Service Animals - Ep. 1 - From the Ashes

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Hello and welcome to Service Animals. I'm your host, Christopher Connors. You can call me Chris. Thank you so much for tuning in. It's an honor to be here. So I wanna keep this short and sweet. Obviously it's the first episode, I'm super excited, but I don't want to believe or the point it's generally just a, Hey, what is the show about? Who am I what are my intentions and where are we going from here? To start the show is. For the service industry, by the service industry. The concept comes from when me and my friend shout out. Emma used to work at a steakhouse together in Wisconsin. And, every night after shift, she would just come over to the bar and have a big glass of red wine and just dish about, all the bullshit she saw that night, like guests and just everything, food the shit that went wrong, great tips, stuff like that. And the stories are just so funny and it just kept happening that I'm like, this is too good to not share with people and to not offer a space for other people to share their stories. So every week I'm gonna deliver the best industry news, advice and stories from every type of service. So this isn't limited to restaurants. I wanna hear from obviously bartenders and servers, but, flight attendants, hotel managers, concert bouncers, strippers, and your neighborhood barista. This is a space for letting loose and finally sharing those hilarious or horrible tales from a life spent dealing with the best and worst of humanity. Because in the end, that's all I really mean by the service industry, right? It's like anyone who deals with customers on a daily basis. But honestly, if you have a story that's related to your job that you think would be fitting for the types of stuff we talk about, I am so happy to hear it. Please feel free to chime in. Yeah, but the niche of the podcast will be from my industry, at least from my experience, specifically bartending. That's where I'm coming from. So with that said that's the concept. That's the general vibe, I'm trying to build a tribe with this. I think it matters to have a space where we can all talk about, all the experiences that previously I haven't heard a lot of spaces where people share honestly. And absolutely uncensored, obviously, Like as the host, I feel like I'm the one person who really can't be anonymous. And frankly, I don't want to be. But the point is to have guests on that. If you feel comfortable letting everyone know who you are and you have something to promote, like a project or something I'm happy to be a conduit for your art and your creativity as well. I. And obviously your stories, but rest assured, if you want to share something but you don't feel comfortable letting everyone know who you are the point is to accommodate that. I harken back to in college when I first got on Facebook, which dates me obviously. But there was this there's this little like plugin on the homepage that was called the Honesty Box. And I was real into it for a while, like freshman, sophomore year. I think I was just in it all the time chatting with what turned out to be wonderful women. A one in particular on, on campus that I was friends with. And we were just going back and forth and not knowing who the other was, but really being more honest in a way than I felt. People in college, obviously putting a mask on in general weren't as much it was just refreshing. And that's the kind of vibe I want to have here is just having a space where you'll know me and you'll get to know me better the more we go on together. But the point is to have a lot of different voices and a lot of different experiences color this whole thing. With that said, here are the ways you can get in touch and share your stories or perhaps be on the podcast. I'm happy to have you. You can call in at (720) 515-7218. That's 7 2 0 5 1 5 7 2 18. Or you can also email me at Service Animals roar@gmail.com. But yeah, call in right in. I really wanna hear from you. with that outta the way let's talk about me. So my name's Chris. Like I said, I'm 37. I've been doing service industry jobs for probably like 20 years of my life. I'd say if no, like what? Holy shit. When I was 14. Okay. Yeah, over 20 years. I've been a bartender for about 15 years but general service jobs for over 20. Both of my parents were bartenders back in their day. My dad bartended in ocean City, New Jersey, and my mom was down in Miami, Florida. And I grew up hearing about their experiences, obviously, and that led me to seeing the movie cocktail on VHS at probably way too young in age very impressionable on me because, I think I just saw the life of Tom Cruise in that movie and I was like if nothing else works out, I think that's the goal, right? He was reading poetry and having awesome sex with beautiful women and living in the most beautiful places on earth. And I'm like, this is probably okay. It's an okay life to choose. So that was the fantasy from a very early age, and I kept that in the back of my mind. But my first service industry job was Piggly Wiggly. At 14 I worked in the bakery. I got fired from that job