Welcome to today's episode where we explore the remarkable journey of Matthew Krumpe, a professional dancer, choreographer, and drag artist based in Los Angeles. Matthew is not just a performer; he's an event producer and production designer for queer-focused brands and nightlife events, as well as a dynamic content creator and producer across multiple platforms. In this episode, Matthew shares his path from being a top student and athlete to becoming a creative force in the world of dance and drag. He opens up about his unwavering commitment to his artistic career, despite facing numerous challenges and setbacks. Join us as Matthew shares the importance of staying true to his inner compass amidst outside pressures and his vision for a world with more kindness and inclusion.
Connect with Matthew Krumpe: LinkedIn | IG
[00:00:00] Welcome to Uncharted Paths. The podcast that dives deep into the journeys of courageous individuals who listen to their inner wisdom and forge paths of authentic expression. In a world where conventional success often overshadows personal passion, we illuminate those who have dared to venture off the beaten track.
In Season One, we're uncovering the untold stories of unique alumni from Harvard Westlake School. You may recognize names like astronaut Sally Ride, the former mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, and actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But now we're shining a light on the hidden gems. I'm Lindsey, and I'm Kristin.
Join us as we explore the stories of these remarkable individuals, share their triumphs and challenges, and uncover the lesson that can inspire possibility for all, especially today's generation. It's time to follow your heart and chart your own path. Welcome to Uncharted [00:01:00] Paths.
Welcome to today's episode where we explore the remarkable journey of Matthew Krumpe, a professional dancer, choreographer, and drag artist based in Los Angeles. Matthew is not just a performer, he's an event producer and production designer for queer focused brands and nightlife events, as well as a dynamic content creator and producer across multiple platforms.
In this episode, Matthew shares his path from being a top student and athlete to becoming a creative force in the world of dance and drag. He opens up about his unwavering commitment to his artistic career despite facing numerous challenges and setbacks.
Join us as Matthew shares the importance of staying true to his inner compass amidst outside pressures and his vision for a world with more kindness and inclusion.
Welcome, Matthew, to Uncharted Paths. We're so grateful to have you here with us today.
Thank you for having me Lindsey and Kristin and Missy and everybody [00:02:00] involved. I'm very happy to be here.
What led you to say 'yes' to being here today?
I just turned 34. I was class of '08, and I've been going through a lot of changes in my life recently. I'm now at a different point in my life where I'm ready to talk about how my journey here did really lead me to where I am today.
But it formed that path, my uncharted path.
Speaking of an uncharted path, what does that mean to you?
What's that author of the Road Less Traveled?
Oh, was it Robert Frost? Robert Frost. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood."
Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's just going on your own journey, what feels right to you. I don't follow the rest of my peers or the people around me. I've always kind of been someone that does things on my own. I forge my own way through the world. When I was in high school, I actually won the David Justin Rascoff Award for ethical and moral integrity. Basically an unchartered path of someone who stuck to their own ethics and morals, regardless of whether or not it was the opinion of the crowd. I would say [00:03:00] that defines who I am.
When you mention your experience at Harvard-Westlake, what was charted and what was uncharted?
The soul, my uncharted, was all of the arts and athletics, and my charted would be all of my school classes and anything that would beef up my college resume.
I wanted to be involved with athletics and performing arts. I know the school has a big reputation for having great performing arts. It was one of the reasons why I wanted to come here over other schools. I'm very lucky that I was able to work with a lot of the teachers I worked with here.
I took a lot of courses because I had to get into a certain school or I needed a certain school resume to present when you're applying to college. I probably looking back would not have done the same course load that I did for stress reasons. And also just because it's done nothing for me.
I mean, like, yeah, it taught me like that I can accomplish a lot.
I worked in the bookstore every summer from seventh grade onward.
The bookstore was charted, because I needed money. I was on financial aid the whole [00:04:00] time I was at Harvard-Westlake, so it was the way that I paid for clothes and was able to go to the movies with my friends or do anything. I didn't have an allowance. I didn't have my parents whenever I wanted to do anything.
