Hey gang! I hope you've had a wonderful week. Happy Friday! I hope you're looking forward to the weekend. I know that I sure as hell am! 


First of all, this is not permanent. I bleached my hair because I'm putting in a pretty vibrant color this weekend, and I'm hoping this will help it take a little more. Jokes and teasing is completely welcome! So with that said... 


I first wanted to address the issue with my brother. For those who may not have seen, my brother's been in critical care since September 7 with massive internal bleeding. He's undergone several exploratory surgeries, as well as repair surgeries, open incision, you know, surgery for his stomach and all kinds of stuff. But, we're seeing little bitty, little bitty, little bitty improvements! Baby, baby, baby steps and so we are cautiously hopeful, but - good news is still good news, right? So I'm celebrating these tiny little wins. From my family to all of you, I want to thank you so much for all the love and support, the prayers, the healing energy, the positive vibes, lighting candles, sending your support. Those of you that have offered to help and reached out to me and the rest of my family - we absolutely love you and we thank you so much and if you wouldn't mind to keep the prayers and the thoughts and, you know, everything coming, my brother could really use them. So, that would be great. 


So that brings me to my question. How do you deal with sharing good news during a not-so-good time? I'll repeat that. How do you feel when you think about or you want to or you're unsure about sharing good news during a time that isn't so good? Because here are my thoughts on this. A little bit of context here. I've been sitting on some… probably some of the biggest news of my life here lately! 


And I felt really strange when I thought about sharing it during the situation with my brother. My brother is in a hospital bed fighting for his life, and I'm struggling to figure out: do I want to share this good news or not? So of course, I chose not to. 


But now I'm looking back to times when I've had my own little personal situations where I have found out that I have another rare unicorn disease, that's going to cause me a lot of problems and make me have to basically teach my doctors what I have and how to take care of me. I've thought back to the times when I’ve had to have surgeries or I've lost someone very near and dear to me. And I remember one of the things that I sometimes encountered then was... sterility, if I can say that? 


And what I mean by that is when I can tell that people aren't really being themselves. And this can be offline or online, you know. Maybe they're not sharing as many memes as they typically do. Maybe they're not joking around with me with the typical jokes that we do, you know. And while I understand it to an extent, it just feels very sterile, it felt very strange. I want people to still continue on with their lives and feel okay to be themselves and to be able to have happy moments and to be able to celebrate each day in their life, even if I can’t do the same in that moment. 


So as I thought about that, I thought, you know, my brother and I are very much alike. And we're very much like our dads... our dad, sorry, we have one dad! We're the jokesters. We are always on when it comes to the "comedy". We're always playing around. We're always using humor to, you know, diffuse situations, to lighten up the mood, to cheer people up. But also to deal with the tough shit that comes along in life. Humor is like that all-purpose weapon and shield that we wield. Oh, that was a pretty cool rhyme. I'm going to have to start my rap career now. 


But... and I started thinking and I was like, you know another thing about my dad and my brother and myself, like we would give you the shirt off of our backs. Sometimes we go above and beyond to help others before we even help ourselves and that's just, obviously a genetic trait that we have. But thinking about that, I started thinking… My brother would want me to share this, you know. My brother would want people to still be able to find some happiness in every day. So that's what I've decided to do. 


I thought I would put this video out here first because I'm sure if you're like me, you've struggled with understanding how to deal with these types of situations, as well. So, I'm curious, if you'll comment below. Wait, let me be professional and be like "comment below". I'm so not professional, gang, like so not all. I'm not cool enough to be like really cool on video yet. 


But yeah, like, please comment below. Let me know how do you feel about this? How have you dealt with this in the past? Like... how do you feel about sharing good news when maybe you're going through a very rough patch in your life or someone very close to you is struggling through some hard times. 


Do you worry that you can't share your positive moments and your successes, your joys, your wins, because they're in a position where, you know, life is painful for them? I would really love to know how you all handle this, how you feel about this, how you've learned to deal with this because I have a feeling that if you're like me, this is something you've probably struggled with for quite some time and, you know, it's always a journey, you know, to be able to learn how to deal with these tricky situations. 


And I think it's helpful when we can share our lived experiences together and possibly give ideas to other folks who may struggle in knowing how to handle this in the best way that suits their needs. Because there's not a one-size-fits-all, of course. There's no guidebook out there that says, like, "this is how you need to be and this is how you don't need to be", you know... as much as some of the gatekeepers would like you to believe. There's no way to be able to handle these situations that is a one-size-fits-all. No, no, no.. no, no.  


So anyhow, much love everyone. Feel free to make fun of this hair. I could have waited 'til I dyed it to do this video but I was just kind of like, fuck it. This is who I am in this moment and I don't really give a shit. This is still me. 


So anyhow, much love everyone. Be nice, be cool. Tell the people that you care about that you care about them because if I've learned anything this week: life is very short. Our time is not guaranteed and I'm tearing up now. 


So, yeah. Much love to everyone. I appreciate all of you. Be a cool human. Bye!