SPFPP 368: The Eulogy of Ego

The Eulogy of the Ego

Grieving the Identity I Thought I Had to Be

"This isn’t the death of a relationship—it’s the death of who I thought I had to be to be loved."

Breakups can feel like loss. But what I’m grieving right now isn’t just a person—it’s a version of myself I created in hopes of being accepted, wanted, and safe. This breakup forced me to sit with that version of me. And then, to let him go.

This episode of Something Positive for Positive People isn’t about herpes. It’s about heartbreak. It’s about masculinity. It’s about healing. It’s about what happens when we stop contorting ourselves to be palatable and start reclaiming the parts of us we abandoned for love.

Grieving the Ego, Not the Relationship

What I realized after the end of my relationship is that I wasn’t just grieving her. I was grieving the part of me I created for her.

“Capital C Courtney” was performative. He was polite, dependable, emotionally regulated, always doing the right thing. But lowercase c—Courtney, the curious, chaotic, messy one—got buried beneath that performance. That version of me—the one who felt deeply, who wanted to play, who was honest even when it wasn’t neat—that’s who I’m getting back to.

I didn’t lose a partner. I released a persona.

Masculinity, Anger & Emotional Suppression

I’ve had a fear of my own anger for a long time. Growing up, my anger was policed. Sports became the one outlet where I could be physical, expressive, loud. But as I got older and stopped playing, I had no place to put that energy.

So I tucked it away. I got quieter. Nicer. More digestible. That came with a cost.

I wasn’t just suppressing my anger—I was suppressing my vitality.

Safety vs. Freedom

The relationship offered a kind of safety. But it came at the expense of my freedom. And for me, those two things can’t be separated.

The more free I feel, the safer I feel.

But freedom can feel threatening—especially to people who’ve never had it modeled in a healthy way. And when you’re socialized to be someone else’s safe space, you start betraying yourself without even realizing it.

I didn’t want to cheat. I didn’t want to lie. I just wanted to feel like I could breathe.

Reclaiming My Inner Child

“Lowercase c Courtney” just wanted to play. He wanted to laugh. To be goofy. To be wrong sometimes. To be curious without shame. He wanted to make mistakes and still feel worthy of love.

I forgot how to let him lead.

Instead, I tried to be a man who had it all together. The "good guy." But that guy didn’t leave room for my full humanity. He didn’t make space for the kid in me who needed to be seen—not just tolerated.

Sex, Expression & Shadow Integration

For a long time, sex was how I expressed what I didn’t feel safe saying.

Desire. Anger. Joy. Sadness. Playfulness.

All of it got funneled into sex. Especially after my herpes diagnosis, I had to start asking: Am I having sex to connect—or to avoid? To reclaim agency—or to be chosen?

Letting go of shame around desire has been part of this grieving. I’m not ashamed of my sexual self anymore. I’m just learning how to express him more clearly, with more choice and less compulsion.

Capital C vs. Lowercase c

“Capital C Courtney” was my ego. He followed the rules. He stayed emotionally safe. He did what was expected of him. But I don’t want to live like that anymore.

I want to be whole, not just good.

Because being good often meant being silent. Numb. Disconnected. And I’m done with that. I want to show up in my wholeness—even if it’s messy, even if it means not being who someone else wants me to be.

Final Reflections: Presence Over Performance

This experience stripped away a lot. But what’s left is presence.

I’m learning that presence is more powerful than performance. That wholeness is more sustainable than perfection. That freedom and safety aren’t opposites—they’re partners.

This eulogy isn’t for a relationship. It’s for an ego. For the version of me that was tired of performing, pleasing, and pretending.

I’m choosing to honor lowercase c Courtney now. The one who feels deeply. The one who plays. The one who knows that the most honest love starts with self.

Listen to the Episode

Note: There is a one-minute silence around the 1:05:57 mark due to a mic issue. Feel free to skip that section.

