November13
Today marks my first blog post to this website. As I was going to type up this post, SquareSpace had provided a paragraph that states,
“It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.”
In the past, I have had an issue with overthinking and a constant urge to make sure that everything that I do is perfect, and if isn’t perfect than it isn’t good. However, I became aware of the fact that this has not been super beneficial for me and honestly has caused more harm than good in my life.
That being said, I have recently been trying to accept things for the way that they are and to do my best no matter what. Because if I am performing the best to my ability, then why the h*ck does perfect even matter, ya know? Or that’s at least what I’m trying to tell to tell myself hehe.
People that are close to me have always said that I’m way too hard on myself. I have high standards for what I am capable of doing and have a tendency to beat myself up when I find myself in circumstances where I am not living up to my potential.
I’m not sure where this stems from. But maybe we will figure that out along this journey of Tampa So Far.
Tampa So Far has been an idea of mine for quite some time, but I didn’t quite know how I wanted it to come to fruition. Then this past weekend, I was supposed to go to EDC Orlando, but I didn’t have the funds to go. So I told myself that I need to make this weekend memorable one way or another. However, I didn’t want to leave my house so I had to get creative.
Then I came across a youtube video where someone had mentioned that everyone should have their own personal website. And that’s when it dawned on me, “Hey, why don’t I make Tampa So Far into a website and use it as a personal blog for me to document my life.” Which I am very excited to do because this chapter in my life I am really putting myself first and taking action to work towards the things that I want in life.
I have always talked about making videos, making art, making music, etc. And have yet found a way to intertwine everything. I’m a very creative person and I want to live a life where I can just create shit. Because to be completely honest, there ain’t shit else to do besides creating the life that I’ve desired for so long.
When I was born, I was born in a small town in Michigan known as Bay City. My first few years of life I had lived in a trailer park right off the bay. Then my family and I had moved to Rockford, IL when I was five years old.
My parents were 19 and 20 when they had me. My mother hadn’t found out that she was pregnant with me until six months into her pregnancy. Which meant that they didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for a whole ass child. Typically pregnancies last around 9 months, but I was so eager to get out of my momma’s belly that I decided to come out a month earlier on September 18th, 1995. Which was on a Monday. So just like the day that I came onto this earth, my blog started on a Monday as well. Cute, right?
I tend to find meaning in everything. So the fact that I was born on a Monday and this blog had started on a Monday, I’m like geeking right now.
Anyways, with my parents only having a few months to prepare for me, they had to put their brains together and put that shit in sport-mode to figure out what to do with their newly born son.
My parents were both middle class folks, but more on the lower side of the middle class. So growing up, we dealt with many financial struggles. However, my parents did an amazing job at making sure that we had our basic needs taken care of and were always showering us with love. My dad worked often to help keep his family of five alive and healthy, which meant that we didn’t see him a whole lot growing up. Although he always made sure to let us know that he loved us and that when he was gone, he was working for us.
I say all of this because my entire life, I have been in the lower middle class. Many of my life struggles have stemmed from the fact that we often lacked financial stability. Even now that I am 28, I have not learned my lessons and am a broke ass bitch (temporarily). But that’s the whole point of documenting all of this now.
I have always wanted financial freedom, but then again, who the fuck hasn’t? For so long, it’s been something that I have desired and despite my efforts, I have not be able to obtain it. I believe that part of the reason I have not been able to obtain financial freedom is because I have been hyper focused on just the money.
Money money money has always been on my mind, which I’m sure is one of the main reasons why I have never had a significant amount of it.
But today I have learned my lesson that it’s really up to me to figure out how to get out of this financial hole. A few months ago, my car (my sweet 2015 White Ford Escape) had to get a new whole ass Turbo Boost. Do I know what that means? Nope, but the shop told me that if I didn’t get it fixed, it was going to cause hella issues with my car. So I had that and a few other things done to it, which equaled out to around $2,500. I didn’t read the fine print in the loan and the service guy at the shop told me that I should try and pay the loan off in three months, or the interest sky rockets. At the time, I was just like, “Yeah whatever, it’s a loan and I need to get my car fixed right now so fuck it, I will figure it out later.”
So about a month ago, my car broke down in the middle of an intersection in Downtown St. Pete. Prior to breaking down, I was stuck in a parking garage for 45 minutes because the card readers were not reading anyone’s cards. So after dealing with that, I was so excited to go home and as I got a couple blocks away from the parking garage, BOOM. My car broke down in the middle of the intersection.
It was on a Friday night and all of the people were out in St. Pete. The drunks, the gays, the frat guys, the girls, literally everybody and their mom. People kept honking at me and giving me the finger because I was in the middle of the road. People were getting pissed and telling me to move which I thought was hilarious because who in their right mind would just be chilling in the middle of the intersection BY CHOICE?!?
