This is a very personal blog entry, so if that’s not your thing, then skip it and don’t read it.  However, if you would like more insight into my life, then read on.

One of the best moments of my life was in January of 2015.  My brother married his partner of 8 years in NC.  I attended the ceremony and I will never forget it.  I have been a huge equal rights supporter for awhile now, and when gay marriage became legal in NC it was a very huge victory for all LGBTQ people.  Last year I even got a tattoo of the equal rights symbol on my left wrist (you can see it in videos)

One of the worst moments of my life happened last summer.  My brother in law, JP, who was 31 years old suffered a series of strokes.  It left him handicapped, disabled, unable to walk or talk.  Before this happened, he lived a healthy life and had zero problems other than being diabetic, which he had been since he was a kid.  This left my whole family devastated, and his too.  Every test you can imagine was done to try to figure out what caused a healthy individual to have so many strokes, including a brain biopsy.  We never got an answer as to why this happened.   He was in the hospital for weeks, before my brother who is a nurse finally decided it was time to bring JP home instead of being in the hospital another day.

My brother cleared out his kitchen, ordered a hospital bed, a hoyer lift, and did everything he could to make JP as comfortable as possible at home.  My brother had been out of work for weeks at this point, and his job was in jeopardy.  Now that JP was home, and my brother had to go back to work, someone had to take care of JP during the day.  He qualified for a CNA to come for a few hours a week to help take care of him, but since JP was diabetic, a CNA couldn’t administer his blood sugar tests, etc.  This pretty much rendered a CNA useless.  The family got together and made an online volunteer calendar.

I am sure a lot of you noticed the latter half of last year, I didn’t make any new videos for quite a few months.  I wasn’t around much.  This was because I was taking care of JP 3-4 days a week.  It was emotionally draining, as well as physically for me.  Seeing someone who you use to go out drinking with, had so many memories with, be in such condition, wasn’t easy.  I had to do everything you could imagine, from feeding JP to changing his diaper while I took care of him.  I also tried to help my brother out the best I could,  I would do laundry, vacuum, etc while JP was resting or asleep so that when my brother came home from work he didn’t have to worry about stuff like that.

It was a very long few months.  At first, JP started to get a little better.  He would laugh if you cracked a joke.  He was able to use two fingers to hold a  spoon, but you still had to move his arm to his  mouth.  He would give me the death stare when one of his therapists(who had the most annoying high pitched voice I have ever heard in my life) showed up every few days for rehabilitation, he did NOT like her at all! lol! But eventually, things went downhill, the progress he had gained vanished, and he lost the sparkle in his eyes.

It was around this time that I had reached a crucial point in my life.  If this happened to him, it could happen to me at any point.  Something could happen to me tomorrow for all I knew.  I knew I wasn’t happy living in NC.  I grew up in a very small southern country town, and still lived there. I never fit in there. I knew what I had to do, and immediately put my house on the market for sale and started looking at apartments in Colorado.  My house sold the 2nd day it was on the market, and by the time my birthday/christmas rolled around, I had to start packing my house up and prepare for the move.

JPs health started to drastically decline, and we knew he didn’t have much longer to live.  I had this deep sinking feeling that as soon as I left for Colorado, JP was going to pass away.  I left NC for CO, where I knew zero people.  It was a very long drive across the USA with my 2 dogs.  4 days after I arrived in CO,  JP passed away.  That feeling in my gut was right all along.  I was not able to attend JPs funeral, because I had just arrived in CO and didn’t have a pet sitter here to stay with my dogs.  It was a terrible feeling, being in a completely different state, not knowing anyone, and going through this alone.  I have had deaths in my family before, but JPs affected me differently as I was very close with him.  To this day, I still struggle with what happened.

This is the last two photos I have of me and JP together

Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.  You only have one life.  If you aren’t happy, it’s time to change things so you can be happy.  Just because someone appears like everything is perfect, it could be far from perfect.  You never know what people are secretly going through in their life, especially with the industry that I am in, most personal stuff isn’t divulged.  I try to keep most personal stuff out of my work, but I felt this was something I needed to share.  Sex workers/adult industry people are just that, PEOPLE.  Human beings.  Things happen.

Mental illness/disorders are real.  Depression is real.  Anxiety is real.  I have experienced both.  Never feel like you are the only one suffering, because others suffer silently too.

This is the last photo I took of JP last year, on one of the days I was taking care of him, and it’s heartbreaking.