I dealt with a lot of abuse from one of my parents, and I avoided being at home. Any time I could be at school was not being there.
So, I was here a lot. And I was telling you guys earlier that, you know, I would come to school at like 4 or 5 in the morning to do cross-country and track training before school. We'd have weight room training before school. I'd have practice or rehearsal after school. I was here for many hours of the day. So, I was able to not deal with what was going on at home.
So Harvard-Westlake was a safe haven in that sense?
Yes.
I had a similar experience where things at home were chaotic. So, Harvard-Westlake for me was a golden era where you could be in the arts and sports and school and immerse yourself in all these activities.
I'm spending my weekends doing school service and then going to a volleyball game in the middle of nowhere to be [00:05:00] the mascot and rehearsing for a play and figuring out how I'm gonna make a movie with friends of mine. That's not everybody's journey, right?
When you mentioned getting an award for integrity and listening to yourself, what, if you can remember, inside of you was telling you something different than what society was saying?
There was a big cheating scandal that happened at Harvard-Westlake my senior year, and I was a peer tutor. One of my students came to me and said that they were offered a test, and they didn't know what they should do.
I remember saying to her, without hesitating, 'I think the best thing that you should do is go to your friends and tell them this is not okay. We signed an honor code here.'
So, I now feel I have an obligation to tell someone about it because now I am an accomplice and know about this cheating. I didn't know how deep it was. My history teacher, Dror Yaron, shout out, he was amazing.
I went to him and [00:06:00] I said, 'Look, I know that someone cheated on your test. I don't know the details.' I didn't tell him any names. I just said, 'This happened. You should look into it.' And he was like, 'Oh, that's interesting because a lot of kids got 100% on this test or they did really well.'
They were getting questions right that I didn't even teach them.' They were like curve questions. 'I definitely will look into it because I was already suspicious.' The next morning in the Chronicle, it said, 'Senior tips off authorities to cheating scandal.' My life that year was nuts. I got followed home.
There was like death threats in my locker. When you come to school, and you think everyone is talking about you, but there's a point where you know everyone is talking about you. So, I walked into the quad. Everyone was looking at me. Everybody was talking about me because they thought I cheated.
It was like a group of sophomores. I was a senior, so I had nothing to do with it. That year there was a lot of questions on campus about morality.
Jeanne Huybrechts was the president at the time. Her year motto was, 'The hard right versus the easy [00:07:00] wrong.' Making the decision that is right, even though it might be the harder choice versus just going through the thing that's easier.
I didn't question it. It wasn't something that I had to think about. It was just like my innate response, I think, because one of my core values is integrity. I'm actually writing a movie about this all right now, but the main character is a queer student who is struggling with integrity, because he's ultimately lying about his sexuality and the way he presents in the world.
So, how is he enforcing integrity on others if he's not doing it with himself? There's a lot of layers here, and I didn't question it. I've always struggled with honesty, because I think from, a young age, I had a lot of very wealthy friends, and I wanted to fit in.
So, I would make-up little stories about, 'Oh, well, my dad did this.' And, like, 'I've gone on this trip.' And I went skydiving'. Like, I never went skydiving. I still haven't gone skydiving to this day, but it was just me trying to fit in. And so those [00:08:00] little lies are still lies, even though they might not have as much of a repercussion.
How has your path differed from the supposed to?
The path that I was told that I needed to go on was be a doctor, be a lawyer, be someone in business that was very successful. Go to college, maybe get a master's, then you'll be successful, and you'll get a great job.
You'll have money, because money is the barometer of worth in this world. And then you'll get married. You'll have kids. You'll go down that path. I did not follow that path. During my college process, applied to 25 schools. Half of them were schools that my parents wanted me to go to, and it was the Ivy's and where I would become a doctor, because I wanted to be a pediatrician for a long time.
