Blog: Travel Blogs & Their Time Table

I know what you’re thinking, ‘um, this is not a travel blog, you just returned from travel, wtf?!’ & you’d be correct, this is not a travel blog though, I assure you, next week’s will be. Why is this not a travel blog? Well, that would be the entire point of this blog you are currently scanning into your brain through your eye holes. I felt it appropriate & incredible important to fill you in on my process & what exactly goes in to each of these travel blogs that you all so lovingly read, because the answer is no short sum.

Again, if you are a reader of my frequent travel blogs, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I started them back in May of 2021 with my three part Maui series & have since done everything from The UK (multiple times), Fiji, Disneyland, etc & am currently working on Indonesia & Singapore for your reading enjoyment. However, the thing that I don’t think a lot of people realize from the outside looking in is just how long each of these travel blogs take to formulate & publish.

On an average week I would say that a standard blog takes me around two-three hours to complete, the shorter ones maybe an hour & a half. The travel blogs on the other hand, & any other recommendation blog I do, ends up being around ten hours of work, minimum, outside of the travel itself. I’m sure many of you read that number & though ‘the hell is he spending ten plus hours on in a travel blog?’ & the answers may surprise you.

Aside from the stories themselves, the remembering key events & filing them into an order that makes a coherent & interesting story, I also have to go through & tag each of the locations involved. If you weren’t aware, each time that a location is mentioned in a travel blog of mine, be it a restaurant, bar, hotel, museum, or even just a landmark, the name is a clickable link that takes you to the site of that exact property. Additionally I have to go in & edit each of the photos posted to the blog & often find & pull the ones I forgot to save to my phone that I want to use. Furthermore, logistics with squarespace, the housing site for my site & blog, make it so I have to switch back & forth between my computer & phone to get things uploaded &/or where I want them to be in the blog itself & if in the process of all of this my work gets derailed & I end up having to shift work time to something else, it often leads to a delayed publishing.

That’s why so many of these travel blog entries come out at later dates instead of right on Friday, which I have designated blog days, because I fall behind, or life gets in the way & the blog doesn’t end up being written in time.

So where is my Indonesia blog? Well in all honesty I have been weighing with posting the two day blog of Singapore first before diving, pun intended, into the week’s worth of content I have for Indonesia. I also arrived home around midnight on Wednesday & have not had the time or bandwidth to hash out a ten plus hour blog to post today or for the weekend so instead you get this, my long, drawn out excuse.

Don’t worry, there will be a travel blog post out next week. Whether that ends up being about Indonesia or Singapore remains to be seen, but something will be out, I promise. The scheduling for the postings may end up being a bit wonky as I head into the next couple of weeks & the further travel I have there but I will get them out!

In the meantime I hope you’ve enjoyed this blurb of honesty regarding the life of the blog behind the scenes & if you are at all interested in the adventures I had, I will have TikToks & Reels posted over the next few days from the trip!

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog/Object Writing: Grief

If you noticed I did not post an outright “Object Writing” post on here on Wednesday, that is because I did a five day series on grief. I was given the grief prompt by a dancer our of University in Canada who asked if I would do an object writing page for her final dance project using the five stages of grief. Naturally I agreed & was delighted, this is that assignment! In my initial writing I did my best to make the stages flow naturally into one another, over the last week I had to figure out ways to segment them out into five one minute posts, they are all attached below. So, what I’m going to do is first post the written form then if you feel so inclined, or if you’d rather, you can go through the individual posts & watch/listen to what I did with them. I can’t wait to share the final dance product as well once it’s presented! Enjoy!

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.” The shock of the news nearly knocks me off my feet as the message the tsunami of information carried echoes endlessly around my brain. I feel faint, detached from the human vessel that tethers my spirit to this earth, adrift in the noise & chaos. My myriad of emotions cause me to question what is real or even possible. Is this? Is it all just a dream, some sick illusion my subconscious has cooked up for some unknown reason or have the unfathomable nightmares of my deepest, darkest dread become reality? At the end of my Rolodex of “no’s” hangs the fixture to which I attach blame. “IF” I am to believe this malicious marquee of misinformation then someone is at fault. Someone or something is the culprit for this misfortune; effect is nothing without cause. My adrenals pump molten rage into my bloodstream, igniting my senses into fiery passion. I am fuming, eyes frantically searching for elucidation & something to pin the focus of my frustration. Then it hits me. It smacks me in the face with the fury of the scorn I’ve irradiated into my atmosphere. What if it’s me? What if it’s my fault? My mind begins to work overtime, clockwork machines come alive & the pressure & steam give way to desperation. I return a call, for the first time since being encumbered by the burden of knowing I reach out to another human being whom I share commonality with. I am insistent, disheartened, “if only I’d done this,” I cry, “if only I’d done that” but my cries are fruitless. What’s done is done. Life has no redo button, it offers no relapse into the undoing of retribution. Maybe an exchange then, something for that which I’ve lost. Maybe the almighty, the cosmos, the powers that be will shine one glint of mercy upon me & offer me a fair trade. Time, money, possessions, health, all are on the line, all viable options for the return. But the universe sits silent, unbothered by the heart-wrenched pleading of a drop in the river, in the grand stream of time. All is silent. The stillness creeps into my being & settles uncomfortably into my bones. The meaning & spirit drains from me like sap oozing softly from a tree into the ground below me. Gravity’s weight is multiplied ten fold & soon the creature comforts that bring me respite begin to do little the fill the void. I am hollow, an empty shell of icy numb hurt as the colors melt inchmeal around me into sickly, sullen shades of grays. It’s pointless, all of it. Pointless. My energy depleted, my hopes scattered, my berth begins to feel more & more like a tomb; a black void of nothingness to which I shall willingly succumb. Little by little I fall further into the pits of my forlorn until, at last, I reach the soft maw of the abyss. Cradled in self pity & affliction I lie there, transfixed by misery until a delicate ember drifts haphazardly into my core. It too rests with me in this eternity, offering a knowing melancholy smile before wrapping me in warmth. The freedom of empathy washed through me & enrobes me in loving light. It does not discount my loss or patronize but instead sits in amiable eloquence carrying me through my despair. It lifts my chin, places a quant reassurance on my forehead, & nudges me affectionately towards tomorrow. “It is time,” it whispers to me. Like a freshly birthed foal I stagger to find my footing; one & then the other. I look up to the mountain that stands proudly aloft before me & I begin the ascent; one foot at a time, one day & then the next. The sun breaks through the morbid gray & for the first time in what feels like an age I am at peace.