I kept my cool though, I was more stressed about a cop showing up because my tags on my license plate are two years expired (lmao). Every time I have gone to pay for it, something comes up. But maybe this is the universe telling me to just pay the damn thing and figure out the rest. I imagine that I’ll feel less anxious in general because I often get anxious when I drive because any time a cop is behind me, I feel like I am in the middle of the ocean and a great white shark is swimming next to me. What an adrenaline rush, am I right? Hehe, okay but seriously it’s such an unsettling feeling. I can’t complain too much though because this is my OWN doing.
As I was waiting for the tow truck to arrive, my phone was at 3% because I was working on Onlyfans stuff that day which took a lot out on my battery. So I had to get the car get towed to my best friend and her husband’s place in Clearwater because that was much closer than Riverview.
As I was waiting for the tow truck to get there, I remember looking up at the sky and all of the stress went away. How could I be mad when it was beautiful night? It was in the low 70s which is BEAUTIFUL weather here in Florida, and the moon was well lit, hell, I think it might have been full honestly.
It was in that moment that I realized that things could have been worse. I could have gotten into an accident, someone could try and rob me or fight my gay ass for being in the middle of the intersection, but everything was fine.
Pedestrians kept coming up to me and asking if I was okay and needed my car needed to get jumped. I was really pleased with humanity that night, so many sweet people.
While staring up at the moon, I also had the realization that I manifest a lot of things that happen to me. Or I expect a certain outcome to happen, which is why I have continued this endless cycle of getting myself into a situation.
Meaning that, I could be stressed about it, but why let that ruin the beautiful night if it hadn’t happened yet. So even though I was in the middle of the intersection, my car was broken down, and if a were to cop pull me over (which I could have either gotten ticketed and/or arrested for my plates)… I was chilling because ya know what? At least I am alive. And I am experiencing life. Without these lows, how could I enjoy my highs?
Plus, I genuinely believe that everything happens for a reason. Every action has a cause and every cause has an action (idk if that makes sense, I’m a little high right now and it makes sense to me ok). Hehe, yeah but anyways, everything happens for a reason. So I spent all the money that I had to get my car towed to my best friend’s place, which was $250 btw. When I only had $230 in my account. So I had to have my sister venmo me money so I could just get the car TOWED to my friend’s place.
I should have had it towed to a shop but honestly I was so scared to get it towed there and then I didn’t have the money to fix it so it was just stuck at some random shop an hour away from my house. Plus my phone was at 3% so I couldn’t just look up some shops. All the juice I had left in my phone had to be carefully used.
So I had my sweet baby Ford Escape taken to my best friend’s place and we jumped it with some of their neighbor’s cables the following morning. Once it was jumped, I then drove it to the shop that I was familiar with in Brandon because it was closer to home and I already had a loan through them so I knew that I could do that again.
(By the way, I am sort of just typing and talking about what happened, so hopefully this all ties in to whatever the fuck I was talking about earlier. Okay, let’s move on).
But when I took it to the shop, the shop was closed since it was the weekend. And since I didn’t have any money on me, I told myself that I had to walk home.
My sister, dad, and some of my closest friends were trying to pay an Uber for me to get home, but my stubborn ass forced myself to walk all the way back home from the shop because ultimately, I had gotten myself into this mess. And I had to be the one to get myself out of it. Or else I am always going to be relying on someone else to help or save me when I get myself into a situation.
At the end of the day, it was my fault that I didn’t have any money. So since I had no money to get myself home, my ass was WALKING. And if we are going to get familiar with each other on here, then you should know one thing about me. And that is… if I gotta walk, I’MA MF WALK. I genuinely enjoy walking though, and plus usually driving is my outlet to get all my negative feelings out. So since I had no car and no money, this walk was my lesson and my therapy at the same time.
16 miles later, which took roughly like 4 hours I think, I had arrived home a new man.
As I was walking home, I pretended that I was back in the old ages when people would have to walk to the next town over to get supplies or whatever the fuck they was doing way back when.
I also imagined myself as a Pokémon trainer that had to get to the next town over to challenge the gym leader. So I was on a mf mission.
While walking, I found myself sort of spiraling and asking what the fuck was the meaning of life. I don’t have suicidal thoughts often, but in that moment, I really was trying to find a reason to live.
(Context though: when I took my car to the shop, this was a week before having to go on a trip back home for my best friend’s wedding. And I didn’t have the money for the trip, so I had opened a credit-line and requested like $700 to get home. They had initially approved me and then the following morning when my car was towed to my best friend’s place, I had received an email that they declined my offer. So then my broke ass was DOWN BAD).
