Matteo

I know what it’s like to feel lost in life.

You’ve been searching for the right path, the one that will finally lead you to the 
life you’ve always dreamed of living. If you’re anything like me you’ve begged,
pleaded and even tried to negotiate with The Universe.

“Show me what to do and I’ll do it. Please help me! I’m tired of struggling. I’m
tired of being tired. All I’m asking is for you to show me the right path so that I
can finally be happy. I know there’s more for my life, something greater. I don’t
know what to do or even what the next fucking step is to take!”

Sound familiar?

I’ve been there. In fact I spent twenty years of my life searching for that so called
“right path”, only to discover that I was never lost…and neither are you. I know
this may seem hard to believe, especially when you’re really going through it,
but there will come a moment in your life when you realize that there isn’t a right
or wrong path…there’s one path…YOUR path! Everything that has happened in
your life, everything that is happening in your life and everything that will ever
happen in you life is not happening TO you but FOR you.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life
that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

The plan I created for my life looks nothing like the life I’m living now. When I
was 14 years old I told myself and everyone around me that I was going to be a
world famous actor with fans all around the world. I would be super rich living in
a huge mansion, married to the love of my life. My life would be perfect without
a care in the world!

Cut to today: I’m 42, been single for the past 15 years, working two jobs as a bartender, my
bank account has been negative on more than one occasion, I rent a “charming”
studio apartment in West Hollywood, California that I share with my stubborn
yet lovable French Bulldog, Macchiato. I have 1,100 followers on Instagram, five
of whom I actually communicate with on a regular basis. Ohhh and my life isn’t
perfect…in case you didn’t pick up on that already.

Even though my life now is no where near where I thought my life would be at
this point, that’s okay. I love my life just the way it is. It’s taken many, many, many
years and a whole lot of therapy for me to be able to say that and actually mean
it. I spent too many years of my life angry, depressed, jealous, envious, hopeless,
filled with regret and on two occasions suicidal.

The reason why my life didn’t work out the way I planned was because that plan
wasn’t meant for me. I was living a life that was fighting against the life that was
waiting for me to live. I wanted to become an actor not because I loved the craft
but because I wanted to be rich and famous. Also because acting allowed me to
be someone different, it allowed me to escape reality.

Growing up gay, let me rephrase that, growing up HIDING being gay in a very
conservative town was hard… being gay in a conservative family was harder. I
didn’t have the support to be myself, I was conditioned to believe that the only
way someone could truly love me was if I changed who I was to meet their
perception of who they wanted me to be.

Everyday at school I was bullied or harassed in some way. From being called
faggot, queer, queen, pussy, homo to being pushed to the ground, to
getting beat up to being stabbed in the back with a pen by a classmate sitting
behind me. When the principle asked why he did it his response was “cuz he’s
gay, I don’t wanna catch AIDS.”

At home I wasn’t called those names but my family was very religious and being
gay or talking about anything gay related wasn’t accepted or tolerated. I spent
so many nights praying to God to not make me gay. I just wanted to be normal,
I just wanted to be like everyone else.

I joined the drama club my freshman year of high school and soon realized that
being up on stage allowed me to escape, even for a little while, the hell I was
living. Even though I could hear the name calling during my performances it
didn’t bother me. At that moment I wasn’t me, I was someone else. It was then
that I created the plan for my life. I knew at that moment the only way for my life
to mean anything was to become a famous actor and get as far away from that
place as possible.

Life had other plans.

Over the next twenty years I went through many painful experiences like drug
addiction, homelessness, sleeping in my car, crashing on friends couches, not
being able to keep a job, bankruptcy and even a few days in jail. I felt as if I had
veered so far off course that my life was meaningless. I hated who I was and the
life I was living. No matter how hard I tried it seemed like I could never catch a
break. I was living my life with the mentality of a victim as if The Universe/God/
Source/Spirit was against me, when in reality I was against myself.

I found the courage to break free of the victim way of thinking and started to
embrace life for what it is…a journey. I began taking better care of myself in all
aspects of my life, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I started to eat
healthier, I started exercising, I incorporated meditation into my daily self-care
routine. But the thing that helped me the most was replacing negative thoughts
with positive thoughts which in turn helped me to love who I was and who I was
becoming. This didn’t happen overnight and is still a daily process.

When I turned 35 I made the decision to pursue my dream of being an actor. So
I packed up my car and drove from Virginia to California. For the next few years I
pursued that dream. I took acting classes, went on auditions, did background
work in film and commercials and even had a co-starring role in a short film.

Then came Covid.

It was during this time when I realized that the dream I wanted for so long, the
dream that I was sure was mine, wasn’t what I wanted at all. I didn’t love going
on auditions, I didn’t love the process of having to develop a character, I didn’t love
the amount of time and effort it took to truly be an actor. There was a moment
of sadness coming to this realization. I spent most of my life telling myself that
this was it, this is what I needed in order to live the life of my dreams and here I
was at 39 years old watching that dream fall apart, again.

However, something was different this time. Instead of falling back into that dark
place of despair, hopelessness and depression where I would of been laying in
bed with a box of half eaten Cheez-It’s next to me telling myself the same old
negative stories in my head, I made a choice to let go of trying to control the
unfolding of my life and just allow it to happen. The day I decided to surrender
to The Universe, the day I decided to listen to my heart, to my inner guidance,
was the day my life changed for the better.

Write.

That was the word that came to me during one of my meditation sessions. When
people say “listen to that small still voice within you” I didn’t understand it until I
felt it. I tried “listening” but I was listening with my mind, I wasn’t feeling it with
my body. In that moment I made the decision to trust The Universe.

The first thing I wrote was a screenplay. I was so proud of myself for writing a
one hundred page script…but I still didn’t feel like this was the route for me. I
then began writing a novel but stopped about halfway through because
that too just didn’t feel like the right path at the moment. So I took a year away
from doing anything creative. Then one day while I was out running listening to
a podcast featuring the author of “Eat, Pray, Love”, Elizabeth Gilbert, she was
talking about following your curiosity instead of following your passion. It was as
if something inside of me just clicked, suddenly everything made sense. I looked
up at the clear blue sky, the openness of the world around me and knew in that
moment what my next step was.

This blog.

I’m more aware now than ever about why I went through everything in my life. All of the
struggle, the pain, the heartache, the disappointment. It was all meant for me to
go through so that I could become the best, highest, most authentic version of
myself. I choose to be happy. I CHOOSE to be happy. I choose to do what’s best
for me. I love being able to spread love and kindness to others and I hope in
return they will spread love and kindness to the people that enter their life. We
are all connected, we are all in this together.

Look, I don’t know where this blog is going to go. If it’s going to be successful or
if it’s just going to be a hobby. All I do know is that’s something I don’t need to
worry about. I’m no longer focused on the outcome, of how things will turn out.
I’m focused on just doing what makes me happy now. Now is all that we have.
The past is in the past. The future hasn’t arrived. Focus on being here and see
how the path is made clear.

I’m not saying that you should let go of your dreams and just accept all the shit
that’s happening in your life. What I am saying is you must be willing to accept
where you are in life if you ever want to get to where you want to be. When you
don’t accept where you are in life, what you’re ultimately doing is resisting and
therefore creating more of what you don’t want. No amount of wishing your life
were different will change anything…trust me. In order for you to move forward
you must let go of how you think your life should be unfolding and how you
think your life should be and just allow life to do it’s thing, you’re being taken
care of even if it doesn’t look that way.

You’re going to make it.