LAZARUS

It’s been a while.

But here I am, with more than a handful of life lived between this moment and the last typed entry on this page.

LARGE WINDOWS line the walls of this eggshell white room. A bonsai tree stands, potted, in the corner. The corner in which it sits is not so much a corner, as it is a curve - the wall replaced with thick, cubed glass, starting and rising up to the same heights as the windows surrounding the room. peaceful folk music with enchanting acoustic guitar and raspy vices plays on the radio, as a woman who appears to be in her 20s bounces a baby girl with a bow rapped on her head outside. Light and idle chatter can be heard in the background, and people line the shop drinking coffees and teas.

Outside, the wind blows, and the sun shines, glinting off the tree leaves that offer shade to the multiple consumers sitting outside. There is a lot more greenery in this city than you would expect from an arid environment that evaporates the rain as soon as ti falls, erasing all proof of its’ existence.

I sit at a wooden alcove-esque table across from a woman in red bandana top. She has brown hair, tied back in s bun and is writing on paper while her apple laptop is open. Her mouse pad has VanGoughs starry night on it, which makes me believe that she is interested in abstract art. Her wooden circle earring dangle from her ears as she steals glances in my direction; our laptops positioned like we were in a game of Battleship. I think it’s fitting, as we are likely both, in some capacity, questioning what the other is up to in the marvelous existence that is life.

”I like your VanGogh mousepad”, I say. She smiles, and her youthfulness shines through it.
”Thank you.” she says and comments on how VanGogh is the shit. I tell her about my niece making a chalk drawing of Starry Night, and she becomes impressed, before she takes her laptop and steps out for a meeting.

When she comes back, she asks to see the drawing my niece made, and I happily show her. She adores it and comments about the drawing with such high praise that I ask if I can record a video of her complimenting it, as Nia often doesnt accept my compliments because i’m her Uncle, and she feels I’m obligated to give them.
She lets me record her, and Nia become simpressed I can talk to women. Her name is Madison, a Taurus who enjoys water.

I am in Loki Coffee, Salt lake City, Utah. Salt Lake, as described by one of my Uber drivers, is essentially a bowl that is surrounded by mountains. the reason it gets so humid is because the air and pollution settles down and has nowhere to go. I’ve witnessed this first hand. It’s easy to This is my fourth city I’ve been in since I hit the road July 30th. This particular leg of the journey has been magical. Especially in comparison to last year, and the events that unfolded the last time I was in Utah.

Which brings me to this. The great catch-up.
It’s been silent here for over a year, this page collected dust - with the last entry being written at a coffeehouse in a Victorian manor somewhere in Connecticut. Time has slipped away from me yet again, entering the slip and slide of life and careening down its path.
January 2024 came and passed.
Tinderella and I’s last conversation remained Christmas of 2023. December 30th, 2023 I got drunk on a rooftop at Moxy Hotels in NYC, while using my free nights for a stay to be closer to work I was doing for Vito. It was there, standing near a wooden swing with pink neon heart light that said “The Bradford” against a backdrop of fake ivy, that I grabbed a fake prop rose and snapped a picture displaying my dismay, and continued to write many paragraphs in text to Tinderella expanding on my discontent that she blew me off when we had both planned on me coming down.

The lights of the city twinkled like the stars of a night sky from that rooftop. It wasn’t overly cold that night, but it was brisk, and whether I had known it or not - that night, i sealed the fate on all future communication.

In the absence of Tinderella’s responses, and the feeling of this elaborate Scavenger Hunt going to waste, by February, I had decided to follow my friend Jay’s advice, and create video of it so that I can eventually complete my desire of making scavenger hunts for people and groups full time.

I created my missing items, I began the quest to hire an actress and I rented a car that I would sleep in for the trip back to KC. I ended up with numerous candidates to play “Jess”, some who were very attractive, and all who had a range of talent from none to amazing. Talent, in the end, won me over, when i ended up watching a reading by a girl named Megan who had absolutely all the charm and authenticity I could ever ask for.
She loved puzzles, excelled at improv, and captured the nuances of emotion that I hoped to elicit in those that partook in my hunts. Over the course of 5 days, i was able to revisit the places I had planted the original Jess’s puzzles and create new memories and understanding , while recording a very real impact of a brilliant actress who genuinely was loving and figuring out the adventure.