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART ONE: DENIAL

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART TWO: ANGER

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART THREE: BARGAINING

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FOUR: DEPRESSION

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OBJECT WRITING: GRIEF PART FIVE: ACCEPTANCE

Blog: Vulnerabilities & Rejection

There will be times in your life where people will come to you in their most brazen & honest moments. They will intrust you with information about who they are, what they stand for, who they love, what they do, etc. It is your job as a friend, parent, sibling, lover, mentor, etc to remain as judgment free as humanly possible & make that person feel seen & heard & accepted in those moments.

I’m sure many of you have already had such encounters in your life. If not, there may be a reason why. There is a lesson I came across a few years ago that has stuck with me to this day. I can’t for the life of me recall where I heard it, if I could I’m sure it’d be linked below., but he point of this discussion was “testing the waters” specifically where the ‘parent/child’ relationship is concerned. In the discussion it was brought up that children will often, as the name would imply, test the waters with their parents. They try to gage little bits of information on how their parents may feel regarding certain topics or use hypotheticals to see what the outcome would be if they were blatant, honest, & authentic with their parental units. Often parents fail the test, they give their child an answer that builds a wall or creates a divide & all of the sudden, several months or years down the line, these parents feel like they don’t know who their kids are anymore. That’s because their child has decided it’s in their best interest to stay resigned because they no longer feel safe sharing information with their parents.

So too do we do this to the people we care about. Our friends gage our responses on how we feel about certain things or our willingness to be openminded before they confide in us. If we don’t pass the test, the relationship remains shallow. I pride myself on being able to be the keeper of the true lives & selves of many of those I hold dearest to myself. You see I’ve built up an err of compassion. My friends & loved ones know they can come to me with anything, as their true & authentic selves & know that I will be grateful for their vulnerabilities & embrace them as who they are, accepting the information they’ve told me as their truth, knowing it may have been a conversation, confession, or thought years in the making.

We never know how long these machinations stew in the minds of our peers. It may have taken them years to have the courage to voice exactly what they’re trying to say, it may have taken years for them to even come to the conclusion themselves & they felt safe making you privy to this new found part of self. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this person felt it pertinent enough to tell you, they saw you as a large enough part of their life or even someone they thought they could receive counsel from. You have been honored with vulnerability, the worst possible thing you could do is respond with judgment or rejection.

The more occasions that your loved ones come to you with their vulnerabilities, the more you meet them with love & understanding, the deeper your relationships & bonds will grow. As a friend we can easily let those who reject us go or cut them from our lives but when it’s a family member, it becomes much harder. When holidays & family gatherings are still a thing for the member who feels estranged or like they can’t be authentic in those spaces, the time spent wearing that mask of “the perfect family member” can be exhausting & disheartening.

We are social beings, creatures of community, & when our chosen community meets our authenticity with a cold shoulder it scars, deeply. Feeling the outcast in an environment meant to cultivate & embrace your humanity gets very lonely very quick.

My challenge for you this week is to be honest with yourself. To look at the times where maybe you fell short of being the perfect confidante, friend, lover, or mentor when someone chose to confide something deeply personal in you. I then want you to reach out to those people, to mend the gaps, & in turn, to share your own vulnerabilities. I also want you to find someone you deem “safe” & foster a space to be vulnerable with them. Fortify that relationship, for as the song goes, “we all need somebody to lean on.”

I hope you have a fantastic week going ahead!

Much love to you all & appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts every week.

Thank you, truly,

-C

Travel Blog: San Juan, Puerto Rico-Part One-Four Day GetAway

Hello, welcome back to another addition to my travel blog family! I know a lot of you enjoyed reading about my Maui adventures so I’m excited to share with each of you my experience in San Juan, Puerto Rico this past weekend! Unlike my Maui blog series however, this will only be in two parts. Seeing as I only have about four days worth of content to share that seems more than doable! So I guess without further ado, let’s get into it!

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PROLOGUE

I feel it’s important to outline the situation that led us to Puerto Rico in the first place. Some of you may know, others may be sad you didn’t know, but a few weeks ago Southwest Airlines was offering a three day deal where in if you booked either a round trip flight or two one way flights & used them both by November 18th, then for the entire month of January & February they would give you an unlimited companion pass to use within those two months. My entire family got in on the deal & book themselves flights. The strategy on this end was finding a flight on the cheaper side that would give us a weekend get away but also wouldn’t break the bank. We initially planned on flying to New York City for a weekend, I have many a friend that lives up there, I love the city, & hadn’t been since June of 2019. That was until we found the same priced tickets as NYC but to Puerto Rico. We went with Puerto Rico…naturally…as here you are reading a blog all about traveling to Puerto Rico…

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DAY ONE

Our flight to SJU didn’t leave Nashville until around 4:30 PM, we had a lay over in Fort Lauderdale that didn’t require us to deplane & then we were off to San Juan. At least that was the initial plan. Upon arrival at Fort Lauderdale, having attained all of the new passengers we needed for the next leg of our trip we were all forced to disembark the airplane due to a malfunction of the plane’s air conditioning unit. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal until Evan reminded me that the AC unit on an airplane is also a part of the system used to filter out the air. We are still in a pandemic after all. We ended up sitting at a completely different gate in FL for around an hour & a half before they found us a new plane & we began to re-board. Man, was that a shit show. The gate agent requested that those of us board who had been on the previous flight from Nashville first which apparently to majority of the people who boarded in Fort Lauderdale, wasn’t fair. They made their feelings about the fairness of this all very well known as well, many attempting to butt into the line of Nashville folks or just outright board before us. Of course this then caused further delay.

After a two hour flight over the Carribean eased by a copy of Cruella previously downloaded from Disney+, we landed in San Juan. The island is requiring proof of vaccination for entry, which we uploaded before hand & were given a QR code to use after baggage claim. Right across from the terminal we picked up our rental car, a mid-sized SUV. We planned to go up into the rainforest & such. Key word; planned, we’ll get to that in the next blog. The rental agency let us pick any mid-sized SUV we wanted on the lot for the same price so naturally we picked the nicest one they had.

