Whatsup Internet,
I know I haven’t put much if any content over the last 6 months and part of that is the intensity of the seasonal job I work, but the other part is something I haven’t been very vocal about. I’m having back surgery, It’s been hard to pay attention to anything else.
The last 3 years have been an insane mixture of the greatest and worst things to have ever happened to me. I fell 30 feet off a cliff alone in Hawaii. I built and lived in a tiny house. I met my life partner, LIFE PARTNER, almost lost her, and now we’re getting married. I started a catering and pop up company with my best friend, I had to take a year off of it from mounting injuries. I discovered Burning Man and festivals; I had hip surgery because I couldn’t walk or stand without pain, it didn’t work, and I lost my ability to be an athlete without pain. I started a podcast, I reinvented it, and I gave up on it. I wrote and performed stand-up at several open mics with mixed results. I began pursuing music professionally, finding something that feels like a calling, but standing and playing music for hours becomes excruciating. I’m finally working for more than myself and my fiance was able to leave her job and pursue creating her own business that will one day feed both of us; I discovered how expensive having an unsolvable problem is; work becomes a primary source of pain. I traveled with my fiance across Europe touching 7 different countries and seeing beauty I can’t really put into words; I fought chronic pain and depression the entire time. That fight continues and with work being very psychical its left very little energy for creativity.
Thursday I have back surgery to repair whats been robbing my life of a lot, maybe most, of happiness for over 2 years now. I’ve known that I had spondylolisthesis since I was 14, and I remember the doctor telling me one day I could need spinal fusion. This was momentarily crushing (a brush with the reality of mortality), but I clenched teeth and decided It would never slow me down, and since then:
I went on to play high school football as a running back, kick returner, deep snapper, linebacker, strong safety, defensive end, and kickoff gunner, and be one of the best athletes on my team and in district; I took 3rd place in the state track meet in 300m hurdles; I was invited to walk on and saw I had the ability to play college football before a 2nd knee injury ended that part of my athletic career; I fought as a mixed martial artist 7 times before more injuries pushed me away from it; I rock climbed in Yosemite, Thailand, and Spain; I lived as a hunter and gatherer in the desert for 10 days eating mice, flowers, snakes, and whatever else we could kill or find and had an endogenous DMT experience halfway through it one night; I jumped out of planes; I lost my religion and found something new; I experienced highs that I can’t even begin to describe. I lived my life refusing to let fear of this day or any pain and failure hold me back from going after something I wanted to experience.
Now after three years of chronic pain I’ve watched pieces of myself I loved die and my brain rewired by the experience. I’ve had multiple surgeries that couldn’t the slow loss of a huge portion of my self-identity. I have lost a lot, but I’ve also gained in return.
I have seen the tricks pain plays on your mind, become someone I hated and pulled out of lots of dark places. I found a way to still get some enjoyment out of life and combat the intense gravity that chronic pain creates. There are pages and pages of notes from this time that I’m now going to synthesize and use to create an outline of the various methodologies I employ and find help from. I’m thinking about calling it:
Suicide Survival Guide: a crash course to dealing with chronic pain and depression, but I’m still thinking about it.
I’m also planning to start producing professional mixes of my original music and getting onto Spotify.
I want to document and produce content about recovering from back surgery that may be useful or entertaining to some in blog, video, or podcast form.
Lastly, I’m going to be trying to throw up a video of a cover song or jam session weekly.
All of this is subject to the physical limitations of the experience I’m going to have but having ambitious goals is a part of me I like and want to keep, though its a source of some suffering at times.
I’ve never been or wanted to be a very public person but as one of my newest teachers told me during a guitar lesson, sharing yourself is a part of it. So I will be releasing weekly content in one form or another, and sharing at least this part of my life with my small corner of the world. If you’re interested in being an editor, writing partner, podcast guest, or collaborating in any other way please direct message me; I’m looking for help staying accountable to these goals and more importantly making them fun to accomplish.
Follow along at stevenboulet.com; @BouletMusic on FB and Twitter; and @adventurebumb on Instagram.
Steven Boulet Music 
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