I held so much complexity in my head during the time. I had to film things out of order due to time constraints and location availability, while simultaneously only giving Meg excerpts of the script to keep answers hidden and spoilers from being had. I crafted pieces of the puzzle at night, and found out how to change certain aspects of the original hunt to be more fitting for Meg and the film. Simultaneously, for the more magical elements, I thought of ways that I could accomplish them in real life, practically. I pondered how to have videos sent to phones upon certain discoveries to give the illusion of magical and mystical consciousness. At the end of my trip in mid February, I recorded a video expressing how transformative and enlightening the experience was. I was able to see the world through an uncommon and different lens. I was able to see value and impact of my creativity, and more-so - I was inspired to make that particular style and journey into a product.
When I got home, I was gung-ho on editing, but quickly realized that KineMaster was much too small on my phone and that i needed more footage to truly continue. Megan ended up busy, and some footage wasn’t delivered, and per usual, i ended up derailed and jumping on another path. the footage is still waiting for me to edit, and within me, there still is the desire to do so.

By April 2024, I no longer had contact with Jess (Tinderella). She had blocked me. My messages, though sparse, remained unread and unsent. She had taken up a new relationship, according to her Facebook page, and had heavily entwined herself in festival life.

In May 2024, I ended up auditioning for my first live play since before COVID. The stage felt like an old friend, patiently waiting for my return.

Five years had passed in a blink, jammed-packed full of events that clustered, expanded, rippled and shattered all at once. 2019 saw me in a play called Government Inspector, where I played a Russian Serf named Osip. This took place not long after the passing of my best friend, Max’s, sister - and little did I know - at the beginning of the fracture point of my life.
His sister, who I called ‘Apa’ was like a sister to me. Only three months before Government Inspector began, I sat with Apa in a hospital while she lay in a coma, dying from cirhossis of the liver, and bleeding out of every orifice. The vacancy she left when she drifted off this plane was one that reverberated loudly in my heart and soul.
As a spiritual individual, I spoke to her when her words couldn’t. I meditated on her and had a conversation with her soul. I felt her energy. I transposed her body onto my own, and I felt every failure, every bit of toxin, and every cold spot in her body that wasnt receiving proper circulation, as if it were my own. I helped her vitals raised, but I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of damage within her body. To this day, I cannot properly describe knowing the feeling of failing organs, poisoned blood, and cold limbs and appendages.
I was called from the lunchroom with her father on that fateful day in 2019, by something that told me to return to her. When I arrived at her door and peeked my head inside, she flatlined.
Her family being Muslim, I was not allowed to be in the room with her, so I sat outside the wall of her room in the hallway and I wept loudly. Uncontrollably. My body shook.
The next three months that year, I spent a lot of time with her mother, helping her through grief and attempting to superglue the broken pieces back together. She had lost two children.
I fell into debt. I slept in subway station to try and escape into Improv with my improv team (who were so highly supportive), and I dove into conventions as my now well-established Operations Team (unknowingly) experienced our last successful year.
When 2019s Government Inspector finally hit the stage, my improv team leader made a three hour trip from connecticut to come see it, and my two Operations team members, Rein and Jakal also made the trip to support me.
Six months later, in 2020, COVID would enter the picture, my outlets would become closed off like blockades streets, and all of the trauma that I was working so hard to escape and heal through would finally get congested inside me and begin my mental deterioration, manifesting itself as CPTSD.