when I, I went to go play Halo with my friends instead of working my first eight hour shift that they scheduled me. And technically I, when I got the job, I said I wasn't supposed to get any eight hour shifts and they said fine. But then they scheduled me for a full week of them and I'm like, I'm 14, I'm not doing this. It's the middle of the summer. So my dad was really pissed at me, but my mom let me do that, so that was amazing. Shout out divorce. But yeah so did that job and then after that I went to Dairy Queen for about three years. Worked there with my little sister. That was a great job. A lot of free ice cream, lot of unhealthy habits. You get the drift in college. I worked at a sandwich shop my freshman year. First semester and then my second semester, I was the youngest hire ever to the writing center my second semester freshman year. So that was really cool and that was probably the best service industry job I've had in a way because I really love working with words. My major was English Creative Writing in college. I got my bachelor's in that. But I also went to film school in London at the University of Westminster for a while. Did film studies and then I did a lot of philosophy. I really wanted to minor in it, but didn't, it just was short of the class requirement to do that by the end. So I loved all that experience. But working with words and helping people work on their words was really, pivotal for me, I think it let me know that I no matter what I did, whether it was writing a book or doing poetry or whatever, I didn't even picture doing a podcast ever, or making it a thing or trying to, but I knew I wanted to work with words and have that be a big part of my life. Here we are. After I graduated I graduated, yeah, like I said, with my bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. I came home from college. I became a barista. I was living with my mom at the time, small town, Wisconsin. Like you get the drift. It was like, middle of winter. I was pretty like just trying to, I walked 45 minutes on the snow to work like no shit there and back. And it was like rough. It's like Wisconsin snow. But yeah, I did that for a while and then after that job fell through, I. It was like, I don't have a plan, so I might as well pull that Tom Cruise life out of my pocket and see if I can make that fantasy happen. So I walked down a couple blocks from my mom's house. Her apartment there. And there was a tavern any Wisconsin tavern you can picture like old Polish, German guy ran it, his wife and daughter both worked there. They'd been working there for like their whole lives, that kind of thing. So they were relieved to have some kind of outsider working and being a part of the the bar there. That was my first bartending job. This bar owner was the kind of guy who made me do dude, honestly, I think I did 13 shots at Yager in one night, or maybe he did and I like tried to keep up, but like I lived so close and I walked there and back. So it was really like, not a problem getting a home or whatever, but it was the easiest job in the world. Just a bunch of regulars in a small town, drinking the same stuff every day, having the same conversations. Watching football, it was like eating bar nuts and and closing up took 10 minutes. So it was really incredible, like easy introduction to the life of bartending in general. Oh, okay. It's mostly this is family in a way. Every bar is its own tribe, especially with regulars. So I got that sense and I always enjoyed that, like building tribe with people and like having people. Come back to hang out with me. So yeah, after that I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. Finally gotten like probably the most pop in town in Wisconsin, obviously, but college town, a lot of bars a lot of drinking culture. A lot of just like culture in general. They have the best theaters there. I'd say besides Milwaukee, where I'm from but the best comedy club or one of the best in the world is there. I worked there for seven years. That was my favorite job ever, honestly. But, yeah, I I started working at like a college town birthday bar. I did like birthday announcements, like in the middle of service. After ringing a bell and getting everyone's attention. It was like, it's 150, 200 people in like the middle of Friday service. And you'd have to like, I. Say I, you'd have to read off everyone's birthdays and they'd all get like a free drink or whatever. So it was crazy. Anyway, so yeah, I worked at the comedy club for seven years. Had a bunch of experiences I'll get into sometime, but I appreciated and loved that job so much and everyone there. And then after that, I got a job at a steakhouse a wonderful steakhouse new the Capital Square. That was where I met Emma, my friend, who I initially wanted to start this podcast with, but will definitely be a guest on here. And was interactions with her that was the catalyst and the desire to do the show. But other places I worked in Madison, I worked at giant healthcare company. As a writer, you try trying to use my major, for a while. But after nine months, I hated it. They fired me. I was happy, and I went back to