frayedlines

i wasn’t completely honest.

Posted on by princekurt

I made a decision to move across the world a couple of years ago. I was living in New York, and I met someone in the middle of this insane city. Someone who I fell in love with and wanted to follow to any part of world. I told my employer I was going and if they had a space for me in Asia I would love to continue my work there. I went online, found a ticket on Kayak, and I was on my way. I packed up every piece of clothing, all my momentoes, and all but two pairs of shoes…I left the cherry Nike’s and Doc’s for my roomies. I took the subway, to a bus, all the way to JFK. I told everyone I was going for work. I told some people it was for fashion. I told others it was for PR and interviews. But that wasn’t entirely true, it was mostly for love. It took a long time for me to really find someone that I felt this strongly for, so of course I had to go. Two years later I ended up in LA, and everything went to complete and utter shit. All the love and romance is done and over. In traditional Hollywood form, everything you could imagine from the movies happened. I won’t go into great detail today, but it was truly rough stuff. Movie stuff. Things that aren’t supposed to happen most certainly happened. And at the end of it all I ended up in Los Angeles with myself. I have been beating myself up trying to sort out all of the answers, but I realize that they aren’t going to fix anything. And I finally can see that I don’t need anything to be fixed other than myself. So, with that said I am doing just that, most of the time. To my friends who said not to go, I love you. I love that you told me those things to hopefully prevent me from what happened. To my family, I am sorry that I wasn’t ready to tell you the whole truth. To myself, you and me are going to be fine. I always thought it would get easier as I got older, but that is simply not the truth. So I am just going to keep learning and growing. It will all be magical and worth it by the time I figure it out. That is something I know is true. For anyone reading this who is questioning whether to risk it all or not. I hope that you do. I hope that you have the guts to jump. You will learn so much about yourself and people in this world if you do. It is scary and it can leave you completely on your own to fend for yourself. But it is worth all of it. Every last second of it.

waterford

Posted on by princekurt

I travel a lot. I have always traveled. When you travel as much as I do, you naturally meet new people all the time. The first question I usually get is, ‘Where are you from?’ I always answer, ‘I’m from Detroit.’ But the reality is that I’m not actually from downtown Detroit. I am from a little township in southeast Detroit that goes by the name of Waterford. It is roughly 35 square miles, population 74,166, and the area code is 248. I started off my first years in a two story family lake house with a large yard and giant oak tree. My father always wanted to build a new home on the property and so in the late 90’s we did and I moved all the way to next door. We lived on a lake which brought the majority of the entertainment to our house. Along with the bulk of our family and friends who wanted to get on the boat and cruise. And in the winter, when it froze we got to skate. My Dad and I would shovel the snow, mostly my Dad, and create a giant ice rink. We would setup a big spotlight and I would find the longest extension cords possible to plug in my Sony boombox and blast my music. I grew up in a pretty amazing place with such a beautiful family. It wasn’t always smooth sailing but at the end of the day I was able to be me all the time. My skating career was always my priority. With that as my main focus I wasn’t the best student. I was confident I was going to the Olympics of course and why would I need to be good at math if I was going to be an athlete? That is how I convinced myself that I was going to be just fine. Although my parents were not on the same page all the time. They instilled the strongest morals in me and I have never wavered on them either. I knew right and wrong in my bones at a young age. There is most certainly something to be said about coming from the Midwest. I have been traveling for many years now for various lines of work and I realize how damn lucky I am. How lucky I am to be from such a loving and supportive home. A home that was strong enough to raise me, nurture my dreams, and still be tough on the important things. My parents, my sister, my grandparents, my family, and my closest friends have built me. I am from Waterford, Michigan. That is my home and always will be.

anti valentines day

Posted on by princekurt

I know, I know it is so cliché to hate Valentine’s Day. But this has nothing to do with the faux holiday that I truly do not care much about. This year it was day I officially moved into my own apartment. Last year I was on a business trip for a conference in Paris. The most romantic city in the world and it also happened to be Valentine’s Day the week I was there. I had an incredible hotel room with the most beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower and I was very much in love. Things weren’t perfect, but Paris can fix about anything temporarily. This year, I woke up in Los Angeles alone. I then went to have a coffee and proceed to finish packing up what things I had left in my old apartment and move into my new place all aloneness. It was a very stark contrast from last year to say the least. I didn’t walk into a room filled with rose petals and tea, instead I plugged in an air mattress and filled an empty apartment with way too many clothes. I did not get dressed up and have a beautiful dinner, I did drink a few too many cocktails and did my best to not think about how I would go home and sleep by myself. Yes, I will be totally fine and this is the right thing for me at this point in my life. I am smart, I am funny, I tell myself constantly that I am a decent singer, I will be fine. I am fine. But there is no better day to truly feel like you are going to end up alone and with 12 cats in Topanga Canyon in some strange cliff side bungalow than this stupid day. Valentine’s Day 2015, you sucked hard. But I thank you for the struggle, I have always been good at being broken down and rebuilding myself completely. I guess I should also thank the Russian coaching from my childhood. I am ready to take on this next chapter. New home, same job, more traveling, and much more writing. Oh yes, much more writing. Maybe one of these days I will pickup on the whole grammar situation as well. Thank you Saint Valentine, thank you former Russian coaches, and thank you failed relationship.