Many journeys would branch off from that point, I would end up in a hospital, emotionless, and signed up to b euthanized outside of the country. Afterwards, i would end up living at my best friend John-John’s parents house, where his sister, Heather, and her husband, Rich, would slowly help me redevelop some semblance of feeling, while I chopped wood by hand during the day and had online therapy by night.
All of my Operations crew, except for two, abandoned me due to my new mental state and took the side of one of the other crew members who had, unintentionally, brought me further into my trauma by finding anger in my inability to process, understand or infer the meaning of the things that they said - which made me feel defective, unwanted, and burdensome to a point that I just couldn’t feel.
Beyond that, I ended up living in my first apartment under my name in Key Largo, Florida, under the guise of helping pay off the financing of, and help develop creatively, an Escape Room with Jakal - a pursuit, that ultimately, fell apart and became a testament of survival and success with myself, as I pushed to build a minigolf (mostly) alone, and made new, and amazing friends.
2021 saw me in a ZOOM play by an old director, and many virtual improv shows with my team “Eye Speaks”.
2022 saw me in my first 9 - 5 job since Nordstrom in 2012, in an attempt to save my roommate and I in key Largo from being homeless, as my 25,000 savings had depleted from the course of trying to build the scavenger hunt and golf course.
2023 saw me on tour for State Farm with Moises, in its first year.

And finally, 2024 saw me in Check Please, dusting off my acting pants and nervously shedding the years that had passed as I stepped back on stage, making new friends and finding new moments.

I played multiple parts in the play - all people on their first date - something that i had hoped would help me cope with the 17 years of being single and the failed dates of the years inbetween. I played Brandon - a gay man who was trying to method act being straight for the role of Stanley in a Streetcar Named Desire. I played a guy dressed in a garbage bag. And I played the fan favorite, Alex - a socially unaware pirate.
A director saw me in the play and invited me to play the part of Jack Drikell in Kongs Night Out, without an audition. He also recruited two of my cast mates, Betty and Cisco.

The play of Kongs night Out, was difficult, as Michael, the director, searched for the perfect version of Jack. I played him about 5 different ways, before, finally, in the end, I settled on a version that was all versions, and became yet another crowd favorite.
I received numerous compliments. Some called me the hype man of the play - bringing everyones energy up the moment I stepped in. others told me that they hadnt seen my kind of performance in decades. Betty’s daughters laughed and chortled loud enough int he audience that they caused a chain effect. They recorded my performances and made GIF out of them. By the plays conclusion, I had found a solid group of people i absolutely adored, new DnD mates and rediscovered my love of live stage. Another director approached me and asked me to be in yet another play, but with State Farm’s new season upcoming, I had to reject the offer, knowing I’d be back on the road.

Check Please, in May 2024, would also mark a turbulent era in my life, as I struggled with my directors direction, and the pangs of singledom. One night, after play practice, I would stay at cheap motel and wander off to a bar called Bar Louie, where I would draw the attention of a cute bartender named Mango.

She and I connected over DnD, dice and nerd culture. We exchanged instagrams and she invited me back to show her my bag of dice, all while maintaining a flirtatious attitude. A month later, during my second play, I’d finally take her up on the offer, and we’d talk about going on a date to the movies.

Only a week later, George, my mothers boyfriend, would pass away, and the date would get pushed off so that my older brother and I could console her.
When our date finally came around, the aftermath was explosive. It took an eternity for me to hold her hand in the movie theater, but once I did, fire ignited between the both of us. the heat rose off our skin.
When we had to say goodbye, we spent a prolonged period of time together in her car following the chemistry like mad scientists.
The next day was May 15th, 2024 - a day that marked 15 years that my Max had been gone, and the 5th year I would have to tend to Apa’s grave. Searching for a hotel that night, I found the one I had booked was closed, and Mango invited me back to her place to stay. Her place was only 10 minutes from Max’s grave site, so I graciously accepted, though I pushed off some of her advances to go further into the laboratory of exploration.
When the morning came, I kissed Mango goodbye and left with her touch lingering on my skin like a cardigan. The ghosts of her fingertips and lips buzzed on my flesh, and I carried them to the grave with me, where, for the first time in a great while, I cleaned the graves alone.

I rejected Mango’s desire for me to come back once I was done; i was caked in dirt and feelings. My heart was open and vulnerable, and I did not want to bury myself in the bedsheets of distraction, where I knew I could possibly lose myself to urges I was best to suppress.

