that i felt unprepared for. despite coming up with the idea almost 10 years prior.

everything went pretty well. there was an error on matt drufke's end that caused me to have to stop before my big finish but i was able to do it in a way that nobody could tell it wasn't the intended end and i am proud of that. ending something in an unplanned and kinda disappointing way after putting so much thought into it was disheartening but i found it ironic how it happened.

when i did my first album recording in 2017 i hired someone inexperienced to do it and a little over halfway into it there was a soundboard issue and it made half the recording useless. matt drufke insisted i should have been way more upset with that person than i was but i ultimately accepted it as my own fault for being cheap about it and not hiring someone with experience recording live comedy. i could have been pissed at matt for messing up my routine also but chose to be grateful of the timing and be proud of how i handled it. i still got off stage with the intended reaction i was hoping for.

getting on stage that night and getting wooed at by random women, laughter, cheers and applause over something i conceived in my bedroom in my 20s and would piece together in my basement in my 30s at a time where my life had completely went to shit is one of the most rewarding feelings i've ever had. it made me realize how powerful the imagination is. how much power we hold over our own reality. comedy itself once made me feel that way but not for a long time.

not long after that show. maybe 5 days at the most. i got asked to help record a pilot episode for a youtube project. the episode was the host and his guest making the theme song for the youtube series. i set up my recording equipment and spent most of the time in my head about something. i honestly can't remember what i was fixating on at the time but i wasn't paying much attention to what they were recording. at some point i began to catch more and more of what they were doing and started to actively pay attention. by the time it was all over with, i packed up and went home and didn't give any of it too much thought.

a few days later the urge to piece together random samples and sound bytes hit me and 𝚝𝚏𝚙𝚇𝙴 was born. it snowballed (albeit not a big snowball) from there.

to be continued.