I used to watch ER when I was four, and I would operate on my bears at home. Did you play that game Operation? Oh, of course. I actually have a drag number now that is Operation.
Oh yeah, I'm a drag queen, by the way. Back to the journey. I wanted to be a doctor, but I [00:09:00] decided before the end of school when that Chronicle article came out that said where everybody was going to school, it said 'Undecided' because I didn't decide to go anywhere.
There was some tipping point that you applied to 25 schools and then undecided. What was that moment?
The tipping point was that conversation I started to have in my head of like, 'How was I going to change as a person and follow my journey of what I wanted to do, not what my parents wanted me to do, not what my teachers wanted me to do, not what the expectations of other families and friends at the school, or what I thought society was telling me to do?'
I think I was going through the journey of the risk of being an artist. I think there's a lot of talk about it's not stable, which it isn't. It's not a stable career. You're constantly auditioning for things and being told you're not right for a part and you're not good and you don't have enough money to pay your rent.
And you're just having to work a little odd jobs on the side in order to get by, but really you're not focused on [00:10:00] the art that you're doing. I think it's funny that I'm still paying off my college loans to this day, but I'm not dancing to do it. I went to school for dance, but it's like you're paying to do your passion.
I also was dealing at that time, I knew by that point that I was queer, and I think I wanted to shift a lot of things in my life because I didn't want to keep lying about what I was. I actually avoided dance for a really long time, because when I was really young, parents would be like, 'Oh, well, that little faggy boy,' you know, like, 'That stupid little flamboyant kid. He's a dancer.'
It was never looked at as a talent. It was looked at as like, 'Oh, that's what makes that kid gay.' And it wasn't a good thing. I feel like now in society, it's way more accepted. But I was in that last wave of like, we didn't really see a lot of queer people on television.
We weren't really getting a lot of representation. It was still a secret. People were hiding it, and it wasn't accepted by most people. It was very taboo.
Was it a gradual process of letting certain things go?
There was a couple of [00:11:00] years where I was secret and cagey, and I know at some of my jobs people would ask me what my sexuality was, and I was like, 'Oh yeah, I'm straight.'
Or 'I'm bi.' And I was lying through my teeth. It was the first time that I had feelings for somebody, where I felt like I met someone that I would want to introduce to my friends and family. I would be comfortable knowing that that person was who I want to be seen with.
I think that a lot of that has to do with this feeling from my parents of feeling unloved. And so, finally, when I found the person that would love me back, it was like the key to unlock my future. Like, 'Okay, now I can actually show you what I truly am because I do feel that love. I feel that validation.'
I eventually chose UCLA. I applied to a program called World Arts and Cultures.
It was a combination of choreography, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and dance. Very specific program. And then, a lot of people don't know this, I dropped out. I basically said, I'm not going to school. I'm going to be a professional dancer. I'm going to start auditioning. I'm going to go train and I'm going to try and like book music [00:12:00] videos and do stuff in that way. I worked at Urban Outfitters in Studio City.
I started working there in high school, and when I was there during the summer, a Harvard-Westlake mom saw me folding clothes and was like, 'Oh, what are you doing next year?' And I was like, 'Oh, I'm just going to focus on dancing.'
And she was like, 'What do you mean you're going to focus on dance?' Like, 'Are you trying to ruin your life?' Really got in my head, and I basically had this like realization that maybe I should go to school. Maybe I can figure out a way to still study dance and do what I want to do, but not be stuck in this idea that I have to go to four years of college.
And I was like, 'How can I get back into this program?' There was seven boys in my class. When I dropped out, there was six and the school was like, 'We would love to have you back.'
That was the beginning of my uncharted path.
Have you ever been tempted to go back to a standard society accepted path?
It's weird, because I want to say, 'No, I haven't been tempted.'
But I have. If I think about the path, I worked in corporate [00:13:00] retail for ten years, and that was my compromise. That was my way of, 'Okay, this is my job that has a lot of money. I'm going to do the performance on the side.' But I don't want it to be on the side, right?