On the 17th, Mango would call me with the dire news that her friend had overdosed and ask for my company. I showed up with compassion and hesitation, where she probably needed distraction and connection to lose herself in. We spent time by the rolling waves of the shore while a light drizzle misted around us, and I wrapped her in a jacket and a blanket, her head resting on my shoulder, and her eyes drifting into a small nap. I lent her the jacket I had bought with Heather back when I was healing in 2019, with promise of getting it back on our next date.
However, this closeness would come to push Mango away, as she began to spiral out more into many nights of sweat and dopamine with strangers. Our connection eventually fizzled as she ghosted me, before eventually revealing that our moments felt ‘too real, too quick’ and she wasn’t ready for a relationship, though she really enjoyed my company. She expressed this through tears.
I never received my jacket back.

I went back on tour in July 2024 for State Farm as a floating field market manager.
My first event was in Provo, Utah for Provo Freedom Festival - which lasted four days. At its’ conclusion, I moved to Park City Hostel in Park City, Utah to explore finally explore Utah. As I sat down in the local pizzeria and grabbed some local beers for me to enjoy, I received one of the worst messages I had ever received in my life.

An old friend, Jessica, had hit me up on Facebook Messenger, asking me if I had heard the news about my childhood best friend, Maxwell.

Maxwell and I knew each other from the age of 5. When i was in pre-first, his special needs class worked with my class. We idolized Mick Foley, dreamed of being wrestlers, and wrestled wrestling dolls outside during recess. We did flips off of the giant caterpillar on the playground.
We were outcasts; the weirdos. Him, our friend Jared and i sat alone in the lunchroom during lunchtime, taking turns helping the lunchlady clean up after lunch in exchange for ice cream and pretzels. That bonded concreted itself over the years, that bubble was unbreakable and kept us sane. In fourth grade, Maxwell went off to a different school and I was left almost alone.

We reunited in 6th grade, and everything was just as it had been, albeit Max had changed just a bit. His attitude was a bit more rough; the influence for Jared and Jared’s family had caused an effect on him. It took a few years for Max to start and mellow out again.
By the time high school came around, Maxwell was known by our peers as Fat Max. He was heavily into meditation and enjoyed playing acoustic guitar. I frequented his house so much that his mother saw me and our friend Jim as adopted sons. We spent our time skating and talking about life. Max and i reflected on our past and laughed hours into the night. We slapped bologna on my wall. We looked out for one another.
Towards later years of high school, I was more absent due to depression and bad relationships. he came under the influence of Jared again, and once again, became a little rough around the edges, which unfortunately landed him in some trouble. I became homeless, and he snuck me in through his window and gave a travel bag.
After high school, he ended up in jail for drug possession. he got out, and then ended up back in for the same thing, as well as possession of a firearm.
I was on his visitor list and kept touch with him through jail e-mail. I visited him once, and we gave each other a huge hug - though I could feel my heart break clean in half seeing him in there.

when he finally got out, we had plans to meet up. His first call was to me via Facebook messenger, I felt so elated i was speechless and cried afterwards.

But on that day in July 5th, 2024, in a pizza shop in Park City, Utah - I found out Maxwell had killed himself after he had killed someone else. A few days later I would find out he had killed and dismembered someone and burned their body parts in a barrel. I cried for weeks. I cried myself to sleep. I cried when I woke up. My mind kept drifting off to the memories of us. I kept thinking of all the ways I failed him. i kept wishing I could have been there for him.
I found out he had developed schizophrenia, and he was unmedicated for it. To say my heart was broken deeply is an understatement. Even as i write this, I feel the depths of the loss echoing through the mountains that surround me, and settling in this valley.
I felt Max’s presence around me long after.

