A year of so much growth and learning.

Learning who some people really are..learning that some relationships are not worth the time and others are. I learn I strive alone. Mentally a day hike alone is better than company. I also learned that I don’t have much figured out.

I am at a constant struggle on what I want to do. Struggle with wanting to write any more of these. I just ramble in these now. It’s 2am on 1/1/2022, I can’t sleep so I came into my office. I went to youtube and I started the first album that popped into my head. Manchester Orchestra’s Mean Everything to Nothing album. No matter where I am, how I feel, this album is always a great play.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the future, the past, and what I want. I get random urges where I know I am not meant to be where I am. I don’t feel at home in Joplin, Missouri. It’s a location that worked so well for both of our jobs. I go to NW Arkansas or Dallas and I feel more at home and I am in a hotel or air BnB. I mean, I have never been to NYC and I get the urge that one day I want to be there. I think that mostly comes from videos, vlogs, and movies of what NYC is but it is what it is.

On to my work. Wedding videos are very slow, sports photography stays a passion, as it’s ever evolving…just doesn’t pay well so. My full-time job is great, the place is awesome, the people are nice. No complaints there. I just feel like I want more in my overall work. Once I get into a box, I want to just break free.

Also, apologies to anyone that actually reads these horribly written blog posts. Writing isn’t my strong suit and I started this blog in hopes it would get better but ive gotten lazy and I feel like this is now more of a journal for me to look back on.

Here’s to a great 2022 with more travel… I hope.

This is probably the end of the blog. I am not motivated anymore to document in text. My motivation for most things are pretty low right now and that is on me. It’s time to make some changes and keeping this up or not won’t change anything. It’s time to get back into creating videos for my youtube and build my channel. I want to be more creative in many other areas and I’ve been slacking. Warzone, the game has taken over my life. Its been a blessing to have my friends in my ears talking and joking around so often and actually having a friend group but I plan too much of my time around the game. Addicted? Yes, 100%. Ive pushed too many things aside to play the game. On another note, I am about t finish up my 2021 wedding videos, one more to go and booking 2022. I have started to edit videos for a Fb Gamer and create thumbnails on occasion so that creative process has been fun for my creative side and staying busy.

Ill end it with goals for 2022 and maybe come back for an update if I achieve any. I am sure ill pop in a few times this year but won’t be writing as much as I have in the past.

Goas for 2022

-Book more weddings as a way to pay off my school loans and car loan.

-Build my youtube channel to 1,000 subs. Just broke 500 this month.

-Spend less time playing video games.

-Be More active. Im fat and 30, not a good combo.

-Get outside more.

-Buy less crap.

-Build friendships past social media.

Ill start with those and see how it goes. I have other personal goals but they don’t need to be in text for you.

If you have always read my blogs, I thank you. I started this as a way to vent and just get things out because I don’t talk much about things to people. I usually keep my problems in and try to be positive because I hate gossip and drama. I had enough in high school that I don’t need it now. If you’re new, thanks for coming. My website shows all of my work for the most part. I am on instagram, youtube, twitter. I post pretty often on all of them.

Have a great day, week, year and life.

Derek

This past year has given me some of the best of friends. Something that has not really been in my life since high school so 2009ish. I didn’t have the normal college life. Lived at home or drove to school and worked a full time job so making friends outside of class didn’t happen much. I had plenty in class but outside of the classroom it just wasn’t happening. Fast forward to 2020 and cov*d.

Working from home for a good 6 months gave me a lot of time to start some new hobbies. One hobby or addiction is Call of Duty : Warzone and the other is film photography. I got a new film camera and now shoot tons of film. At this time, I was doing wedding videos, where I worked with local photographers and that lead us to Warzone talk and playing and now I play with a group of friends multiple times a week and we all talk everyday. Friendship was built on the interest of a game. We play, we talk and have real friendships from a game. It’s unreal really but its a blessing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

That group splits off to multiple friendships where we can talk about each others specifics interests, whether that is gaming, photography, travel, food…whatever really. One friendship with another photographer has lead us to meeting up multiple times a week to talk about life and photography and often go shoot some film. This doesn’t even go into how much my brothers and I have become more than just brothers during this time. We play warzone weekly together, we catch up and talk and it’s given us a better relationship as friends and brothers. They might not see it but we used to be just brothers. Our friendship and brotherhood started to get stronger years ago when we all moved to Dodge City,Kansas but gaming allows us to talk and not just send tik toks or memes to eachother. Onward…

This story or post has so much information and detail left out but i know when I come back to my blog next year or 10 years down the road, I will see this and remember the friendships I had at this moment that I am beyond thankful for. The reason I write this is because for years, I have had friendship that just falter over time and I would put in time to stay in touch, meet up with them, try to make time to hang out and they’ve usually just ended with time. I said recently, I am done trying and putting time into friendships that are so one sided. I am mentally in a better place not trying to make those friendships work because I look at the recent ones that I have build and are maintained with a mutual effort from both sides.

End of my jumbled blog.