bartending immediately. Then yeah, I worked at a concert venue sushi joint farm to table, scratch kitchen, kind of fancy place. And then, yeah, that steakhouse was the last place I worked before COVID hit. So yeah when Covid hit my now ex-wife and I used the money we got from the, getting laid off from all of our jobs, obviously. And after living with her mom for a little bit, we had saved up enough and got an apartment out here in Denver and followed our dream and finally did it. And that was probably the happiest of, maybe the happiest I've ever been is just like finally, like I talked about it for so long, like wanting to get out of obviously you're not just your hometown, but if you're from the Midwest, you understand the winners there are so oppressive and overwhelming that it is literally. A personality changing experience to go through, right? You just so many people talk about like the seasonal affective disorder and like just being more sad for more of the year. And I didn't wanna live that life where I just didn't ever move outta state or I didn't ever figure out like what I could be elsewhere. Like I feel like hitting the jackpot of a comedy club job in the best city in Wisconsin and making wonderful friends and having all the experiences you can imagine from that. The only place to go is either starting a family or whatever, getting a job and then like your life follows a pretty traditional path. At least to me it felt that way. No, no offense to anyone who stays in their hometown. Obviously I love living close to family, but for me, I knew that I would never really discover like the more that I could be until I got outta there. 'cause your mindset needs to change, right? You really have to figure out like who you are at some point outside of your. Your comfort zone, whether that's your hometown or being around your family your whole life or whatever, or your friends that you grew up with. So yeah, I was really happy to move to Denver with her and we got married shortly after and that was incredible. I. And both worked at a comedy club out here and then I got fired from that. And that's a whole story I'll tell you sometime. But then I started working at the job I'm at now, which is just incredible. I'm super happy where I'm at. I feel like my skillset and my experience and my personality. And what I'm looking for in a place, and the quality of the food and the service and the, just, everyone there is just so on point and I'm just honored to work there. So I just shout out to that place, which I will always keep anonymous. Obviously any stories I tell about that place will probably be couched in language oh, at this old place I used to work. Yeah, be prepared for that audio cue. But no, I, I. Super respect everyone I work with and I want to keep everyone's identities and I want to tell real stories, but I obviously wanna be respectful of everyone and so anyway, you get it. So anyway that kinda leads to a segue. In the spirit of. Honesty and being authentic, which I genuinely want this show to exude. I feel like I should share what I recently went through and what kinda led to the creation of this show right now at this point in my life. I'd always thought of oh, I'll write a book, or someday I'll feel passionate enough about something to really focus on it. But like it never really kicked off. I think I have used relationships in a way, like not used, but like I feel like I've been in relationships and been comfortable enough to be like, this is good enough. Like this version of Chris is enough and. Being in love is enough or whatever. Loving this other person like that fulfills me enough where like I don't really have to achieve much more than that. I feel like I kinda reached that, that point in my life, and. It wasn't her fault or my fault or anything. I think you can fall into patterns with someone. I think you can fall into patterns of loving someone or being loved and getting addicted to that feeling, or just feeling like that is enough. And I wasn't really going after much and I think I gave up on myself in a lot of ways. I think I was enjoying myself for my twenties and thirties and doing the crazy bartender lifestyle that you imagine and I will definitely get into at some point. But at some point you gotta figure out like what you're really here for, and for me, I wasn't doing that and my marriage wasn't leading me to that guy, and I didn't really know until the end, but. My ex and I were trying to have some kind of ethical, non-monogamous relationship for a long time. And it had its ups and downs and its amazing experiences and its horrific experiences. But I always wanted to try it and to be that kind of guy who's comfortable with a lifestyle that was. Tom Cruise, no. But that was, ethical and finding a path that wasn't so cloistered and constricting as obviously marriage can be and like the modern implementation of what that commitment is and how it's practice in our culture. I think we could do way better on, on giving people. A chance to be committed to each other, but in a more rational and ethical way than till death to his part or some religious ceremony in which you feel