The Leap at 46
The world has stopped.
Streets are empty, the news is nothing but numbers. Out there, it’s an apocalyptic movie; in here, it’s just me and my six-year-old daughter in an empty apartment. Divorce papers still fresh on the table, a stack of legal ash where love used to be. The silence doesn’t comfort—it interrogates.
Mere months ago it felt like we were heading in the right direction. I was acing my game design master’s degree at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Money wasn’t overflowing, but it wasn’t scarce either. I had what most men dream of: a loyal wife, a beautiful little daughter, and I was three months away from finishing my master’s degree at the top of my class.
“What the flying fck happened here? It was only months ago.“
The morning thickness hits hard in this new life. By day I log into my “career,” but it’s less a job and more a Google Meet coffin. Endless PowerPoints. Fake smiles. Slogans that mean nothing to anyone, least of all me. Corporate creativity: as authentic as a plastic ashtray. I was never meant to dedicate my life to this charade. So what the hell happened?
That question bounces around these walls like a drunk moth. I try not to play the blame game, but some nights the game plays me. The truth? I didn’t choose this path. It was handed to me, dressed up as guidance, wrapped in logic I thought I could trust. “It’s for your good.” My personality, my skills, my future ignored. And I bought it. Hook, line, and noose.
I grew up being told I was a disaster. You hear something enough, you start to believe it. So when the moment came to choose a career, I didn’t choose at all. I knew my choice was out of the question. So I let others “help” me.
And help they did—straight into decades of absurdity. A game designer and musician running loose in the corporate world? LTFOL. Come on man—half a brain would know better.
Now, decades later, I’m still sweeping up the debris.
And yet… something stirs inside. (read with Raziel’s voice).
Like a cigarette ember glowing in the dark, refusing to die out. It begs me to look closer. I always wanted to create worlds people could play in, and write the soundtracks to those worlds. Nights I’d lie awake with excitement at the thought of what I could build—only to fall asleep reminded that I wasn’t allowed to call my own shots. My dream career denied, again and again. Unless I rebelled.
What if I actually tried?
What if I took this silence, this fear, this pandemic-shaped void, and turned it into a beginning?
“I’m terrified.“
I’m terrified. No roadmap, no clue where to start. I’m 46—too late to begin, too early to quit. It feels insane to step off the curb now, with the whole world shut down. But the thought won’t leave me. It stalks me in the night, rattles me awake at 2 AM, pounding like a war drum: this is your only chance! (read with Splinter’s voice).
Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe the world will laugh. But better to stumble into the unknown than to keep pretending I belong in a suit of someone else’s making.
So here it is. A decision, scratched down in the dark of a global pandemic: I’m going after it. Game design. Music production. Better to try and leave the tree than to rot away stuck to a branch…..(that’s actually me now)