Most recently, after the pandemic and there was a big writer strike last year, there's been a lot of dip in work. I've been applying to a lot of jobs recently just to try and get some sense of stability financially with what's going on.
A lot of people look at my resume and they'll see all of the success. And then they're like, 'But as a dancer, how are you going to do this job that requires 10 years of marketing experience that you don't have?' And I think people discredit how your brain is trained as a choreographer.
Because ultimately, what I studied as a choreographer is, organization of how a dance is put together, how the movement is assembled, you're setting the costumes, you're setting the lights, you're choosing the music, you're choosing how the audience is going to react emotionally based on what you're presenting to them.
A lot of times there's other elements of [00:14:00] video behind that you're putting together as well. And ultimately you're a director, and you are creating a world, an environment, through movement, through the body alone, most of the time. If I have that in the back of my head, I can apply that to so many different jobs.
So, I have been wondering, 'Do I want to go back to a six figure salary where I can support myself and not worry about paying my bills?' Every time I think about it, I'm like, 'I don't want to do it. I don't want to sit at a desk.' I would almost rather be poor than do something that I don't want to do. I don't want my time and energy to feel wasted. And I feel like a lot of it has to do with my light. I felt like my light was being severely dimmed for the past year.
I wasn't as cheery and positive and enthusiastic as I usually am, because I wasn't happy with where my career was. I wasn't happy with the fact that the amount of output and effort that I was putting into trying to be an artist wasn't matched in my bank account. I can list you hundreds of things that I've done, and I can't [00:15:00] pay my insurance for my car.
Why is that not match? Why can I not focus on what I love to do and that amount of work equal money?
What have you found are some tools or ways you've navigated that?
There are grants that exist out there. I mean, I have applied and received grants in the past for doing art. There are jobs that you can do that are, I would say, a compromise.
There's even layers in the dance world about this. People who dance for Broadway, people who dance for company work, people who dance in film and television, there's very different pay scales. There's very different amounts of work and amounts of training that goes into it.
It's hard because you want to be a dancer, but I feel like there's no equality in that world. There's no award for choreography at the Oscars. There's no true like, dance union, right? There are for actors, but we're looped into everything else.
So, I'm battling a system. I basically chose the hardest possible [00:16:00] profession. I think Forbes magazine five years in a row said that the hardest job in America was dance choreography because of the amount of people that are trying to do it versus the amount of jobs that are actually available. And like the longevity of your career, how likely it is that you would get injured. It's so subjective.
I'm on a job right now, and the guy was like, 'Oh, it's $100 a day.' And I said, 'No.' And he was like, 'I don't like that you're being so stingy with needing to be paid.'
And I said, 'I don't think it's me being stingy needing to be paid. You're requiring my years of training to make your project look good, because it's for a singer. And so you want me to come in, trained, ready to go, but you don't want to pay me for all of the work that I've done up to this point, so that way this project will be quick, right?'
You want to pay me a hundred dollars a day for a 12 hour a day. So if you break that down, it's like less than $12 an hour, which is not even legal for me to provide all of the stuff myself.
And I'm probably not even going to be listed or credited properly in the project. Most of the [00:17:00] time as a dancer, you're not, you're just left.
I hear the incredible challenges and in other professions you get paid for all of your education, effort, time, energy, and expertise. And so you've chosen, or your heart has chosen a profession, that doesn't necessarily have that same story. What keeps you showing up to such a challenging path?
My love of dance, and the way I communicate and express through it. That's what keeps me going. I say this to a lot of people about communication. Dance is the one art form or way that every single person on the planet earth can communicate regardless of where you're from, your language. It gives me chills just to say that out loud. If you think about it, the gesture of waving to someone, it's dancing, right?
It's movement. Everybody understands that. So, it is my way of communicating and being a master communicator. When I was younger, not being able to deal with a lot of the emotional problems that I was going through, dance was my outlet. [00:18:00] I would go into the dance room
in my one free period that I would have in a week or after school when I could, and I would just dance. I would just put on music and move. It's the one art form where it's physical and performative.