guilty if you ever don't feel into the marriage anymore. So I really wanted to avoid that. But anyway, my my ex was seeing this guy and she fell in love with him and left me shortly after and kinda lied to me for a long time about being happy and being in love and not being in love with the other guy. And I don't know what I was looking for. I wanted her to be happy, so I. Kind of tried to be comfortable with things that I really didn't trust her to make me comfortable on. And I kept getting that confirmed, for a long time. And, absolutely nothing but love for her. Honestly, like I always said that if. Anyone who was with me wanted to be with someone else, I wouldn't want them to stay with me. I wouldn't want them to just feel trapped in some way. That's why I never wanted to get married. I never wanted to have someone be with me for some vow they made or some paper they signed. I always wanted someone to be with me every day because they wanted to wake up next to me. You know, They wanted to experience things in their life with me because it made them the most happy. 'cause that's what love feels like to me, you know? Um. Uh, sorry, that got me. Yeah, honestly, that's the hardest part. Uh, That guy used to being alone. You know, I got used to, uh. whew. But uh, whenever I experienced something beautiful in my life now, I still wish I was uh, sharing it with her, you know? so that gets me. Um, And Anyway, that was last August, right? And immediately after we lived in a really nice apartment together and, um. I immediately had to like, start looking for my own place. Like she kinda went out of town for a while, so at least I had the space to myself to really figure out like what I was gonna do. And every day was a nightmare. And I kept, I went to about 30 to 40 apartment showings, honestly, in Denver. I'll admit where I live. 'cause I love it here and I'm gonna talk about it. But uh, you know, it was, it was horrific. I was just driving around and I would. Cry in the car and scream to nobody. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. You know? Um, uh, you see what I mean About being authentic? So yeah, it was the worst time of my life. I, I lost my wife and partner and best friend of eight years. And one fell swoop and had to kinda figure out my shit really fast. 'cause I was spiraling, it was the first time in my life that I'd ever really considered not being here anymore, and knew I had to reach out to family and friends to assuage that experience because it was pretty overwhelming. Uh, So yeah, I finally found an apartment. I moved out in my own place in October. But, you know, I was uh, I was still having all these thoughts. I was waking up and started weeping immediately. I hated being awake into the nightmare of my life. I was hating myself for what I did and didn't do. Obviously when something matters to you, you think about it incessantly and what you could have done or what you should have done and what you wish they would've done, and how there should be a chance there could be a chance for whatever. Anyone who's been through it knows if, you know, you know, I um, but yeah I had the option to move back home to Wisconsin and like I said, that felt like a death sentence to me, you know? I felt free out here. I felt like I'd finally made it. I, I was the guy who in my family had like traveled and gone, like my sisters both live in other states, so I'm not saying they didn't travel and had gone places, but for me it was just such a, anyway, it meant a lot to me and I didn't feel like I would be. A good person to be anymore if I went home, but I hated being here too, I was forcing myself to keep my job, I would drive to work every day and need to call my mom or my dad, or sisters or friends, or anyone that would answer honestly. Um, I genuinely couldn't stand being alone with myself and with my thoughts. I would cry in the car on the way to work. I would pull together at the last minute to get through my shift, and then I would get back in the car later on and just start crying again. It seemed uh, it seemed like the anguish would never stop. You know, I've had people in my life die, but it's been like grandparents, and not like they haven't mattered. They mattered a great deal, but when you lose like. your partner, you know, um, and, you know, we all have dated people and we've all, maybe some of us have been married multiple times. I have been married twice and this was the one that like, I really, I was an adult and, you know, as much as I thought I was or could be, like it was the one that really mattered to me. Um. So it changes you, you know, it feels like a death. It feels like she died and then it felt like I died with her. And being alone was such a new experience. It was uh, the first time I had ever lived on my own. I've always lived with other people or partners or girlfriends or whatever. And uh, I hated it. I hated every minute of it. There were some days I would come home and I knew I had to feed myself, but I would just collapse on my kitchen floor and just hold my sides and scream and just weep and, uh. this kind of culminated in something I wanna share. It's very