I wandered broken, only tethered together by distractions, work and Max’s ex - who was part of the very small support system I had when navigating the aftermath of such a tragedy. We didn’t know all of the details right away of the incident; we had at first only known that he was in a couple hour long stand off in a house in Toms River with some crazy woman that he had taken up as his Bonnie in this Bonnie and Clyde scenario, and that he had likely killed a woman who had prior and unsavory involvement with him. At that time, I was in communication with his family about a burial/cremation service that would be extremely limited, so that we could pay respects to the person we loved.
Over the course of a week and a half, we would find out more information. We find out that the the landlord of the house he was holed up in went missing. We would find out that Max and a group of four other people had killed him. We would find out that the body was dismembered and burned. We would find out there were pictures. And from the sheer horror of the happenings, his family would back out of holding a service of any kind, and his mother would come to disown him.
That support group became much smaller afterwards. It became more difficult to talk about. I was already out of Utah by the time the rest of the news dropped, struggling with my own mortality and morality.
Did it make me a horrible person to still love someone who had committed such heinous acts? To not see the same monster everyone else did? Could I have stopped it if I was just MORE AWARE of time, and made it out to him? Did I fail him as a friend? Did he know I loved him? Did he know I was there?
The questions would fall from my eyes, dragging pieces of my will with it, but his ex would help me suture it back to my skin. His daughter remained reason for me to try and keep myself together.
If let this feeling of grief destroy me, who would be around to help her know the light of who her father was? To tell her the tales of when he was young and the brilliant, selfless, and loving person he was? Who will help her know that she is progeny of an amazing individual that had both light and dark hues to his soul? That he isn’t the monster the news articles leave behind? That is how he died, but not the sum of who he was.

Between Mango and Max, I sought that in which I hadnt in a long time. My energies felt out of place. I felt blocked. So I went to a psychic in Somerville, during one of the brief breaks in my State Farm schedule.
Sylvia, and older lady, sat studying me in her room. reading me and picking out just about everything that she could. And it seemed all just about right. From my travel, to my hardships, to my relationship issues. She noticed the alignment being off in my chakras. She knew 3 years prior I had a reading by someone (which I did, at Genesis). She knew about life events that had sent me to her, and she knew about my gifts.
I paid for a more in—depth reading. I paid for a chakra re-alignment.

In her predictions. she told me that I would travel more, and she told me that “She is what you think she is, you’re not crazy. But there will be two women you are going to have in your life. One will be temporary, but promising, and you will have to let her go. The other is your soulmate, and you will know her. The relationship will be very important.”
I felt a good connection to Mango. I felt like if we didn’t have all the BS in the way, we’d be on great footing. But they were in their whirlwind, and I was a leaf in the wind. Perhaps, i thought, it was Mango she spoke of.

The alignment felt like complete tomfoolery. She gave me bathsalts to lay in, oils to use, and a stone to meditate on, so that she could connect with me. She had me pray that i would allow her to heal me and do work on me from afar. She said it was her and a group of others. I wanted so badly for what Sylvia had originally promised to be what we did - which was in-person energy work.
My bathsalts got confiscated by TSA. My work hours were so robust that I couldn’t find a lot of time to sit and meditate. Every time I was back home, she was busy.

She finally admitted that my energy was intense, and that things were taking longer than she had expected because there was much more to things than she had thought. Apparently, not only could my energy shape my own fate, but it also affected others, and she said that she had to make sure to keep herself safe.
Months later, i still felt I wasnt healed.

I spent 3 weeks in Dallas to finish up the tour. There, I would be lying if I said I didnt connect with everyone in an inutitive way that I hadnt felt in some time. I intrinsically seemed to know their needs. I looked out for them.
Though my chakra didnt feel fully aligned, it felt like it was getting better.