So you're able to, through your body, release. I actually learned a lot about that in college, the physical tie in to emotion and like moving through your bones and your fluids and your liquid, just the different modalities and forms of movement can express different things and get a different reaction out of the audience.
What lights you up right now?
I have been trying to figure out how I can combine all of the things that I do and make it easier for me, so I'm not going to so many different places and doing so many things for no return.
I have landed on content creation and using all of the skill sets that I have acquired with choreography, production, aesthetics, drag, and just being an artist. I am starting [00:19:00] a YouTube show. My drag name is Linda Recessionista: Want to be beautiful, can't afford it.
It's funny, cause I graduated in '08, which was a big recession. And I really started to like hone in on drag in '22, '23, which is another recession. So, it really fits the name. My YouTube show is called 'Listen Linda with Linda Recessionista,' and I will be interviewing.
I'll be working with a lot of the people I've met along the way who work in many different fields. Maybe they're a dancer, they do hair and makeup, they do TikTok, they might be a drag queen, they may be an actor, a comedian, just cool, interesting people. That would be interviews and pop culture recap, because I love film and television and funny internet memes and jokes. I definitely have that like stream of consciousness type of brain where one thing will make me think of another thing, and I'm jumping all over the place all the time.
So, there will be a random recap of sorts in the episodes. That's been lighting me up, because it's a way that I will be able to fully [00:20:00] benefit financially off of my own work and not have to work for someone else. It's my idea, it's my character, it's my likeness, it's my connections, it's my everything that I have put together, so that way, I can hopefully bring joy to other people by watching.
It all really has to do with me wanting to make people laugh. I love comedy.
I created Linda in ways that so I could be that person, and I could be like a living SNL character and make people laugh. I always have a twist in all of my numbers. I just did a number that was the song, Dance 10 Looks 3 from Chorus Line, which is all talking about body.
And then it went into Body by Megan Thee Stallion, which seeing a comedy queen try to do that dance is comedy in itself. I had on the screen behind me just a bunch of women who are known for their bodies: Marilyn Monroe, Jessica Rabbit and Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray, icons. I was trying to talk about body but also just make this joke about how crazy is it that these people are known for their bodies, and [00:21:00] they're considered like big in the time. And look at us now. It's a social commentary, but also there's a humor and there's a wit.
I try to have a little Linda twist. It's all about making people laugh. You want to make people have that escape from what is going on. That's why I've always been drawn to comedy, because I want to just escape for that moment and laugh.
You're spreading your light through dance and also through your voice another form of communication and storytelling.
I'll never forget this. This is a big life lesson. When I was in fourth grade, I ran for student council. And I, in my heart, was like, 'It's not right to vote for yourself. You can't vote for yourself.' It's not right. I voted for my best friend, and I lost by one vote. It was that life lesson of, 'If I can't believe in myself, how is anybody else going to believe in me?'
How did you bring that same concept of validation internally when you kept hearing no on the creative path?
I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and I think [00:22:00] that I do that by the people I touch, or the people that, not physically, but the people who I touch emotionally.
I have a very specific memory of Cindy Winter started a dance company. It was called Winter Dance Theater, and it had four Harvard-Westlake alum. Myself, Erica Carpenter, Wade Allain-Marcus, and Imani Alexander, who was also a teacher here. We did a performance about Anne Frank and Cindy's journey to the Anne Frank house.
When I did my solo, the entire room was in tears. That is the success that you want as a performer. Am I able to draw an emotion out of someone and cause an effect and get them to think about their life differently and get them to have a visual association or emotional association with something else in their life?
That's the success. When someone's coming up to you after a show and says, 'Your performance shook me to my core.' 'Your performance changed my life.' That's what you want, right? It's not physical, but isn't that the meaning of life?
