From left to right: Me holding a 6 string banjo in an antique store, my to-do list to be able to busk in the summer of 2027, and some behind-the-scenes of a photoshoot my mom and I did together while experimenting with some cool lighting effects! You can check out her website here, she’s awesome.

If you’re interested in seeing the end result, I’m gonna post 'em to my instagram, so you can check out those photos here! Big thanks to my mom for always being open to trying new things with me!

So apparently, not all banjos are created equal.

Or that’s what my friend Charlie told me, and it was echoed by the shopkeeper who gratefully let us try our best to tune it up. It didn’t stay in-tune for long, though, and as my friend and I took turns playing it we couldn’t help but laugh, somehow everything was immediately flat.

Anyways, I was working on my website a little bit after watching a movie with my family and I realized it had been a bit since I posted, so here I am, and this is what I’ve been up to!

First and foremost, I wanted to address the goals I’d set for myself in my debut blog post. If you remember, they were something like this:

Goal #1: Keep telling my story, post another blog entry about my real experiences and thoughts!
Goal #2: Learn how to make something new that seems challenging or intimidating
Goal #3: Share a little bit about my journey to my currently blank social media page 😅
Goal #4: Get a couple takes of this self-tape audition for a friend’s short film that I wanted to audition for! (I’ve never recorded a self tape before so I’m kinda nervous)

And…well, it’s not all bad news!

I’m here posting another blog entry right now, so that’s automatically a win. And this week I actually did learn how to make something new! I learned how to sew with my mom’s sewing machine just this summer, and ended up making my girlfriend a pretty awesome tote bag, if I do say so myself.

I’m not gonna share anything more about that, though, cause I know she’ll read this and I don’t want to spoil it for her. It was a very challenging and intimidating project, but I’m very proud of the fact that I did it anyway and let myself make mistakes as I learned on the fly!

As for the sharing of my journey to social media and getting some self-tape takes, I definitely feel like I’ve hit a wall with both.

I find very often that I wait for certain conditions to be met in my life to give myself permission to do things, I think it’s normal and healthy when used appropriately, like, "no dessert before finishing a meal," "no performing without warming up," "no walking away from a good busker without leaving a tip," (*wink* *wink* *cough* *cough*) all generally sound life rules in most cases.

But when this behavior becomes something along the lines of:

“No sharing your story 'til you’re good enough."

Then I find myself in trouble.

What happens to me, from what I understand, and many other creatives who speak on this, is that we get stuck in a loop that looks

something like this:

We make progress, feel that we’ve grown, but then discredit where we are and immediately raise the bar again.

This cycle is really easy to fall into, and it's even easier when it’s used to quell my fear of other people seeing me as arrogant or egotistical.

I’ve been told I have a lot of “stage presence” in real life, both as a compliment and an insult, and while it’s kind of just how I am, it can really get to me sometimes when I realize I don’t have control of how other people choose to see me. It can feel like I have to put myself down or discredit myself, not out of humility, but to protect myself from judgement, from these people who seem to be angry at the fact that I’m learning how to embrace my gifts and share them with others.

What I can control, though, is how to respond; and I’m choosing, instead of letting them assume while I work in silence, to share my story, to share who I really am and how others' assumptions me feel.

If they do read this...maybe they’ll judge me less. Or maybe they’ll judge me more. Maybe they won’t care at all. But what matters is that I wont leave myself hanging, and when I die I won't leave anything left unsaid to rattle around in an urn or big wooden box.

Right then. Where were we? Ah yes, the big old 6-letter word:

“enough."

I feel I’ve struggled with this concept and the feeling like I’ve failed to measure up to it for a large portion of my life. Only during quarantine did I really begin my own self-love journey, opening my heart back up to possibility and creativity instead of desperate self-competition.

This isn’t a therapy session though, and I’m not here for that. I’m here to deliver to myself and to you, whoever is reading this, some actionable steps that I’m gonna take in the next 48 hours to chip away at these two unfinished goals of mine.

I’ve explained already that I wait for permission. But what exactly am I waiting for? Why am I holding myself back?

For my social media post, I want to redefine my account. Not in a way that’s super impressive or performative, I actually want it to be the complete opposite of that. I want it to feel like this blog, like I’m just sharing my journey with whoever is following along.

In the past I’ve felt like my social media had to be some hyper-curated, absolutely pristine and mistake-free display case of all the hardest tricks and coolest arrangements I could pull off, even if working to get the perfect clip felt like hell and I forgot every harmony the day after.

Instead of something disposable and performative, I want my social media to be a collection of moments that, over time, show that I’m growing and working towards the things that matter to me. Not a trophy shelf or another stage, just a place to be honest with myself and with others about the work I’m putting in and the kind of life I’m living in the pursuit of my dreams.

So tomorrow (or, today, I guess, since it’s past midnight,) I’m gonna clean up the voiceover for this reel that’ll redefine my account for me, throw some B-roll over it, and post it, whether I think it’s “good enough” or not. Done.

Cool. That feels good. Now the tricky one, the self-tape. (yikes!)

This one is new territory entirely. I’ve had in-person auditions for things, but never for anything on camera and never with the audition actually filmed on camera. Well, maybe not since I was really, really little.

The thing holding me back most here is not having anybody to read for me and be my imaginary scene partner.

I’ve read online that you’re supposed to get another actor to read for you, not just a family member or stranger. Unfortunately I don’t know too many actors on my side of town, so that’s kind of tough. But what I do know is that showing up to an audition gives you a better chance of getting the gig than not showing up. And in the same way, turning in a self-tape will give me a better shot than not turning in the self-tape.

So in the next 48 hours, I’m going to work with either my mom or little brother to learn, digest, memorize, and film these audition excerpts. I may not submit them right away, but at the very least I’m gonna get some drafts filmed so I can review them and learn from what I see.

Awesome! All super attainable stuff that defangs the “not-good-enough” monster and reminds me why I do what I do, with a little bit of insight for you guys into my heart and soul and kinda what makes me tick.

I still have no clue what I’m doing exactly with this blog, but…maybe a good start would be to stop announcing that I don’t know what I’m doing all the time. I’m sure Mrs. Franke would be furious with me and how I’ve been undermining myself and my work.

Going forward I’ll probably do some digging on how other people write and format their blogs, maybe take some inspiration there and see what I like, then try implementing it here! That’ll be tons of fun, I’m already addicted to website creation and blogging, this stuff is getting dangerously enjoyable, but I’ve gotta get to bed.

So, bye for now! If you’re future K7 reading this, I hope you know that I’m proud of you for making stuff happen even when it’s scary and there are a couple (or a lot) of unknowns. Thank you to whoever may be reading for your time, your energy, and your support.

Keep the light of the sun in your heart and know that you are loved.

K7

*The website builder I’m using to write these blogs and stuff, when I first opened this to write this blog, automatically opened up an AI blog writer and I almost barfed all over my laptop. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but all of my posts will always be written by me and not some weird algorithm copying everything that has ever been written. If it wasn’t for my mom I’d probably have tonssssssssss of typos in here anyways, so thanks mom for reviewing my stuff.

Let’s stay connected!