I was brought onto a holoday caravan tour not long after, where I was honored to play Santa again (it was my first time since 2016).
Apparently the day i showed up, I smelled like absolute shit. I dont know if it was my clothes that I didnt get the chance to wash (I jumped from one thing to another, and was going for close to 22 hours straight), the shower I didnt get to take, or the teeth I didnt get to brush. I was slotted as the driver and Santa for the NorthEast team - but I quickly confessed that I had never driven a 26ft box truck before and i felt it would be unwise for me to do so in a notoriously cold and icy market.
I was switched to the midwest market, where I was paired with a short, long-haired, meaty and bespectacled guy named Jason, a tall and athletically built guy named Sergio, and another tall gentleman with a buzzcut named Shane. All of them laughed at the notion that I, a skinny guy with muttonchops, would be their Santa.
Sergio, sitting in a chair, looked at me, unamused, and said: “Your our Santa? Santa’s jolly. You aint even Jolly.”
We traveled out after a week of training, and had five days to make it into market from Wisconsin.
Jason talked shit about me just about the entire time. He insinuated that I was unqualified, and called me a liar every time I tried to mention my accomplishments - telling me I didn’t have to prove anything. he belittled me. He pissed me off. Yet I kept trying to make it through, so I could make it to market. We had one night out, during the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight in Chicago, where I tried Malork for the first time and cowered at its vile taste.
At our first event, we all met in a parking lot outside of a pizzeria. We loaded out, and when it was time to go get ready, I looked at Shane and everyone else and said: “alright guys, I’ll see you during wrap. Let’s get jolly, motherfuckers.”
Shane in response, repeated the later part and shook his head. “This is our Santa” he said.
Five weeks painted itself across our midwest trail. Jason broke my middle finger by dropping a throne on it, dropped a it on my feet, and loaded that same throne on the liftgate, where the pallet jack tire hung off the edge. For most of the 5 weeks, he talked shit. When I had finally decided to stand my ground and I went off on him, I lost much of my chance to drive the truck (which seemed to be a mark against me in what I found out would be a trial period). But, some of the most beautiful experiences happened , too.
I watched as time and time again, Santa brought the light and magic back into people’s eyes - both young and old. I heard him say things that only he could know. He called a woman by her name, when I had never heard it. He asked for cookies that he knew a little girls’ grandmother had a secret recipe for. He gave an elderly woman her favorite Coca Cola product, without me knowing which it was, and helped her remember a special Christmas memory. He gave his love and joy to those who were disabled, ill, grieving, and in need of being reminded that magic exists.
In Kansas City, an elderly woman sat with Santa and told him about losing her husband.
”Dear, you haven’t lost him”, Santa said “He can always be found in you, and I can tell you take him wherever you go - because he’s right here.” he finished, pointing to her sternum, where she produced a necklace containing his ashes. She cried then, looked in Santa’s eyes, and gave one of the warmest hugs a human could ever know that told the tale of love, grief, understanding, and magic all at once.
”I know he is. And Santa, I want you to know - I will always believe in you.”
These experiences collected and unfolded along the road; my crew stopped calling Santa “Ryan” and started recognizing that something else occurred when he stepped out. No stores’ manager knew who’s body was the vessel, even though they had met me. No BA knew who Ryan was when I came in, even though they had met Santa. And by the third week, we sat outside of McDonalds headquarters, where a “professional” Santa was hired and I was, only briefly, the Coca Cola Polar Bear. Shane turned to me with anger in his eyes and said in a hilariously awe-inspiring moment “THAT GUY AIN’T SANTA. He may look like Santa, but he ain’t Santa, Ryan. You’re my Santa, man. You are Santa.”
And Sergio, in a period of rest, stepped over to me and said “Ryan, we all have our gifts. You’re the swiss army knife of this group. You can do it all, and fit in anywhere, man. It’s been great to work with you, see you work, and watch the Jolly Man out there.”
5 weeks concluded in Iowa.
Santa kept a journal about his experiences. All of the cards without return addresses ended up in my luggage as did all of the drawings that were made for Santa, serving as a reminder of the magic, should I ever forget.
On our last day, Shane and Sergio were teary as I said, for the last time, “I’ll see you guys at load out,” and Santa got prepped to step out for the last time.
When it was time for him to go, Sergio was transferring things from the semi-truck to the box truck.
”Is it already that time, Santa?” he paused and said.
”I’m afraid it is, Sergio.”Santa replied.
”I’m going to miss you, big guy.” Sergio began
”Thank you for everything. You’ve taught me a lot, and I’ll miss our convos. tell Ryan I said Thank You for bringing you to us.” he continued, and stretched out his hand.
”I’ll miss you too, Sergio. But I’m not ever going to be too far. Remember that. And I’ll let Ryan know. I’ll send him back for you.” Santa responded, grabbing Sergio’s hand in a full clasp of a handshake.
We loaded out that night for the last time, and began the trip back to Wisconsin. i think all of us, a bit changed.
Jason and I left on better terms.
Shane and Sergio no longer thought they had the weakest Santa, but felt they had the real deal.
And I was re-inspired and reconnected.

Because, once again, I felt the Jolly Man take me over, and push Ryan to the far back of consciousness as a mere observer. And what a magical, magical gift to be given.

Stay TUNED for Pt II