I was a dancer as well. Yes. I remember very very [00:23:00] clearly at age seven finding out that it was hard to make money as a dancer, and I crossed it off the list, even though it was my complete passion on the planet. It's what lit me up in every capacity. And so I just want to share that I truly admire your courage to choose the uncharted path of dance, performance, creation.
Thank you.
I'm thinking a lot about the foundation that was built for you in terms of access to all these different performing arts and school and athletics. Do you consider that part of building your foundation for what you do now?
A hundred percent. I think that going to a school like this, everything else after felt easy. Because, yeah, we were talking about all the things that I've done and accomplished at a very young age. I always say that I peaked in 8th grade. I say I peaked in elementary school, so I say 9th grade.
I do think it definitely built the foundation because It taught me that A, I can accomplish anything. B, [00:24:00] that I don't want an easy, simple life that's just me going to do the same thing in a monotonous way every day. I like being able to do a lot of different things and dabble in many art forms and many different activities.
That fuels me and gets me going. I don't want to be bored. I would say the whole way that the school operates on an integrity and moral compass. It puts in the back of your head that you need to move through the world with how you affect others, how your internal compass drives you, and that your actions affect everything around you.
And start understanding that your world is not going to be A, B, C, D. It's going to be a full alphabet.
Where are you expressing yourself through dance, through art right now?
I'm expressing myself through my drag a lot. I perform all over Los Angeles. I sometimes get flown out to other states to do performances as well.
It is growing. I was recently looking at how much drag I've done in the past year, and
it's basically my main focus at the moment. Drag is having a really big [00:25:00] renaissance and moment in the world. And yes, they're trying to shut us down all over and drag bans and tie us in, but it's inherently political. In college, that was the first time I was really made aware of drag and its political origins.
I have a monthly show called Tuesicles at a bar downtown, Precinct. It's the first Tuesday of every month. We do musical numbers, but like I said, I always try to put a fun little twist on it. I host a monthly Loteria night in West Hollywood. We play Mexican bingo, and then it's followed by a Latin house night.
I do brunches and performance. Brunch is really, you know, that's where the money is. You know, when you got a drunk bachelorette. You're going to make money. So, I do that and working on Linda. I'm in pre-production.
I'm going to start filming soon. I am expressing myself through two screenplays that I'm working on at the moment. One about the situation that happened here. And a comedy I'm writing with my friend Trevor.
We both work for a gay cruise line called Vacaya. It [00:26:00] is a charter company.
Our cruise is way more inclusive. We have non-binary guests, trans guests, women, bisexual couples, like it's the whole LGBTQ umbrella there. We're really working to continue to diversify it. We had Vanessa Williams on our last cruise. Wilson Phillips they did a pop up on our gay prom night.
I'm auditioning for a lot still. I'm trying to get on a couple game shows,
reality competition shows that you may know of.
Are there any teachers or faculty or anyone that you want to give a shout out to that had a huge impact?
Jen Bladen wasn't even my teacher, but we actually just became close later in life, but I love her so much and she does amazing things for the publications here. I worked with Cindy Winter, who ran the dance department, very closely for my entire time that I was at Harvard-Westlake, and I ended up [00:27:00] working here for five years after producing dance concerts with her.She retired a couple years ago, but there's not a lot of teachers like that who really teach you a lot about your life.
Marianne Hall. She was one of my favorites. Ted Walsh. Mr. Moore. Miss Spears. Lisa Peters who is the costumer for all the shows.
I've hung out with her more than any person at this school because, it's just another place where I felt safe. I was interested in fashion, and now I make my own clothes for drag. It's just funny that that relationship and her being kind to me and allowing me to feel safe in her classroom later in life resonated in a different way.
My coaches, Jonas Koolsbergen, Mr. Bird, Tim Sharp. All the ones that taught me how to be stronger, push through the pain. Quincy Watts, Felix Sanchez. Wow, it's like an Oscar's speech. Miss Holme-Elledge. She was my Spanish teacher, and
she used to play us Juanes [00:28:00] in class. This one song, La Camisa Negra, it was my favorite song, and I recently did a performance to it.