About two days prior to our trip the Government of Puerto Rico installed a midnight curfew. It meant from the hours of 12 AM to 5 AM nothing could be open with the exception of all night services & to-go food options, cuz, you know, you can’t catch or transmit CoVid after midnight… We hadn’t arrived in San Juan until about 11:15 local time & by the time we got the rental & were headed towards our hotel in Old San Juan, it was rapidly approaching midnight.

We drove straight to our hotel, Evan searching for open food places on his phone the entire time with no luck. The roads of Old San Juan are narrow, they’re also paved in cobblestone & are often steep at times. Driving on them feels a little like horseback riding in the mountains. Our hotel, Hotel El Convento, luckily was one of the few places en Viejo San Juan to have parking. It was valet across the street at the Catedral Basilica de San Juan Bautista but I guess in spite of the convents change in usage, it still held ties to the catholic church.

As I hinted at in the above paragraph, the Hotel El Convento is a boutique hotel built inside a former convent. Thought the nuns have long since self, the sanctity & beauty of the space still remains. It is a five story, one square block building wrapped around a courtyard that also serves as a bar/restaurant. Each room features a Juliet style balcony & maintains much of the original Spanish style charm.

Upon arrival we asked the front desk attendant where to get food seeing as it was now the midnight hour. He basically told us we were S.O.L. unless we wanted to get our car out of valet & drive to a gas station. We also were in desperate need of water. (Post Maria you’re not supposed to drink from the tap in PR. Urban places are apparently safer than others though.) Still wide awake & starving, we dropped our bags in the room & went out to explore.

The hotel attendant wasn’t wrong, everything was closed. That is, except a little bar that was still teeming with life. We entered hesitant, yet hopeful. I asked the bartended with my fingers crossed whether or not they were serving food AND THEY WERE!!!!!! SUCCESS!!! VICTORY!!!! They didn’t have bottles of water though so we ordered the next best thing, beer. In addition to the two beers we got buffalo wings & truffle fries. The bar was alive with patrons, mostly locals, who were dancing, singing along to the “Best of Frank Sinatra” album playing & generally disregarding the quarantine. As lovely as the bar was I’m not going to divulge the name, I ain’t no snitch.

With full bellies & continued dehydration we returned to the hotel room where we bunkered down for a short night of sleep.

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DAY TWO

We woke up around 6:45 AM despite having only gone to bed about four hours prior. Parched at this point we pulled the car out of valet & made our way to the nearest gas station where we stocked up on the largest bottles of water we could find & a Celsius or two. By the way, the Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats smack. #BreakfastOfChampions

I had booked a dive through a local dive shop called Scuba Dogs. They do many dives around the island but one of the ones not too far from Viejo San Juan was in what used to be the world’s largest natural swimming pool, Escambrón Marine Park. During the 30s & 40s the marine park was part of a socialite beach club attached to the long abandoned Normandie Hotel. The marine park, or pool, was created when a giant concrete walkway was installed around the perimeter. The wall underneath the walkway featured slates that allowed fish to enter & exit the bay at their leisure, but kept the “sea monsters” at bay…no pun intended. Since the demise of the Normandie Hotel the marine park was converted into a nature sanctuary. The seawall was demolished & now the bay & the surrounding areas play host to many species of marine life, large & small.

My dive was with a local dive master named Paco. I had booked two dives around the park with him that started at 8 AM & after brief introductions & dive planning we set out. Our first dive was out past the edge of the bay in the surrounding reef. One of the other dive masters in the area often brings stale bread for the fish so they’ve now picked up the habit of approaching all divers with the hope of a free meal. We spent majority of the dive surrounded by a school of hungry fish made up of Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Atlantic Tang, & Sergeant Majors. At a certain point a small group of Jack joined. I was advised at this point to tuck my hands because anything outlying that they see extending from your palms, including your fingers, they perceive as food. On our way back into the bay we found a few Trunkfish, Clown Wrasse, & two massive French Angels!

The dives themselves weren’t very deep, I think we maxed out around 30 feet, but that made the consumption of oxygen move much slower. Our second dive, which was inside the bay & around the destroyed wall, was around an hour, our first, around 50 minutes. During the second dive we went around checking the fish houses & taino reefs they’d placed around the inside of the park. I must have encroached upon the territory of an Ocean Triggerfish because they were not happy with me. Upon entering the first of the fish houses, while looking for Arrow Crabs, I felt a little nip on my arm through the wetsuit. I turned around to find a flared out triggerfish darting all around me, trying to nip at anything it could get at on me. It didn’t stop this display even when we’d left the shelter & chased us to the next one finally relenting after we got out of eye shot of it.

Further around the bay we found several Trumpetfish, a Scorpionfish, a couple of Grey Angelfish, a Sea Turtle, & even a Caribbean Reef Octopus! Paco uses his guided dives as an excuse for nature conservation, which I happily joined in on picking up any bottles or scrap we found along the way.

Post dive we met the above pictured iguana, but at this point I was absolutely starving. Evan has spent his morning snorkeling & swimming in the bay so he too was feeling the effects of hunger. Never one to skimp on my food research when it comes to travel, I had already found several options for lunch but we both agreed we were feeling local seafood. I had found a restaurant about fifteen minutes down the road called Que PezCa’o. Tucked in the bay by the maritime police depot, Que PezCa’o is surrounded on all sides by the boats of local fishermen. An outdoor eating situation in it of itself, it appeared to be a local favorite. We ordered Fried Grouper Strips, a Ceviche Mofongo, & a Taco Trio (two Ceviche, one Snapper, they were out of Octopus.) The food was incredible! Truly some of the best ceviche I’ve ever had!

After lunch we were feeling a tad sleepy & I, as usually, had a hankering for something sweet. We made our way into San Juan to Kasalta, a local cafe! Here we order two Guayaba y Queso Pastelillos, a Flan con Cinco Leches, & two Café con Hielo which we took back to the hotel & ate poolside on the fifth floor overlooking the bay & all of Viejo San Juan.

After pastelillos on the rooftop we decided to check out some of the bars near by. We found one that came highly recommended called La Factoria. During the day this craft cocktail bar only has their front bar open but on weekends the back two rooms serve as a dance space. I ordered a Peligroso (Barrilito Rum, Averna, Campari, Dry Spice Infusion, & Lime) & Evan ordered a Lavender Mule (Ketel One, Ginger Tea, Lavender, & Citrus.) Both were delicious & we sipped them sitting in an open window watching the old town walk go by.