personal, but I wanna be truthful and I wanna be honest about where I come from. Um, I had a day where I really thought I was gonna kill myself and uh, I was on the phone with my dad and I asked him if uh, he would be sad if I did. And uh, that was his. A call sign to do a wellness check call to the Denver police. of which five gentlemen showed up at my door to ask if I was okay, so to speak. I had two firearms. My wife ex-wife has her own sidearm and so do I. And um, I volunteered to give them up. I got in the squad car and I went to the er. I wanted meds. Nothing was working. My head was insane. I could barely, hang on. I just wanted help. You know, I'd never felt anything like this or done anything like this or needed anything like this. It was truly a new experience to feel that low and to have to know like you're not okay on your own and to need. So much help in a way I had never needed before. So I went from that to a 72 hour inpatient hold because of what I told the psychiatrist in the hospital. And I. I basically watched Trump get elected while on some pretty good medication for the experience. But I didn't get to vote and I just watched it happen from that inpatient facility, which was really nice actually. I was I was glad to be there and I think it helped, um. anyway after that for the first time in my life I got on antidepressants, anti-anxiety and sleeping pills. And I had never been on anything like them before. And they helped. I started feeling like I had a, a floor, like an actual floor to stand on emotionally, like psychologically instead of the bottomless pit of my endless self-flagellation and. Clear depression and thankfully not actuated on self-harm, but certainly pretty dark thoughts for a lot of the time. I was really glad it started to help and it really changed my judgment on them. To be honest, I judged people who used them a little bit for not dealing with their shit or for some. Stupid reason, feeling like they were a cheat code to feeling better. And it wasn't that at all. And I'm sorry I ever thought that it was just adding a floor. It was just a floor to stand on instead of falling every moment of my day anyway from there, I started feeling better. You know, Like I still missed her every day. And honestly, I do in a way every day. Um, Still haven't gone hiking without her since the last time we went. 'cause that's hard. That was our thing, or at least it was to me anyway. Sorry. But, uh. I started feeling better and the root of that was honestly just knowing that I came so close to not wanting to be here anymore, to literally going just, I am full in for gratitude. I'm full in for smelling the flowers on the way to work, which I still do. Just. Being grateful to have so much support to talk to the right people, to have people listen to me. As I said, horrible, unhealthy things about what I felt. And um, you know, it was hard. It was hard on a lot of, a lot of people. And I'm just so grateful for them. And that spawned this feeling of I feel like. I owe it to the people that showed up for me to do something with myself and my life and to actually care in a way that I had never cared before, that I needed to wake up to my own purpose and power and to be willing to do the work. To be the version of myself that could help the most people. And the overwhelming feeling that I got and the, just the happiness that I got is I kept opening myself back up to feeling okay and to just looking people in the eye again instead of, down and sad and to start laughing. Just sharing more with people and letting people share with me and not being so closed off. And I just kept noticing that life got better, every day got better and I stopped feeling so sad, and eventually I stopped crying every day. And I stopped thinking about her every day when I woke up. And the. The, this absolute terror that I felt coming home to an empty apartment at the beginning had transformed into something truly wonderful, like being able to live in my own space and to really own that and to make it my own space and to have to take full responsibility for absolutely everything that's out of place. Or, you know, if dishes don't get done or if whatever, you know, you don't sweep up, it's all on you, you know? So. I had never had that before. You know, I'd always like shared a kitchen with other roommates or whatever. But having my own space and like actually loving my apartment layout thankfully, like after all that searching, I genuinely found a place that like is pretty dope and has a balcony and a really cool kitchen and whatever. But I became like more and more aware. That by giving so much of myself to a person who had been pulling away from me for so long, and by stressing out and not being calm in myself, I'd been like, I'd just been stunted in a lot of ways. Like in some ways I feel like I learned more in the eight months since she broke up with me than I did in the eight years we were together. Not in every way, but like in some really serious, like I was a boy and now I feel like more like a man or ready to take on that kind of role. It's a complete mind shift. It's a, it's character development on the