Wow! So it's just fun. Full circle. And Miss Bracken. She was very special to me. Someone who really, when I was going through some really hard times at home, was able to be like, 'You're gonna be okay.'
They always made me laugh and taught me about the meaning of life.
For students in Harvard-Westlake now, from your experience, what would you have wanted to hear?
I wanna say to the students that are here now, that you don't need to focus so much on societal expectations, to focus on what your parents want, to focus on what everybody else around you is telling you you should do, right? Use this time when you're at Harvard-Westlake to experiment, to take classes that you wouldn't necessarily think are something you're interested in, but figure out if you're interested in them.
Participate in clubs and [00:29:00] sports and join the play and work tech. If you like it, amazing. You had an experience that you will be able to use later. If you don't, you also have an experience of, you now learned something about yourself. Be a little more risk taking in terms of how you approach this.
It's all about learning. And it's all about figuring things out. Maybe that class that you didn't like, you met a person in that class that you'll end up being lifelong friends with or you'll meet someone who you don't like, but it still teaches you what you do and don't like. You're figuring it out.
I would say to Harvard-Westlake students, just because you don't like someone does not mean you can't still respect them and be nice to them. I think that there's so much in this world that when we don't like something, we immediately change our demeanor to being negative and angry and like, they don't deserve my time and energy.
You can still be matter of fact and tell someone what you need to say without being rude. You can still have the kindness, right? [00:30:00] You're being clear. And you're being kind.
I feel like in this world we're so used to block buttons. That's not how the world works. When you see someone on social media and you don't like what they're saying, you just block them.
You can't do that in the real world, especially if you're in the same circle and you're going to see them. I feel like being clear with your intentions and being able to be up front with people, it really has helped me a lot in my life. Even thoughthey're not the fondest people to me, I still have learned from them, and we're still able to have positive interactions after.
What are some of those gold nuggets that you would want people to put in their pockets and take with them from our conversation?
I think that money, it doesn't need to be your only focus in the world. It's like, I'm very stressed about money all the time, but it's still not gonna stop what I'm doing.
It's not the only thing you should chase. Lead with kindness. Take risks. Make the jump. Make people laugh, and try to find some [00:31:00] joy in what's happening around you. I do feel that there are a lot more students that attend any school in America, or even private schools, that are queer and know it, earlier on.
I was definitely one of those people. I did not feel comfortable to come out for a lot of reasons when I was younger, because I was still exploring and I was still figuring myself out. But the amount of bullying and harassment that I received in high school over a sexuality that I haven't even decided myself fully was unacceptable.
I think bullying this day and age, like, all you hear about is stories of like how kids are so horrible to each other on social media and in real life.
If you are someone who is different, queer, you're just someone who leads a different path, don't feel that because those around you don't understand you that anything about you is wrong. That is something that I'm still dealing with today, feeling like I'm not fully [00:32:00] understood, that there's something about me that is not correct. Everything about you is right. You will find the people in your life when you're meant to find them, and you will be able to create your own family, whether or not that's you having children of your own, or that's finding your chosen family of friends or people along your path.
And that may change many times, but I guess don't allow it to affect your mental state.Cause I feel like it applies not just to queer students, right? It's all a journey. And I think that's what I would say to myself, you know, like you're perfect the way you are and you're going to change a lot and take a breath.
It doesn't matter about those around you and their opinion of you. What matters is your opinion of yourself. And if you are okay with that, then you're going to be okay.
Beautiful. Love that.
It's so nice to have you share your story.
Thank you.
And we're so thankful that you joined us on Uncharted Paths.
[00:33:00] Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Uncharted Paths. We hope you feel inspired to carve out your own unique journey and embrace the courage to follow your passions. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and behind the scenes content.
Links are in the description below. Until next time, keep exploring, dreaming, and charting your own uncharted path.