After drinks we went back to the hotel for a bit where, after a while, we changed into clothing we could get wet in. We pulled the car out of valet & began our hour & a half drive over to Fajardo on the east coast of the island.

Why venture to Fajardo you ask? We’d booked a tour! Well, kind of a tour. We had booked a kayaking trip through the waters of the bioluminescent bay! By the time we got there it was dark, we arranged ourselves within our tour group & were given a safety briefing before being escorted to our kayaks. The kayaks were all linked together in the middle of a shallow bay, you had to wade out a bit to get them. Once we were in our kayaks, which had glow rings on either end of them, we were instructed to paddle single file up a channel through a mangrove forest. The forest waterway was pitch black but the moon was nearly full & illuminated the bare spots of water fairly well. All around us the “coqui” frogs were calling back & forth & the further we got up the channel the more the water began to sparkle.

The bioluminescence was different from the pictures I’d seen in the past; less solid washes of light & more like sparks flying off of whatever gave them kinetic energy. When we reached the lagoon at the end of the channel we bunched up into a group & passed around a tarp to block out the light. Once the light was properly blocked we were instructed to splash around in the water. It’s truly a magical experience even just going for the late night kayak ride. By the way, our tour company was called Eco Adventures!

Once we’d paddled back up the channel & had dried off the search for food began all over again. By the time we’d finished the tour completely it was 10:45 & we still had to make it all the way back to San Juan. We stopped several places along the way hoping to find food but all of them were closed. We finally ended up at a 24/7 grocery store by the San Juan Airport where we grabbed a bunch of pre-made sandwiches & sushi for dinner.

We went to bed that night exhausted but having had a blast of a day!

END OF PART ONE

Blog: Stop Pressing Mute

Do you ever find yourself minimizing yourself, omitting parts of your personality or who you really are as a person just to make the other people around you feel more comfortable? Do you often do so even when you have no idea how that other person will reach? It’s sometimes like you have this whole preconceived narrative in your head about how they won’t want to be around you any longer or you feel like they won’t love you anymore because it doesn’t fit into their ideal of who you are as a person. You’re not alone if you do, I think to some extend we all do this, we all mute parts of ourselves, situationally, in an attempt to fit in.

I mean, why shouldn’t we? We evolved from hunter/gatherers, a society where being outcast could mean life or death. We depended upon the tribe or the collective for shelter, food, water, & other resources, so of course that mentality has been drilled into our brains. From there we cultivated farmland, becoming agriculturally bound & even then if you didn’t present properly to the ruling faction or the person in charge of getting your food, granted you weren’t farming it yourself, you would starve. These social constructs continued on & on & on perpetuated by class, religion, tradition, & other miscellaneous societal contracts that we’re all expected to adhere to, even if some of those contracts have long since expired.

We are now living in the 21st century, never have we ever been, as a global community, more connected. I know a lot of you would argue a dissonance because of technology & while I definitely think it’s a double edged sword, it has never been easier for us as human beings to find communities where we belong. There are people out there who believe the same things, feel the same way, geek out over the same material or hobbies as us & yet still we mute ourselves.

I am beyond guilty of this, it’s something I still fight to break on the daily because there is an expectation when you grow up a middle-class midwest American white boy in a baptist church with an often old school family. That’s nothing against them or my upbringing, it’s just a lot of the time for so many of us, the expectation & the reality collide & usually the expectation seems to win.

Think in terms of tectonic plates. One plate represents who you are as a person, the other being who you’re expected to be. As you grow up those plates fight for dominance & eventually one wins. I have always been envious of those who let themselves win over the localized social constructs. To many of us, they bear the name of “black sheep.” I always thought myself a black sheep because the person living inside didn’t match the mask I was presenting, but I let the weight of expectation submerge me.

There are so many things, even to this day at the age of 29 that I wish I could be, so many regrets for times I wished I were bolder or more “me” so that I didn’t have to actively & delicately tear down the person that so many thought I was in order to reestablish the truth. That, however, is a waste of time. Living in regret is giving energy to a past that is already written, not a future that is yours to make. There are so many things I wish I could be outwardly without the fear of losing those I love or feeling their affections diminish. There are so many songs, speeches, blogs that I’ve written, that no matter how much I want to share will probably never see the light of day & that sucks. They are the parts of myself that I continue to lock away out of someone else’s comfort because at the end of the day I am still choosing comfort over the truth.

I hope you’ll do better that me. I hope you will choose yourself. It’s a hard thing, believe me, I know, I just want you all to know that you’re worthy of love as you are, as who you are, unapologetically. You are worthy of love. This is as much a reminder to me as it is to you all but I hope you take it to heart. As I said before, there is a community out there that would love nothing more than to embrace you, as you are, complete & whole with no alterations & no subjugations & I ache for you to find them if you haven’t already. It’s time to pull back the curtain & show the world the beautiful being that you are. It’s time to stop pressing mute on who you are.

Blog: Where Do I Even Begin?...

If you’re a weekly reader of my blogs you may have read last week that I had a previous topic in mind when I went into that particular blog that didn’t end up happening simply because I felt called to go in a different direction, which is where we ended up. Side note; if you’re a weekly reader of mine, from the bottom of my heart thank you! I was hesitant to start blogging for the reason that it is often times baring your soul for strangers on the internet. Come to think of it, I actually think it may be easier to be open with strangers than to open yourself up to those closest to you. All of this is to say I hope you’ll come to this blog with as much love, kindness, & support as you have in the past. If you’re new to this whole carnival, welcome, I’m glad you’re here. Onto the topic at hand.

Something I desperately struggle with as an artist, creative, entrepreneur, business owner, etc. is starting. They say you have to start to succeed, which naturally is true, but I often find myself standing at the precipice of inception unable to budge. You see I immediately run into the feeling of overwhelm. I know all of the things I need to be doing but I’m struck with immobility because of the overwhelm of it all. It’s not like I don’t know how to be an organized person or how to prioritize or make lists, it’s just that I get an instant state of panic & can’t begin to even fathom the steps moving forward.