level of you. No, you might not be here anymore every day, and you accept that because you yourself, at certain days feel like you don't wanna be here anymore. But every day became not I don't want to be here. It became oh my God, I get to, I. I get to still talk to my mom. She's still around my dad. We have the best relationship we've ever had. That's fucking dope. How about some sisters that are amazing and have been there for you? Like I have friends I've reconnected with. Like everything I lost in the relationship with this one woman I gained in all the friendships in the family that I'd frankly been neglecting for a long time, I just feel like I've become such a different and better person, and I really wish I could have shown her the man that I am now, because I really do. I gen like, I, I'm so sad because I genuinely like love who she is. Like I was in love with who she was. I wasn't just trying to be married, I wasn't just trying to stay in a relationship for the, the comfort of it, you know? although there was definitely some of that. But no, I loved who she was and losing her, even just as a friend, like I was terrified of that. And that very thing happened. And anyway, it's something else to feel like you're dying to your old self because your old self truly was made up with them, if that makes sense. So, Yeah. I've never had to face myself. I've never really had to be like well, you're not just telling yourself a story about what you and her are gonna do, right? So who are you gonna be now? Are you gonna die? Are you gonna give up? Are you gonna move home? Are you gonna just bartend your whole life and, not grow or do anything? Do you even care about doing anything anymore? Like. And the world's so fucked up, right? I mean, All of us feel this kind of existential dread about what's whatever you want to pick about what's going on. And I feel like it's genuinely like in vogue to, to say that as evidenced by a white lotus wonderful show. But um, yeah, we all have our own thing where we're like, I don't really have to try that hard because, shit could end at any time. There could be that asteroid that NASA said was coming close to the earth in the coming years. There could be fucking the heat waves or a drought, or the food shortage or whatever, like war or famine. It's all possible, right? And only by feeling genuinely in my heart that I was ready to die. There were days I just. I was ready to go. And knowing what that feels like in coming out of that was a rebirth. It truly was. And knowing that it's not up to other people to fix things or to build your life, or to heal you, like everything that I had offset to my relationship, I suddenly had to own up to. My dad put it a good way. He said it's like there was a log in your life and it got lifted up and you now you're just the wriggling bugs underneath. That's you. I'm like, yeah, that's pretty much true. So I guess I'm saying all this just to say that like when I was going through all this, I really didn't think there were a lot of good male voices out there. And I kept looking and there's like a few, there's Matthew Hussey, he's wonderful. He's a relationship guy. There's Rachel Sloan. She was a wonderful divorce coach that I like watching on YouTube, but I found all these people, but I didn't really, I think I've, you know, all of us in a way expect the adults in the world to do the thing, right? It's like we just wanna relax, man, works hard. Shit sucks. Can we just chill out for a while and not have to fix everything? At least I felt that way for a while at various points in my life, you know? Um, but for the first time, after knowing what it feels like not to want to be here, I was like I have such a responsibility to help other men who feel this way. There is a dearth of male voices that I think are really helping men deal with issues that only men can understand. So that's. Obviously from the scope of all the things I just said. Part of this podcast is gonna be sharing the real shit of life. Not just talking about the service industry, but also going into other shit. Certain topics I wanna talk about. Here we go, UFOs. Let's get into it. Fucking uh, I love conspiracy theories actually. Um. You know, Psychedelics and other fun drugs and taking them and being honest about those experiences. Sexuality. How about we talk about it? How about we be honest about what this shit is like and what it's like to feel what we feel? I feel like even as an adult, I've been waiting for like, I. Adults around me, to be honest, in conversation in a way that's like, oh, now we're here, we're all a part of the older people's club. Or at least the adult club. Let's have the real conversations. And most of us spend most of our time fucking having bullshit conversations that don't affect anything and barely move the needle in anyone's life or feelings. At least that I just, I don't know. I feel that way. I see a lot of people, I hear a lot of conversations and it feels like a lot of people are just like. Keeping a certain rhythm of comfort going without actually engaging with the real meat of what it is to be alive anymore. And I'm tired of it, frankly, and