Part One: The Beginning

There's a lot I don't remember from when I was younger, repressed a lot of stuff, but there's one thing that I remember clear as day. Sitting at the bus stop in my friends car listening to One X by Three Days Grace. Listening to that album and seeing movies like Surfs Up with it's spectacular soundtrack that includes tracks from Dirty Heads, Incubus, Green Day, and others. Sugar Ray has Into Yesterday on there which is one of my favorite songs ever, but they also have Words To Me which was in Scooby-Doo. Another good movie I haven't seen in years is Firehouse Dog. That one featured the song Move Along by The All American Rejects or Alvin & Chipmunks with Follow Me Now by Jason Gleed. Can't write all this and not mention Linkin Park in the transformers movies. I can keep going, but I wont. Another constant memory is I was always writing music.

There was so many good movies growing up that just had some rocking soundtracks and my mom between all the Taylor Swift and Britney Spears there was some really good CDs stuffed away in there. My grandparents always listened to 97.7 which round here was the classics channel. My grandpa and I heard Other side by Red Hot Chili Peppers and fell in love with it. It's a classic one I do during Karaoke now. 

Part Two: High-school

So my sophomore year of high-school was an interesting one. I tried starting a band called "POWER OVER PAIN" which was going decent at first, I had a whole album typed up in my sticky notes, I had a guitarist, a drummer, and even backup vocalists. It was good for a few months but as Puddle Of Mudd said "After that, shit got sour." The guitarist went off to a mental institution for threatening suicide and for some reason everyone wanted to be the front man. Worst part is my old principle took my computer and deleted all of my notes and lyrics saying it was a waste of time. I almost caught a felony then with the thoughts that went through my head.

Great music then too, got huge playlists made up from around that time. I wanted to be a DJ and you can find one of them on a channel I no longer use. My Junior year though I went off to quasi-military academy where I learned more in six months than I ever did in the two years I was in high-school. I wrote more music there as well. Never really got anywhere with that, but I did get a $1,000 scholarship where as soon as I graduated I jumped into college at 17. I also dropped out of college at 17... Hopefully one day I go back. I got in a really bad breakup where it put me into a depression and I didn't care if I lived or not so I enlisted into the military.

Part Three: MEPS & Marriage

Back in December of 2018 when I was still 17 I decided to go to MEPS. For those who don't know what that is, it is the "Military Entrance Processing Station." Well I was really bad with cursing then when I was frustrated, who am I kidding? I still got it. Well they sent me to the waiting room and told me I could come back in two weeks because of it and that's where I met her. This blonde hair, blue eyed beauty sitting there because she didn't pass some of their tests. I forgot my charger block so my phone was about to die and that's how our conversation started. There was four of us and I haven't heard from the other two in years, but we made good memories that day. We played truth or dare and I don't know, it was like love at first sight. We started talking and when her shuttle took off, she called me and we talked her entire ride back home. We started dating and it went really well. Eventually I left my job, my family, and everything to live up by her. I was homeless and staying in my car, but it was worth it for her. Eventually moved in with her and a few months later she ended up pregnant. Condom and birth control, guess the universe wanted it to happen.

In March of 2020 we got married and in June our son was born. It was going good, we had a good relationship other than a few arguments here and there, but for a long time I felt as if something was wrong. In August of 2021 my brother passed away, that was such a bad month for me cause our son was taken right before that for a messy house I was black out drunk for most of that month which led to us conceiving our daughter. We got our son back within two months after proving we could do good. You know, maybe we moved too fast, pretty sure that's exactly what happened. We bounced around quite a bit though, eventually moved to Rantoul, where I became manager at domino's and out daughter was born. and bounced to Urbana, then to Macomb, but after moving to Macomb things got really complicated. I wasn't allowed to go to the bar, I wasn't allowed to even really go on walks, she got really controlling. We were fighting more too and eventually we moved from our trailer to a bigger house. 

Part Four: The Downfall Of Us All

We both started working at a warehouse through a temp service and after a month or so she was acting really weird. Turns out she fell for someone there. I was eventually let go and do to Illinois law, they didn't have to tell me why and right after that she moved him in. I had to sit there and watch them make out on my couch like I wasn't there. I felt invisible and we got into it really bad and that was finally it. We split November 2023 and I learned a valuable lesson. Love at first sight isn't real I guess and forever is a lie. She told me she thinks she pregnant and moved into a place with him in January of 2024 and took the kids. I found my own place a few towns away and that's when the next group of problems began.

My neighbor and I started talking and we starting dating and that started the first issue. She was mad because I moved on too fast. Girl wtf? You moved a man in before we even split! Whatever, then once again I moved too fast and the girl I was dating just decided she's staying with me now. Well she didn't like her so for two months she barley let me see my kids. Her boyfriend wouldn't even let me over when he wasn't there, one day I got to see them less than five minutes before they had me leave. The girl I was with though had problems of her own though too. I helped her get a job, she quit in two days, I started working a 12 hour fishing job, she yelled cause I was gone too long. I was hurt though, I wasn't ready to start dating again and I should've known better. I yelled a lot right back at her. She pinned me down one time and screamed in my face and I had some issues from back in high-school with that stuff, it wasn't a good situation. The biggest thing was she was jealous my kids got more attention than her at times and I had to cut it off then.

Part Five: Karma Is A Bitch

In March of 2024 the kids were taken from their mother by DCFS with reports of dog feces all over the house, on the kids toys, and even between their toes. Issue was though since we were still married that means I had to fight for them too even though my apartment passed the inspection. I moved back to my hometown and started working at my parents bar. Somehow on a bartenders salary I managed to buy my own property. I lived at my grandma's for a bit till I got proven fit enough to have unsupervised visits and they let me move in with my parents where the kids were so I can take care of them. Finally the court decided that she was unfit and all I had to do was get the divorced filed and a parent plan done and after I did then they gave me full custody.

Part Six: I'll Raise You Like A Phoenix

On St Patrick's Day our house caught on fire with a lot of work though we got a place completely renovated that we just recently moved into. It's awesome, the kids and I each got our own rooms. We have almost a whole city block of property too. I've been working on a solo project for a while now. I'm calling it Drowning In The Sky. I'll be making an EP where it's about my journey of mourning my relationship to where I am now and realizing I'm doing so much better in my life being single. I'm calling it POWER OVER PAIN. I guess I could never let go of that name. Since I'm finally moved in though I can start getting the mics and stuff and start recording. It's been a stressful and painful experience, but I just kept moving forward. I kept working on being a better me and though sometimes I know there's still some things I gotta work on mentally, I'm proud of myself. Out of the ashes new life will rise.