My Air Guitar Story: Epilogue

Below is the conclusion of a previous 8/29/19 entry

I returned home from Nashville, with Championship Belt in tow. I hadn’t fully processed everything that happened, and what it meant to me, because I had less than 2 weeks to prepare for the Air Guitar World Championships in Finland.

3 days prior to departure, I was informed my job would not be there when I returned, as I was laid off. They gave me a nice letter that said It’s not you it’s the business climate, in so many words. It still stung.
"Screw it," I thought. "I'll figure all this out when I get back, but whatever happens, I'm going to work for myself.”

The trip to Finland was like the previous times I’d gone, with one exception:
Since I was there representing the USA, I wasn’t entered as a Wildcard this time, meaning that I was free to watch the always entertaining and exciting Darkhorse competition and cheer on my friends.

I watched Alex "The Ginja Assassin" Roberts of Australia give the greatest performance I'd seen in several years. It was an innovative and robotic pop n lock inspired routine. He was clearly the best in the room that night. His performance pushed me to wake up early and practice hard the next morning.
When the show was over, he was the first person to hug and congratulate me.

After returning home, there was a very exciting couple weeks of interviews and appearances for a lot of different programs, which I had a lot of fun with, and then. . . there was the not-so-fun part of deciding what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It's important to not forget about details such as these.

I decided to re-dedicate myself to voice acting, which was a promising career I had allowed to become a hobby 2 years ago while I clung to a more predictable and steady (albeit unfulfilling) full time job.
The pain of not changing hadn’t surpassed the perceived pain of change. But now, I was ready.

I also called a friend to finish a conversation from earlier in the year about a business endeavor, which we will formally roll out in Jan. For now, I will just be annoying and say it’s great, but I can’t tell you what.

2019: Year in Review (told by photographs of a young Asian woman.)

January

In January, my father died. He had been diagnosed with cancer a few months earlier, and it ran its course very quickly. My sister and I got through it with the help of each other, our mother, some close friends and the rest of our family. I retreated from most things/people for a few months. I had already closed down all my social media, which made it pretty easy. I spent a lot of time thinking about him, his legacy, my own mortality, goals I wanted to accomplish, and other things I’ve not yet seen or done.

August

In August, I accomplished my goal of being The Nation’s best air guitarist. My mom, sister, girlfriend, and several cousins were all there to share it. All my closest family, except. . . yeah.

Later that month. . .

10 days later I lost my job. I didn’t love this job, but I loved it more than having to worry about employment. That’s a good problem to have, but it’s a problem, nonetheless. This was a great service from The Universe, acknowledging where I am not supposed to be, and giving me a nudge to pursue my own dreams.
It would take me a few weeks to see that, and really accept it, however.

September-Dec

I reached the height of my air guitar career, launched my voice over business. Started making a little money from it, started another business, and started to think “Hey, maybe I won’t starve after all”.

This is the part where I'm tempted to share some lesson, but there are plenty of more inspiring sources for that sort of thing.
Instead I will share a video that I hope will entertain you, and thank you for reading this far.