So yeah, I was asking what the meaning of life was and was having thoughts about death. And as I literally asked out loud, “what’s the point?” I noticed something large moving in the pond that I was walking next to. And in a matter of milliseconds, all of my worries went away.
Why you may ask? WELL THERE WAS A FUCKING GATOR!! And it wasn’t just floating in the water, it was mf swimming!!!! This was my first time I have seen a wild gator up close and in action. This was the first wild gator that I have seen in my three years of living in Florida. And I fucking love gators. Gators are just modern day dinosaurs and they are just so cool. They are one of the main reasons I moved down to Florida. I would give them all of the besitos in the world if I could.
The gator slowly turned towards me and we sort of had a moment where we were just staring each other down. I couldn’t tell if it was about to charge or if it was just thinking about eating this peach. But I was willing to stand around for a few and find out.
We stared at each other for like a minute, which was one of the best minutes of my life. We were both just sharing the moment with each other, respectfully.
As I walked away from the pond, I started laughing because here I was, spiraling, literally freaking out and asking the universe what the fuck life is even about and then BAM, the universe was like, “Yo, are you dumb? Take a look at this sick ass gator. This is the meaning of life.” Aka yeah, it’s just about enjoying the little things even when major shit is hitting the fan. Cute, right?
Later that week my car got fixed and I took out another loan to cover the costs of it getting fixed. However, this time around, I ended up checking the fine print of the other loan, and it turned out that if I didn’t pay it within 100 days, then my loan was going to jump from $2,500 to $5,458. YOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!! So then I was just like, “How the fuck am I going to make this happen?! I can’t even pay off my six maxed out credit cards. How am I gonna do this? Like BFR.”
Which I am happy to tell you that today, November 13th, was the day that I had to pay the $2,500 (the original cost was, or I was going to owe another $3,000 over time basically). And I WAS ABLE TO PAY IT OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!
A few weeks ago, I was back in Rockford for my best friend’s wedding and to visit family. While I was there, my family found out that my sister and I were struggling with a lot with bills right now. So they lended me some money to put towards my loan and pay it off.
BUT needless to say, I literally did not have the money until today. And the only reason I was able to get it today was because my company is transitioning owners and they had forgotten to put me in their new payroll, so they had to cut me my check for this week and a check for my vacation pay while I was in Rockford. I deposited the checks Friday and they went into the account today. Ain’t that crazy?
Then also, when I picked up my car, the service guy that was helping me out was making a lot of eye contact with me and asking me a lot of personal questions. I was excited because I thought he was flirting with me and was interested, but turned out he had a wife and kids and wanted to introduce me to this company called Amway??
We have gotten together a few times and I really enjoy their company but I don’t know how I feel about Amway yet, plus I don’t even have money to spend right now to do it. So I have had a lot of self-doubts when it comes to that.
But then again, something keeps telling me to have an open heart and open mind.
I ended up getting coffee with him and his wife to get to know each other at a local Starbucks. During that meeting they referred a book for me to read before we even think about doing business together. And that book was The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. This book honestly changed my perspective on so many things and I think unlocked something in my brain that I have been trying to unlock for so long.
When it has come to all of my creative ideas, I have always been thinking about money money money. I always had the thought of, “I can’t do these things if I don’t have money, I need money, I can’t do anything if I don’t have no damn money.” Which has really slowed down my process on getting this wheel going.
In this book they taught Five Major Laws To Stratospheric Success. Which were the following:
“1. The Law of Value- your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
2. The Law of Compensation- your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.
3. The Law of Influence- your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first.
4. The Law of Authenticity- the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
5. The Law of Receptivity- the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.”
And these laws I swear changed my life. Because if I am going to learn how to create the life that I want to live, I need to learn how to give to others.
While reading this book, I went to Sunday Service at First Unity Spiritual Campus in St. Pete. I donated $20 which doesn’t seem like a lot, but when that was literally 20% of my income, it meant a lot to me, and I was happy to do it, which made me happy because those are the best gifts. When you genuinely want to gift whatever it is that you are giving.
And since then, I put my two weeks at my professional job that has been sucking the life out of me, and got hired at a new restaurant that is opening up that’s like 5 minutes from my house. I’m so excited. Now that I won’t have to focus on my job even when I’m not working, I will be able to effectively use that brain power to put towards things like this.
My goal with this blog is to just document my life. If others stumble across it, I hope my story and my journey helps those along the way. Life can be difficult, but life is also a beautiful thing and it’s important to focus on that. There’s always a little good in the bad, and there’s always a little bad in the good. Idk if that applies but I’m gonna leave that in there because it feels right, hehe.
Anyways, if you are reading this, thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog. I hope it made you smile a couple times and maybe you could relate to something.
Much love to ya, I’ll see you on the flip side.
Love always, Kyrin.