I know I’m not alone in this either, I’ve done a little bit of surveying over the last few weeks in this exact field of study. I wish so badly that it weren’t the case, I wish I could find myself presented with a challenge or a list of things that would lead me to success & not immediately go into mental gridlock but I can’t for the life of me find a way around. I say all of this not for your pity but more as a way of sharing my struggles in hopes they resonate with you. I also almost wonder if I’m in part begging for help especially where the music industry is concerned. I feel I’m often presented with a ‘do thing & you’ll get that’ but I feel no one addresses the ‘how.’

I think the reason for all the vagueness is that a lot of people don’t know themselves, they stumbled upon success or happened to have friends or family in high places & that’s equally, if not more frustrating. A part of me wants to stand atop the BMI or SESAC building & scream “WTF DO I DO?!” but I know that wouldn’t solve anything & would simply make me look like a loon. I guess I’m just feeling lost in a sea of people who know exactly what they want & how to get it. I feel drowned in complete uncertainty.

Again, all of this is meant to find common ground with you as a reader, if this doesn’t resonate with you specifically, I’m sorry. I also wanted anyone out there feeling this way to know that they’re not alone, that you are seen & heard & felt. You are deserving of success just as I am but sometimes the path ahead feels less like a road & more like an endlessly winding labyrinth. I am writing this not only to remind myself to have patience & persistence but to also remind you to do the same. They say good things come to those who wait, but I think that’s a bit of BS. I think good things come to those who claim them because they know they’re meant to happen. So claim your good things & don’t worry about the mess in between. Even Theseus relied on little more than a ball of thread to escape his own maze. Don’t get too overwhelmed by the massive walls around you or the things standing in your way, take it one inch of thread at a time.

Blog: A Little Belief Goes A Long Way

Howdy folks!

How’s your day been? I’m sorry I missed you all last week,I’ve been busy, busy, busy in the best possible way! I was wracking my brain a little bit this evening on what to blog about after having finished a day of blogging for someone else. Then I thought, well, there it is!

I recently started a new job outside music/songwriting/what have you. It’s freelance work writing, I’m turning a podcast centered around production into a blog. The job is whenever I have the free time to do so or whenever my boss needs a blog to post & pays a livable wage! Imagine that! And I can’t help but feel like I manifested it into my life.

For those of you who were unaware I had to leave my previous freelance job at the beginning of COVID & was thankfully on unemployment up until recently. Our lovely, terrible excuse for a Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, put a moratorium on the extension for unemployment benefits that was put into effect by the federal government. The date of this expiration being July 4th. Happy Independence Day!… He put this moratorium in effect despite Tennessee having one of the highest unemployment rates in the country & the highest COVID infection rates. I knew I needed to find a job stat but there didn’t seem to be anything working in my favor. Was I applying for work? Yes, but I didn’t want something soul sucking & I wanted something that would pay me what I know I’m worth, what we’re all worth, which is something you can live off of.

So the weeks passed, every one getting closer & closer to the 4th of July but instead of being stressed about that fact I found myself in a state of unwavering peace. How? Well, I had this belief that something would come along, something that allowed me to set my own schedule, that paid well, that wouldn't leave me a husk of a human, that allowed me to be creative & express myself artistically. The weeks went by, spring turned to summer & summer faded into fall, not really, but still nothing. I still kept faith. I believed in it, I believed that the opportunity I had no idea was coming was actually coming my way.

Enter the week of the 4th. Still nothing. That is until a friend of mine reached out on that Wednesday & asked if I could send a sample of these very blogs that I’d been doing weekly for heaven knows how long now. I did & asked what it was for to which she explained that her boss, to which she works social media for, was looking for someone to convert their podcasts into a blog format. It was entirely freelance, allowed me to be creative, & it paid well. I immediately reached out to the host in question, simply introducing myself. We set a time, had a meeting, I sent over a sample of my work, & I was hired! I never once doubted the job was mine, not once. Never did it cross my mind that it could be given to someone else or that I wasn’t deserving of the position, I knew it was mine because, at the end of the day, it was!

Why can’t all things in life be like that? Why can’t I have that level of belief with everything in my life? Why can’t I believe opportunity will fall into my lap like it did just a few weeks ago, unwavering & confident? It definitely goes against our human conditioning to do so, there’s no doubt in that. Why must we as humans doubt everything we work towards or are worthy of?

A friend of mine, Amanda Francis, a self made millionaire, whom I mention often in this blog wrote a book called “Rich As F$ck” that all of you should read! In RAF she says that she believes money will come to her like she believes the cars on the highway won’t randomly sideswipe her. Laws of attraction & all that. You have to believe it like you believe water will come out the tap when you turn the faucet, that the sun will rise in the east & set in the west, that your plane won’t come randomly crashing to the ground for no reason. That’s not to say, give into delusions though.

You see attracting the things you want requires work. Another friend of mine, Stephen Lovegrove, likes to give his clients that he coaches the analogy of the cheesecake. It is as follows: Say you’re craving cheesecake, have to have it, no if &’s or buts about it. There are several ways you can get the cheesecake. You can go out & buy a slice or a whole cheesecake from the cheesecake factory or another restaurant, you can go to the store & buy a cheesecake, you can get the ingredients at the store & make your own, you can have the ingredients at home & make one that way, &/or you can order UberEats & have a slice of cheesecake delivered. You know what you can’t do? Wish it into existence. You have to put in some for of effort & follow it with the belief that the cheesecake is yours, that one way or another you’re getting that cheesecake come hell or high water.

I think this job opportunity was a test for me, it was affirmation of what faith & belief can achieve, it was proof that we all attract the things we believe to be true, whether that good things or bad things. So why stop here? Why stop at my freelance job?

My advice to you in this practice is to start small, be it monetary, opportunistic, or what have you. As I mentioned several times in my Maui blogs, I have super power that allows me to get a reservation at any restaurant or find a parking spot anywhere. How? Because I believe there’s no alternative option. There is no reality that exists for me in which I have to hunt for parking or miss a restaurant I want to try because they’re booked up or in this case, have the job I want. So give it a shot, start with parking spaces or restaurants & see how it works for you. You have to believe it though which does require a good deal of faith to pull off, but once you tap into that the options are limitless!

So give it a shot!

What’s the worst that could happen?

