the blog

Dear You, I woke up, wiped my puffy eyes and I saw you fixing your tie in the mirror. This feeling of pure devotion came over me; I began to cry. You came over and said, “don’t be silly, it’s alright” … I think you assumed my tears were because I was leaving, in less than 24-hours, I would be on my way across an ocean and the 'long-distance' part of most love stories gets a very bad reputation. As tears delicately dropped from my chin, my mind was racing, but I was more than alright, I was feeling secure and empowered by our love story. This exact moment was one I had ached to know and suddenly it had materialized in front of me. I was wholly overwhelmed; I was massively in love, but also it was the safety and sureness that made me cry. Loving when you’re ready to love is so inspired. because that love creeps into every breath and every cell that you are. That kind of love makes you...

My gorgeous Mikey: Your life is extraordinary whether it feels like that or not.     I promise. You are so much better than any of the horrible things you’ll have to suffer in a lifetime. The world may define you by adversity or triumph, but don't define yourself by those things.   I can’t imagine what your fantastic brain is doing now. The things that other people's brains can disguise or hide ...  burry or break, well ours they can make a symphony of that stuff; a painful, wicked, e x h a u s t i n g symphony. I know you're tired; I’m sorry you’re stuck with such a lonely gift.   We just can’t help but to process and process our ideas until there are so many sub-thoughts the rest of the world has moved on. We toil and think and imagine until every cut is bleeding daylight.     Maybe right now this ability doesn’t seem so much like a gift, maybe it seems like a burden; but you can make grace of a mess and it will s...

I opened my eyes, half way, like every morning; I could hear the roller coaster and faint screams, it was joy, right?!?   It sounded like joy.   And I could see curious beams of sunlight sneaking into my room through the curtains that I failed to adjust properly at bedtime the night before; the night before you left me, the night I wasn't thinking about you. Why wasn't I thinking about you? ...Why wasn’t I imagining your laugh, oh that laugh was contagious.   I write this to say goodbye. I write this to say thank you. Oh yes, I was telling you about the morning: back to that morning. Come with me back to that black morning – mourning …   the sounds were masquerading as joy, but they had fooled me—I opened my eyes—not to joy, not to beams of light, but thousands of painful stings like pricks of a million bees feasting on my heart, it was awful. I guess we have a choice of what we want to feel, believe, and focus on. I know what you’d want me to choose. It’s ...

In the beginning, back to my earliest memories, I started out as any kid does, absorbing the world like a sponge. Except ... I was emotional and erratic as a child. I was blissfully unaware; I was a dreamer.   I had this wild heart and I was unreasonably prone to the highest of highs and of course hit hard by the lowest of lows. I could be completely knocked off any course by my emotions. They would flood me and my clarity, I was captivated... mind, body and imagination. Then, I learned how people saw me, not just how I wanted to be accepted, not how I believed I was ... but how--at face value--I was received. The way other people see you shines a shade brighter than the person you think you are. This awareness began to develop at the tender age of 12, and It was then that I began a path to reinventing myself for the very first time.   "BEFORE YOU CAN reinvent yourself, yo...

Dear Scotland, I have wanderlust, and you have perpetuated my sickness. It was one those nights, the onset felt something more like catching a flu; just achy, heavy and happening regardless of my opinion.   I somewhere between waking up that morning and post-performance that evening, I had lost my ‘joie de vivre’ but nonetheless, I had committed to going and so that’s exactly what I did.   As I stepped one foot out the stage door, I left my funk right there on a sad, damp step. My night was underway no time for agendas. So I stepped on a wave and rode it until late or early depending on how you look at it. 6-hours prior to the onset of that night, I was choosing something dramatic to wear. My tone that morning was much more enthusiastic; I was looking forward to a night out in a truly historic city. How exciting … good food, interesting people, and all the while looking and feeling quite fancy. Fortunately, it only...

"What a man... what damn good man." How can I write this and not sound as bias as I know I am? He changed my life, and I will never be the same. Knowing someone is good, and good for you doesn't have to mean you they are so for any romantic reason. Allow me to be 'oooey' and 'gooey' and apologetically partial because sometimes people deserve that. Good people, especially them, they deserve to hear that they are good. And good is contagious; happy is contagious and we can spread those things around too. He did that. I'm sitting here in gate B8 next to a woman who seems to be a bit too cautious of germs; taking a wet-wipe from her bag she cleans the rim of her wine glass and rotates it two revolutions to check it's safe -- w e l l, 'safer'. I can't help but think about all the things we call afflictions; the fears and little bites of control that we keep floating around our beautiful, breakable lives. Those tormented and diseas...

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland to work, but I managed to squeeze in some R&R too, and of course that nagging pull I have to continue exploring the world... It was a rainy night and I was craving real conversation, I decided I wanted to have an evening out, so I got to work setting those wheels in motion. I pulled out my phone and began swiping left and right to find a companion.  Before long, I had managed to secure a meeting place at a local pub, with a man who had two pictures and no profile paragraph. Over brief texting we both agreed on liking beer. There you have it, meeting in public for beer with stranger. This should be fine. As it turns out, it was fine. All those miles from home, and right there in a tiny Scottish pub, I sat drinking American beer with a fellow American. Bizarre as it seemed, suddenly I wasn’t lost and alone, suddenly I wasn't thousands of miles away from family and f...