I'm tired of waiting for other men to show up and talk about it. You know, The issues that matter to me. I'm tired of waiting for the people I really respect in the podcast space to. Have the same opinions as me. You know, Sometimes I know it happens for everyone. Like you're watching someone you really like and they just don't engage on a topic or they brush off something. Or when they're criticized, they don't accept it. And I'm tired of it, I want this show to be an absolute evolving conversation with me. I want to be corrected. I want to learn. I want to get better, I think it's important to have genuine goals and stop fucking around. Like we all have so much more of a responsibility than we are letting on, you know, I, I, I don't know do you want to die or do you want to honor your ancestors? Do you want to honor the people who had to work to get you where you are? It's a choice and it's a choice that I had to make, and I'm so happy I made the right choice. In some ways, I'm happier now than I've ever been. Like, I feel free, I feel so able and willing to step into the roles I need to in my life to be, open to meeting new people and even new women and dating again. Like, That's been crazy and, and uh, a whirlwind to get back into after so long. But like, you know, I, I think it's important that we all admit what's holding us back? And whether or not you love someone, if they're holding you back or if you know that you are holding them back from being their best self or living a life that would be more honoring who they are. I think that's something we all have to be honest about in our lives and really work to not waste people's time, especially people you love. 'cause I definitely felt like that happened to me, right? Okay. Like on that note yeah, thank you for listening to that. I hope that wasn't too personal, but I really want to make the vibe of the show, like we're not fucking around, like we're being honest about the real shit and in a way that I don't think most other podcasts or most other people really want to do. Someone has to be courageous enough to say what they really feel without fear of repercussions, because that's the only way that real change happens, right? Knowing that you may be crucified publicly for what your opinions are, but being willing to share them anyway and being willing to defend them. To the best of your ability when challenged and being willing to accept criticism and change your mind when necessary. This is the kind of thing that I think is very hard to find in the world, and if I'm someone who can do it and who can really feel comfortable stepping into that, I feel like it's important. I do, and I really do finally in my life, feel like, you know. I'm waking up to this, like I'm being called to do this in a, in as sappy a way as that sounds like. I don't care. Like something, something has to be important to you. Important enough to really work at every day because succeed or fail, it matters just to do it. And to me that was love. That was loving the women I've loved in my life. And finally, I think I've learned how to start loving myself. And that feels incredible. So here's your last call to action. Your first last call to action. Tell someone in your life that saved you in some way that you love and appreciate them and be sincere about it. Don't make it a joke. Don't make it something that you brush off or they brush off. Look someone in the eye that saved you and you know what that means to you. And tell them that you love them and thank them for that. And I have to do that right now. 'cause I wouldn't be here without these people. So, To my mom, to my dad my sisters Jess and Steph my friend Danielle, my friend, Gina, Emma and Stockton and Rob I love you all forever and you saved my life. Thank you. And I do this uh, to honor the effort that you put in in. Talking me off of all the ledges that I've ever been on with you, so from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. But yeah, I promise that this was just the introductory Act episode, obviously. I'm just going off the cuff and trying to be honest about, how honest I want this to be and the breadth of topics I wanna cover. But yeah, the general vibe next week and going forward is gonna be more guests. I don't want to do this by myself, but I will if I have to. I wanna stay consistent every week, no exceptions. But, I want to have way more guests on, and if you wanna be a guest, you can be. If you think someone in your life would enjoy this vibe and has their own stories to share, please spread the word. It would mean so much to me. And remember, you can reach me to be on the podcast or just leave a voicemail at 7 2 0 5 1 5 72 18. You can also email me at Service Animals roar@gmail.com. That's Service animals ROA r@gmail.com. But yeah, please leave feedback however you'd like. You know, I'm just getting started and I know I have a long way to go to make this show everything I know it can be. But with your help, I think we can do something really special together. But yeah. Alright. Thank you so much for listening. It's been an honor to be with you, and until next time. Stay wild my friends.