Blog: The Rolodex of Resentment

I had this week’s blog idea come to me in a dream, no literally it came to me in a dream & much like the owner of the music industry herself, Ms. Taylor Swift, I wrote it down for all of you to read today! Congrats! In said dream I was presented with a rolodex style presentation of a lot of my memories since I had moved to Nashville except for they all had one thing in common; they were all memories that I had come to resent for one reason or another. All of these resurgences were very vivid & I got to witness each of them one by one, over & over again until I understood the message I was being given at which point I awoke.

In the still early light of the then 5 AM morning I was overcome with a great sadness. It wasn’t a “poor, poor me” type of sadness but more of a sadness from the realization that I’d been carrying all of these memories around aimlessly for the last ten years I’ve worked in this industry. I had held on to so much resentment for so many different people because I felt lied to by them, cheated by them, forgotten by them & it had grown to the point where it was beginning to affect my self esteem & creativity.

The music industry is a hard business, it truly is. It’s all about who you know & who knows you; it is truly a business built on relationships. That’s why I think a lot of these memories had dug their claws so deeply into my psyche & had such an influence on me over the years. I’d had people of influence promise to pass along projects or give things a listen just to be left in the dark. I’ve had friends go on to great success that then turn “too good for you” & leave you in the tracks before getting on a stage or getting a write up in a magazine all about how we have to “help the next person in line.” I’ve had people I looked up to, who I saw as mentors disappear out of the blue, or friends in industry positions more willing to help others than those they call their close friends & I’m certain I’ve done this unintentionally to people as well.

What’s my point in all of this? Why dedicate a whole blog to a dream & a realization? Because resentment & the emotions associated with it are heavy. Jealousy & envy are heavy, bitterness is heavy, grudges & ill will are heavy & I struggle with them. I struggle with leaving behind the weight of envy in the face of other people’s success, especially those I’m close to & if I’m being honest, I hate that. I want to be so openly & honestly proud of my friends, because they work so damn hard & are so talented & worthy of accolades & success in their own right but I always have the shadow of “why not me” lurking.

I’m trying to get over these things, I really am. I’m trying to let the past go. I’m trying to meet the success of my friends with genuine, unbothered happiness for them because they deserve that. I think this dream was alluding to all the work I thought I’d done & telling me “oh, no, no, you still have so far to go!”

I hadn’t realized I was carrying around all of this unpacked baggage, that I was letting the past or the perceived views of others no longer directly in my life have such an influence on my life, but it had. I’d gotten to the point where I started to believe crazy things about myself. I started to believe that I must not be a good artist if not even my friends are willing to help me, I began to believe that I was a bad songwriter or a bad singer & you know what, those things manifested themselves physically. I developed vocal chord dysfunction, I completely forgot how to write songs because I put way too much pressure on each thing I wrote being a masterpiece & I began to fall into the cracks of the music industry after I’d worked so hard & for so long to hoist myself up.

I know now these are lies that I told myself over the years. I am worthy of success, I am worthy of a thriving career in this business. I am talented both as a performer & as a writer. I am marketable as a brand, I am desirable as an artist. Dark, low vibration emotions & parasites do wonders on the body & mind, terrible wonders, but impressive none the less & I’m done letting them have an influence on me.

I want to leave this one final line for any friends of mine that may happen to read this. I am so, so incredibly proud of each of you & all of the things you’ve accomplished in your lives. I am overjoyed to see you soar & hope you know I will always be there to support you. If I have ever done any of the above listed things to you, please reach out to me & let me know.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Coincidence?! I Think Not!!

…Let’s start here

Coincidences. Let’s talk about them. I’ve been thinking more & more about them lately, partially because they keep popping up in my life. Which is itself a coincidence. Or is it? You see the more coincidences pop up the more I think I’m beginning to believe in them less & less.

A dear friend of mine is a very successful life coach. He, in his years, has met many a successful individual & we were once talking about this very topic together. The reason we were discussing the topic was because we had met one another by coincidence. We happened to both be in a place we were seldom in, at a time we were seldom there at. He has since become friends with my friends & I with his! Anyway, back to the topic at hand. One of the people this friend has met in their life freely offered up the key to his thriving success. It’s one rule & it’s a very simple one.

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

This man’s philosophy in life & the thing in which he owes his success abides by that one simple rule. When met with something he would normally deem a coincidence he takes it as a sign & follows the coincidence to its natural completion.

This discussion took place between my mate & I years ago & for whatever reason….call it coincidence, it’s been dancing around in my head for the last few weeks. So I decided to lean into it! The crazy thing is, the more of these little anomalies occur in my life, the more I follow them, the more I believe in them as more than just a passing “huh” moment, the more of them seem to pop up in my day to day life. Usually the things that lead me to these moments are a pull I feel from within whether it’s text this person or go to this place or post that thing it always leads me further down the rabbit hole. The odd part of this whole experience is that I’ve started not only to lean into them but to believe that they will occur. I have gained a newfound faith in the reoccurring bizarre moments that make everything seem to click together.

So clearly I’m being contradictory to what I’ve stated above when I said the more coincidences happen the less I believe in them but with that statement I am speaking specifically to the exceptional nature of coincidences themselves. I’ve begun to believe less in coincidences & begun believing more in them being part of the natural flow of life.

I think a coincidence is merely a sign, a little nudge from God or the universe or whatever belief system you subscribe to that you’re headed in the right direction, that the path you’re following, the path laid out before you is the correct one. Clearly, the friend of a friend I mentioned above would agree with that. You see when we try to resist our lives & resist the things coming to us along our path we find the more the path will urge us back to it. Think of it like a rubber band, your fate, your destiny, your whatever awaits on one side of it where you are on the other end. The more you try to pull away, to divert your course, the more resistance you’ll be met with. If you go with the flow & lean into these God given opportunities you’ll face less resistance & have more & more, let’s call them coincidences, come your way. You’ll be living in the un-stretched rubber band free to move around without pull back.

We’re all looking for signs, screaming for them usually. But I promise you they’ll never show themselves in abrasive ways, that’s not how these things are communicated. Only in the silence, in the observation, in the instinct will you find your signs. Quiet your mind, trust yourself, trust the voice inside you leading you forward, it’s there for a reason. Coincidences are your signs from the divine. They’re the things you’ve been begging to have reward your faith. So don’t ignore them.

