New Year, New Me…

It’s that time of the year again where people reflect on their year and pronounce it’s a new year, new me. People also create resolutions or goals for themselves for the next year. I don’t like resolutions as more people fall through keeping up with them. Goals on the other hand…I like those.

The End of 2019

The end of 2019 isn’t just the end of a year, no it’s the end of a DECADE. 10 years… a lot can happen in 10 years and this isn’t just about what my goals are going to be for next year. I’m going to try my best to reflect on the decade well not all of it that’d be a book, haha. This will reflect the decade and what I have accomplished and what I failed at doing.

The Beginning

The beginning of the decade is January 2009. This is the start of the last year of going to high school and graduating. Honestly trying to remember everything in 10 years is quite a feat of itself, but I do remember a few key things from my senior year of high school. There was A LOT of study halls I went to where I slept as that is how my schedule was made. For the most part, I honestly didn’t even have to be in school most of my senior year because some days were all study halls… seriously. Well, I went to school every day that year even those days I had absolutely nothing going on. Another key moment I remember was Tech Day which was a special day designed by the tech teachers where every kid that had classes in the tech wing was able to participate. This started when I was in 11th grade I believe, but it was much more fun as a senior because as I said I had nowhere else to go besides study halls so I stayed in one of the rooms ALL DAY and I played halo 3. Oh…Well, I forgot to mention that we were allowed to bring in video game consoles and I brought my Xbox 360 in. I along with many others had tournaments the entire day. I remember my one tech teacher asked if I got out of my seat at all which I told him that I had nowhere else to go so I sat there for the most of that day besides lunch and enjoyed playing Halo 3 with my fellow peers.

June 2009

June 2009 came which was I believe around Tech day. Two other moments I remember from this month are the Senior picnic and graduating. The senior picnic was the day where seniors basically could roam around and do whatever they wanted for the most part. I remember I had a cheeseburger, played kickball while running on no sleep as a ton of us seniors stayed overnight at the school and set up a bunch of different senior pranks which were quite stupid honestly. The only one I liked and it wasn’t that funny was carrying my 11th grade English teacher’s couch from his classroom out into the library hallway as he was sad he never was part of a senior prank until that day. Also, that day my friend Nick grabbed me to go down to the music wing to watch this music theory project he and a few of our friends made featuring myself in a Superman costume (it honestly was hilarious, but hated wearing the suit). It was the 2nd part as we filmed the 1st part a year before. I believe you can find them on Youtube somewhere. Okay, fast forward to June 27th, 2009 the class of 2009 graduated and time to move on to college or getting pushed out into the real world. After graduating I was hit with a few hard decisions and a certain turning point appeared for me, but that didn’t happen until much later in the decade.

College

It came time after graduating to decide where to go to college. I already planned on going to Onondaga Community College, but a weird sensation swept over me and I changed my mind. My choice to stay home instead of going to live in Syracuse was a quick altered decision. During my graduation party, I thought of all my friends I wouldn’t have been able to see and if I’d even like going there. Also, I didn’t have a place to stay as I got a letter stating there weren’t any dorms for me to stay in there so I decided to stay home and go to SCCC. Later I found out from my aunt I could’ve stayed at her house while going to Onondaga, but my mind was already made up and I had my classes picked out and whatnot. While going to SCCC I got to stay home and I worked at one of my first of many shitty jobs, Burger King. So, I worked there and went to school…well actually after my friend missing the turn to get to school which made my cousin Catie, himself (Dave), me, and my friend Ryan late to class after eating at the food court at the mall for lunch everyone besides my friend Dave ended up skipping class and we went out for a joy ride. It became quite a habit honestly.

College Part 2

We met at school in the morning and sometimes we went to class, but for the most part, we were stupid and skipped and drove around in my first car a 1993 Plymouth Sundance (ah…what a piece of shit). After skipping so many times I felt this feeling wash over me that I want to do something that didn’t involve getting a college degree. So, in April 2010 I dropped out and after a small fight with my mother I was told to get a full-time job instead of going to college. There was a small feeling of regret that stirred up inside me after that like what if I didn’t drop out or what if I went to Onondaga Community College for Multiplayer gaming (yes that was going to be my major, haha). About I believe a year or two went by and I was going to go back to college, but it was going to be HVCC except I wasn’t given any help to fill out forms or anything. I ended up not going because there was a form I didn’t get and send in time so that ended that pretty quick. After that happened I believed college wasn’t for me even if at holiday gatherings my family would try to egg me on and go back, but I never listened and I’m happy I didn’t because college isn’t for everyone.

Flash Forward to 2015

Let’s flash forward to 2015. This is the year that the turning point in my life started that I talked about earlier. I’ve talked about this turning point so many times. I will forever talk about it because it was something amazing that happened to me. So, if you’re unaware in November 2015 I became bored, but not just that regular amount of boredom. You know that feeling where you’re so bored nothing can fix it…yeah that bored. I was watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns on TV Land at 11 pm. I was not in the mood to play video games or just listen to music either I had such a huge feeling of boredom suffocate me. This problem was fixed by picking up my laptop and started looking through random documents of the 70 something amount of lyrics I wrote for the band I never had. Anyways, I was looking through all of those lyrics and a thought dawned on me and I remembered a story (my first story) I wrote for a project in 7th grade English which was about a mall security guard was trying to kill a group of kids for staying overnight and causing his life to be hectic. That story was re-released this year and you can find it here. This memory sparked a thought in my head that I always loved writing. So, I opened up a word document and started writing. I wrote and wrote and kept writing for hours. I didn’t sleep much for over the next month or so. Later I transformed that book into a graphic novel trilogy and multiple solo series a year later.

Choosing a Path

I didn’t write this to have you just read about a few highlights from my life. Within all these paragraphs there is something bigger. We all come to crossroads in life whether it is going to college or not, staying at a job or leaving it, etc. Choosing a path can be quite hard and hell you might fail a few times. I certainly did, but failure is just another step to success. All of the decisions I’ve made over this decade brought me to this moment. I chose to not go back to college after dropping out. I left multiple jobs after not being happy even though yes I needed money, but at the end of the day, it is about happiness. Don’t work behind a desk just because of some family member tells you that is the norm. I chose my path…I am pursuing becoming a major game-changer in the indie community with my company SeerNova Comics LLC. This path led me to find an awesome business partner and friend, a community of creators that want nothing, but to support one another as most of us have the same goals in the grand scheme of things. Finally, this path I chose is leading me to my ultimate goal…happiness. Though I’m not completely there yet I’m not hoping or wishing, but I am going to be working even harder than I worked in 2019 to get to my ultimate goal…my Northstar. You can’t wish upon a star or hope for things to happen you need to put in the work. That is what I am going to do. I know what I am working towards though, do you?