THERE IS NO PHASE. THIS IS WHO I AM NOW.

“I didn’t change. I just stopped performing my own funeral.”

Yeah, I’m sad. Yeah, I’m angry.
I’m allergic to authority and I’ve got the scars to prove it.
Tell me to go left and I’ll veer right off a cliff just to spite you.

People used to say I was “going through something.”
A phase.
Like it was temporary. Like I’d shed this skin when I got a little older, settled down, stopped bleeding.

Well, I’m 42 now.
I’ve been like this longer than I haven’t.
And if this is a phase, it’s outlasted most marriages, religions, and start-up companies.

This isn’t a fucking phase.
This is who I am.

I’ve made peace with it.
I’ve turned my liability into jet fuel.
I’ve weaponized the part of me that used to get me sent to the hallway or ghosted by “concerned friends.”

Because here’s the truth they won’t put on your vision board:
To have light, you must be forged in darkness.

There’s a theory that the total mass of the universe is zero—
That all the matter is perfectly counterbalanced by antimatter.

That means everything that exists is only here because it’s paid for in pain.

So yeah.
My joy costs something.
My talent costs something.
My laughter is expensive and my love is laced with a history that would buckle your knees.

But I’m still here.
And I’m not sorry.

I’m the guy who’s done the math.
The guy who knows the cost of being alive and pays it in full.
The guy who feels everything and still shows up.

You don’t have to understand me.
You don’t have to like me.
But you will not outwork me, outbleed me, or outlast me.

Because I stopped trying to be good.
And started trying to be real.

There is no “other side” I’m trying to get to.
There’s just this moment. This version. This me.

And this time, I’m not moving.