Blog: Representation In Country Music

I’m not sure if you followed the news coming out of Nashville this past week but for those of you that may have missed it, something revolutionary happened on Wednesday. In a Time Magazine article that dropped around 10 AM Eastern on Wednesday TJ Osborne, of The Brothers Osborne, came out as gay making him the first openly gay major label country artist.

Here’s the article in question, it’s definitely worth the read:

This is a significant milestone in country music for a few reason not the least of these being that almost a decade & a half prior Shelly Fairchild, a Sony signed artist at the time, was dropped by her label because it got leaked to them that she was lesbian.

Shelly commented on Wednesday’s events in an instagram post here:

While I viewed mostly overwhelming support for TJ’s bravery from folks of all walks from around the internet I began to notice a few comments that sought to diminish the effects of truly what he had done. I’m sure a lot of these comments were well meaning but there were a large cluster of comments similar to the following:

“Who cares what he does behind doors, it doesn’t effect their music.”

or

“I’m straight! See, nobody cares. Why do we feel the need to announce this to the world.”

I think TJ himself diminishes the impact that his actions have had & how they will ripple throughout all of history going forward. He mentions in the article that part of the reason he felt he needed to make his sexuality public was that people might think it odd if he were to just show up at an awards show with a male date. His actions, however, cannot be overstated. What TJ has done is open doors for LGBTQ country artists that were previously sealed pretty tight simply because they didn’t fit the mold of “Straight, White, Cis Male.”

I’ll be the first to admit our genre of music has a historically conservative audience; hell I myself have battled with that in the past being a fairly liberal, all accepting human. It’s still hard to carve out a niché as an artist of color, it’s still hard to get “unique” sounds & stories to mainstream radio & labels, & it’s even still incredibly hard for female artists to make it in Nashville but this is progress is being made in the right direction. Country is not a genre limited to the white yokel, despite what stereotypes would say. Some of the biggest country fans I’ve ever met are people of color or members of the alphabet mafia & their stories deserve a platform to be shared as well. It’s clear Nashville is, at the very least, attempting to make steps in the right direction; embracing TJ & signing/promoting artists like Mickey Guyton, Jimmie Allen, & Willie Jones but there still seems to be some major resistance to change. For every black artist or female artist signed there seems to be five white male artists signed. It almost feels like the industry is trying to counter balance or compensate. And I will admit as a straight passing, cis, white male I’m a part of the problem, but I choose to be part of the solution.

This industry needs to be more open to change, more open to different stories being told because dear lord am I tired of the truck/beer/party songs. Country music deserves to be an ever evolving story told by a beautiful mélange of people from completely different walks of life instead of the same damn things over & over again. People are starved for representation in their media, they’re starving for someone who looks like them or has the same sexuality, gender identity, etc. to say that you can do this too, that this can be their dream as well. That their stories have value & are equally important to the culture at large. It deserves to appeal to a mass audience, not just the rural white American. Country music deserves to evolve just as the listener base has, it deserves to be a platform where everyone can tell their stories, not just the privileged. TJ’s openness & the acceptance of said openness is definitely a step in the right direction but we still have a long, long way to go. Representation matters. Openness matters. And the continued acceptance of both matters. We must continue to do better.

Blog: It’s Okay To Give Up On The Apology You May Never Get

Hi folk!

Interesting topic for this week’s blog, no? I’m sure the title put some people on edge before I’d even began but I felt compelled to write about this, this week. I actually started jotting down ideas for this blog throughout my week as I’ve been reading more introspective literature & doing more personal evaluation all in the name of trying to clear the debris that’s gotten in the way of my creative processes especially when it comes to writing. As I’ve stated before in blogs, specifically those regarding the state of the world or the way people treat other people, I have often found myself dwelling on anger. Not an emotion or a feeling I typically enjoy & usually, despite my sign (Aries), something I maintain fairly well outside of the flashes that occasionally arise in me. I was angry & I couldn’t for the life of me pinpoint what was causing it.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of journaling, answering some difficult questions about myself; the emotions & memories that live inside of me, amongst other things. I was prompted one afternoon to answer the following question:

“Why Are You Angry?”

My first response was “psh, I’m not!” That was a lie. You see, deep down I had this building, nagging rage that I couldn’t explain & really sitting & reflecting upon this question brought me to the realization that I was angry. In fact very much so.

The next prompt was:

“Is there anything you haven’t forgiven yourself or someone else for?”

That’s when it struck me.

You see I’d been dwelling upon this desire, this festering, insistent desire that I knew was farfetched at the best of times & was ultimately bogging me down. I was waiting for an apology that knew I will probably never receive. That’s a hard thing to live with, especially if that person is no longer in your life & even more so if that person is still a constant in your life but nonetheless we all still live with it.

We’re all human, we all make mistakes, we all hurt each other & sometimes we don’t realize the extent to which we’ve done damage to another person. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’ve done anything wrong. And that’s where this gets tough. It’s one thing entirely to ignore the pain you’ve caused someone out of pride or spite, it’s another thing entirely to be completely oblivious to it. But it doesn’t matter.

Let me say that again, it. doesn’t. matter. Bottling hurt helps no one, it benefits no one, the only thing that it does is harm you. Holding onto hurt leaves a piece of you in the past, it holds you back from growth & from realizing your true potential. Sometimes you just have to let it go.

There is peace in that, forgiveness. There is light, unfettered freedom. I’m not saying you have to ignore what someone has done to you, but I am saying that you can give yourself permission to let it go, to let bygones be bygones. I know that sometimes we so desperately just want someone to say “I’m sorry” for them to do the bare minimum & acknowledge what they’ve done but when everything in your gut is telling you that it’s never going to happen what good does it do to hold onto that distain?

I just wanted to come on here tonight & much like Elsa give you permission to let it go. To start a fresh, new day & be at peace. Acknowledge the pain, dissect it, but don’t keep holding onto it. You deserve better than that, you’re worthy of feeling better than that. So just let it go. I know it’s not always that simple but it is. It’s okay to say “thank you for protecting me, for making me feel like I’m deserving of an apology but you’ve surpassed your usefulness in my life & in my mind, but it’s time for me to let it go.”

You’re worthy of being at peace, of feeling light & unrestrained. Love yourself enough to see that.

Blog: Happy 2021!

Well we’re back!

