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I am just a regular person who has gone through not so regular life events (I will get to that later). I am a caring son and brother, and the coolest uncle my nephews have according to them (I swear! They won't stop mentioning it!). I am a big-time geek. I enjoy retro video games, Star Wars, Pokémon, Zelda, Marvel, and horror films. I love going to the movie cinema on my free days. I love professional wrestling, and I also love sports. Yeah, geeks can be into sports too. I am a huge Boston sports fan; you can most definitely hate me for that. I am chill and outgoing, and there isn't much that I dislike.

I was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. I was raised by a single mother and two older sisters. My father was hardly ever present. Growing up, we had a hard time getting by. We did not have a car for more than half of my childhood. We had to walk or use public transport to get to places. Sometimes we had no money for food. Other times we had to live in a four wall "house" that was falling apart because my mother could not afford better living conditions for me and my sisters. Regardless, my mother still managed to keep us afloat no matter our circumstances.

I am a proud cancer survivor. I was able to gracefully beat Hodgkin's Lymphoma (not only once but two times). During those six years of a literal cancerous journey, I turned to drawing as a means of escaping that living nightmare. I always enjoyed drawing since I was a child, but this experience was what made me dive in deeper into art. I love to draw and make art on my spare time. Currently, most of it is fanart from my favorite anime and video games. It is by no means original work, but I am trying my best to move towards creating original fanart, and original art in general to expand on my creative self.

I am a first-generation American as well as a first-generation university student. I graduated community college with an associate's degree in drama, on May 2021, from South Texas College. I am currently a transfer student at the University of Texas at Austin. I am pursuing my first bachelor's degree in Theatre Playwriting and Directing. I have done many things within the theater world. I have set build, costume build, prop build, light run, sound run, run crew, grip, set design, sound design, and even stage managed a play. Jack of all trades if you will. I love it all. However, I am currently looking forward to becoming a playwright, screenwriter, and director.

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I took this photo on my way back to Austin from my winter break sometime on the first week of January 2022. This photo signifies my success in life through my whatever mindset. I never imagined being accepted into the University of Texas at Austin, but I applied anyways. It was also the only University I applied to after graduating community college, and told myself if I did not get in, I would shift my focus to professional wrestling instead. Whatever happens, happens.

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KINDNESS AND COMPASSION

My entire life has been a roller coaster. I have had good days, and I have had bad days. I have had good years, and I have had bad years. However, these personal experiences have allowed me to better understand others. I have learned fast and in a short amount of time how crucial being kind and compassionate towards others can be. A simple please and thank you will always go a long way, and so will acknowledging mistakes, apologizing, and fixing said mistakes. I have learned that it is especially important to be kind and considerate about other’s views and respect their feelings, ideas, opinions, and mindsets even if I do not agree with them. Being kind, compassionate, and respectful are all key ingredients towards genuine human connection.

I have lost valuable friendships due to a lack of these moral and social elements. I have made personal mistakes that have indirectly affected people I loved and cared about. However, I understand now that these loses are all teachable moments for my future. It is these experiences that make me want to become a better person. It is why I try to be more empathetic, compassionate, and kind to others. I have reaped what I sowed. However, I have the opportunity every day to change, and become a better me than I was yesterday and the year before.

There is nothing I respect more than someone who has a genuine, kind, and compassionate heart. People who are there for others at any given moment regardless of the circumstances. People who are selfless. People who put others first because they know they need help. People who go out of their way to help a brother out even when they are struggling to have ends meet in their own household. People that say, "Sorry, but I really can't right now", and figure a different solution for you regardless. If you have someone like that in your life, keep them and look after them the way they do with you. People like that are extremely rare. I want to be more like that.

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I took this photo when I was working for a show as part of Texas Southmost College Theater. I love going back and looking at this image every once in a while to remind myself to be the light in someone else's darkness. We are all going through things we do not like to speak about. Being the light instead of adding to someone's darkness is something that I personally think everyone should practice more whether it is in the form of a simple smile or just lending an ear.

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I AM NOT CARELESS; I AM CAREFREE.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate living a carefree lifestyle a lot more. With every experience and each new piece of art I create, I get a little more comfortable living in the moment. I get more comfortable worrying less about things. Both in my personal life and in my artistic life. It sounds strange, but sometime around the first month of this year (2022), I read a quote somewhere that said, “Thinking is the enemy of creativity”. While this does not always apply nor should anyone stand by this at one hundred percent, I still believe it has a certain semblance of truth to it. To be honest, this is how I have gotten most of my playwriting projects done. As such, I continue to strongly suggest to all creative minds to care a little less (in a healthy way). Not only has this been useful to me from an artistic perspective, but it has also been relevantly crucial towards my personal life.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I did not think too much of it. To a lot of people, getting the news that they have cancer comes as a negative shock accompanied by depression and sadness; not to me though. I kid you not, when my doctor gave me the news I simply said, “oh okay; thanks for confirming”. His face dropped; he was not sure how to react to my response, and even asked me if I was not scared to which I then replied, “nah, I already knew”. To this day, I am still not sure why I reacted in such a numb way, and it still boggles my mind how I went through that whole journey not really worrying about the situation. I am not sure why I cared so little, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that not caring was one of the main reasons I was able to persevere. Leaving things to God’s will and not worrying about things I cannot control has been one of the greatest assets I have come to possess. It is something I like to emphasize to others.

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PAIN EQUALS GROWTH

Throughout my life I have endured many pains. I have battled through cancer twice, I lost my already absent father when I was 14, I lost a sister to cancer, I lost a brother to cartels, and I have lost a handful of friends to different circumstances as well. These brutal life experiences happen to a lot of people, but for some reason I feel as if I have experienced more than the average person. I can write in detail about every bad situation I have experienced in my 27 years, but I will save that for another time. I would be lying if I said I am a happy person. I am not. I put on a mask every day to seem that way to others. Why? Because I do not want to project my miserableness onto others. I want to be that glimmer of hope someone may need on a bad day. A simple smile can go as far as to save someone’s life. If I can simply do that, then that’s enough.

One of my favorite experiences from college was that we had a section in a class in which we would all share our accessibility before we started. In this way, I learned how to be honest with the way I was feeling. It made me realize that having a sad or painful day was okay. This reminded me that I am strong, and that whatever I am going through will work itself out somehow. I think it is crucial for us to acknowledge the way we feel, process it, and then accept it for what it is. Pain, after all, teaches us how to live.

For someone who has lived for almost three decades, it is hard to deny that I would not be where I am at if I had not lived through a life of pain. I have seen every member of my family endure the harshest of pains, I have gone through various life-threatening events as well, and I somehow cannot seem to stay down. As such, these harsh situations have made me a far stronger human being. I used to believe having cancer was the worst thing that has happened to me, but the older I get, the more I realize it is the best thing that ever happened to me. Through cancer I met some of the most wonderful people, I discovered who I really am, and most importantly, I found my true purpose. I wouldn't be doing the things I am currently doing if it had not been for cancer. I am resilient because of my tribulations; sometimes, I even feel immortal.

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I created this logo as a part of my professional wrestling persona known as Phoenix Black. I created this logo to represent that the feelings of pain should be omitted, and to instead embrace pain as a source for motivation.

Unfortunately, my wrestling debut as Phoenix Black never took flight due to physical complications in my body, but the message still stands.