I promised myself, as well as you all, that I was going to get back into blogging in the new year. It’s something I’ve sorely missed & based on the amount of you that I know have read them in the past, so have a lot of you! I’m going to do my best to be as consistent as possible going forward, not just in here but also with music releases, shows, videos, etc. because I’ve fallen behind.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it, because I am truly done living in 2020, but I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the damage that our lost year did on yours truly.

I’ve written a lot in the past, quite openly about my mental health struggles. There’s no doubt 2020 reaped havoc on my mental health plunging me head first back into depression & a brain fog that’s intolerable on its best days. It’s incredibly frustrating. This last year has been especially hard on those of us who perform for a living, who are out here chasing a dream that felt like it had to be put on hold indefinitely. I already felt as though I was slipping through the cracks of the music industry, this all just magnified that feeling.

In addition to my mental health, my physical health has drastically diminished over the last year. I was in fairly decent shape going into march; I was working out consistently, eating really well, but all of that went out the window after march when hardcore workouts became all but impossible.

You see, I’ve dipped into this lull that I’ve spent the latter part of last year trying to claw my way back out of. I try to make a change, to get back to being productive, to being better at self promotion but I slide right back into it. Objects in motion & all that, but I want to change that, nay, I need to change that. I need so desperately to move forward, to make progress, to feel like myself again because I am suffering. My mental health demands it, my physical health demands it, I must make the change & be better.

All of that being said, as I’ve stated before on this platform, I loathe new year’s resolutions, they aren’t practical or helpful, but I do emphasize the point of self growth quite often. If I were to categorize my growth I’ve shriveled quite a bit, I’ve stalled, I’m stagnant. I need to grow again, to flourish again & the only way to do that is with work. Growth takes work.

So here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish. Consistency.

Blogs. Every Friday.

Vlogs. Once A Month.

A return to tubesday?

…

We’ll see on that one haha.

Definitely more singing though!

More self promotion, more fan promotion, more fan interaction.

Finally launching the merch store!

Rediscovering my passion for solo writes.

More singles. More music.

More collabs.

I need you all to hold me to these things. I need you to message me on Friday evening if a blog hasn’t popped up yet to say “hey! get to writing!” I need you to ask about new music, let me know which things you loved & which you hate. I want to hear from you all as fans. I want to know what you’re looking for from me as an artist, what you wish I offered more of, what drew you to me as an artists, etc. I whole heartedly want to include you all more on this journey, because the truth is, without you all I’m just a sad boy with a guitar haha.

At any rate I want to wish you all the happiest of 2021s. I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy to beat last year but I’m really hoping we can knock this one out of the park!

Much love to you all, thank you for the support & happy new year!

-C

Blog: Lover In The Sheets, Bigot In The Streets

Hi folks, how’re we doing? I hope the answer is incredible!

Earlier this week I had the privilege of consuming Homecoming King by Hasan Minhaj, his hour & some change comedy special on Netflix. In said comedy special Hasan effortlessly balances comedy & tragedy by telling the story of his life as an Islamic Indian American living in California. Hasan’s experience that he describes has a definite through line that carries across time & is still very poignant today, despite most of it having happened over ten to fifteen years ago. It is a point that I found extremely relevant to our modern political climate here in the state, though I think it translates overseas as well. Hasan, who rose to prominence through The Daily Show with John Stewart as well as his own show, Patriot Act, lays out this ostracizing of groups he refers to as “the other” within American society & highlights a problem that many of us who identify as “not racist” seem to want to ignore. I think this blog will end up being something similar to my blog regarding LGBTQIA+ affirmation but it incorporates the broader topic of not only sexuality or gender identify but also race. These topics have commonalities, though they are altogether inherently different. However, for the sake of this argument, for the sake of “the other” we’ll be incorporating the two together as I’d like to further add to Hasan’s point. I think the best place to start here is with the simplicity that Hasan distills this down to. One simple phrase that I’m sure we’ve all heard or thought;

What. Will. People. Think?

You see in Hasan’s narrative he comes face to face with two very distinct types of racism; having his family threatened & the windows of their car smashed out the evening of September 11th, 2001, and not being allowed to take his white date to prom because there were going to be pictures, evidence she had gone with someone they considered to be “other.” Naturally I’d like to focus on the latter here as the former, while it still runs rampant, at the very least is outwardly & actively frowned upon by those who actually have a brain between their ears. I want to talk about that silent form of bigotry, the kind that sneaks up, that makes you lock your car doors in that “bad” neighborhood, the kind that says “love the sinner, not the sin,” the kind that causes you to save face. That’s they kind I want to shine a light on here.

You see the most heartbreaking part about Hasan’s story, to me, is not necessarily that it happened, because any person of color will tell you, racism happens just as any LGBTQIA+ person will tell you homophobia/transphobia happen, just as any non-christian will tell you xenophobia happens. (Not that it’s okay that they do, but they do happen.) The thing that is heartbreaking is that Hasan thought these people were different; this was a white family who under normal circumstances had welcomed him into their home, had broken bread with him, treated him like an equal, had gone as far as to tell him they loved him but when it came time to do so in the public eye their love had conditions. Hasan couldn’t go to prom with their daughter not because “they didn’t love him” or think he was a stand up lad but because there would be pictures of them together, people would see their daughter with someone they considered to be a part of “the other.” At first a lot of us may be thinking, shame on them, I would never, & that may be true, you may never but I can’t help think further down the rabbit hole on this.

Let me ask you this. How many queer individuals have “accepting” parents that introduce their partner as their friend or roommate? How non-binary or trans individuals have people in their lives that don’t honor their chosen pronouns? How many people exclude a particular person because they wouldn’t fit the rest of the group simply based on their racial or religious background? How many keep in tact the boys club solely on merit or shame other cultures simply because they don’t understand them & have no interest in trying to? Isn’t it amazing how loud actions often contradict the words of those who claim to not have fear or prejudice living in their hearts?

What will people think?

Screw that.

Who the hell cares?!

Love with conditions is neither love nor is it worth your time. If your precious image is more important to you than loving another human, and I mean truly loving them as they are, not as you’d like them to be or as society or your faith says you should then you are no better than those who scream slurs from the side of the street. Be better. Choose to be better, choose love first, we’d all be a lot better off.

Much love to you all,

Thanks for reading!