Episode 368 Transcript

The Isolation of Male Grief and Holding Space for Anger

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Hello and welcome to Something Positive for Positive People where normally you'd hear me talk about herpes related things and today that's not what this is going to be. Um I tried to record this a second ago and realized that the way that I started was very dark. So, I'm going to preface it with that I am taking a step in my grieving process of completing this full circle. Um, at least publicly, but also doing so in a way that I haven't been in a while. I haven't been vulnerable for real for real in a while. Um, I sent out my newsletter on March 31st. Today's uh March or April 5th and I got a lot of really good just positive support from people that I didn't even know I had support from. And it was a beautiful set of moments where my email would, you know, pop up and somebody would just say, "Hey, I read your newsletter. You know, I'm uh sorry for what you're going through.

00:01:41 Courtney Brame: Uh here's something that could be helpful." And these were very thoughtful messages and I just appreciate everyone who was there for me because man, breakups f****** suck, man. And as a dude, I'm supposed to just go and like f*** somebody else and like move on and and get through it, get over it. But don't nobody like give you the sympathy that like women get out of the relationship. No one is … I'm not saying I want anybody to just feel bad for me, but it's nice to just be considered and appreciated, you know. And while I'm so grateful and thankful to the people who have reached out, I also take into consideration who hasn't reached out. And I guess like you know if you know mutual people who are connected like maybe you feel like you have to take sides and that that hurts. And the way that that hurts is in a way that I cannot communicate language for. And so I don't want to make this like a men thing but it it f****** absolutely is.

00:02:48 Courtney Brame: It’s like I'm in a field of sex education where there the space is predominantly women and you know I've even had people ask me why aren't there more men straight men cisgendered heterosexual men here and the like the the ways of engaging maybe this is like one of those things where men's spaces do need to be men's spaces and women's spaces need to be women's spaces and like the integration of the two you kind of get some of the good with it, you get the bad with it and its application for the other sex. Let's just go there. Male, female, socially conditioned as men, women, however you want to look at it. But like, yeah, I do think that it's f***** up to be completely honest that more people know that my relationship has ended than people who've known that I was even in a relationship. Like, that's wild. And that there's so many people that I would say like I thought were mutual friends of my ex and I like… I don't know if it's just that she got the story out there first or what, but also I recognize like how unrelatable my side and my experience is and has been to these people because they're not, they've not been socialized as men.

00:04:14 Courtney Brame: Llike there's no conditioning there regardless of like if you date men, if you know men, like it's it's it's different. And again, I'm so grateful for the people who've reached out. And I'm also able to stand here and say that like, f*** it. I'm grateful for the people who didn't reach out and I'm… I'm okay now. Like regardless of how that sounded, like I've already done my journaling. I already had my therapy sessions. Like, not that those things are concluded, but I've been able to just be angry in therapy. And I realized that like there there's no space for me to have my raw emotions because even in a lot of the things that I've been angry about or I am angry about, it's not been safe for me to express and communicate that anger. And so regardless of how much I can't stand my therapist, he did a really good job of holding that space for me to just be angry. And he let me know like you need to be able to be angry.

00:05:25 Courtney Brame: And like I think I have a fear of my own anger. I've had Yes, I have and have had a fear of my own anger. And the reason for that being because I've had spaces created by men to express that I played football since I was in seventh grade. So all that any anger that I would have had got to be channeled towards hitting somebody or it got to be channeled towards collaborating in a way that I'm supported by making other people better on my team for us to go out and win championships and possibly earn scholarships so that we can go to college and continue to do that. And then bam, we get plopped into the real world. And then that that transition between you playing sports and then having to be in the real world, like there's no f****** outlet. There's no outlet for those emotions. There just, there isn't. And you have to first off, not only do you have to identify that there was such an importance and a critical need in being able to express your emotions, but also you have to recognize, oh, here was where I did that.

00:06:39 Courtney Brame: Here was how I did that. How do I replace this? And I'm very fortunate that shortly after playing football, like there was a short gap between when sports ended and then when I got to start Something Positive for Positive People because I think there might have been like four years in there where I think that a lot of the unconscious expression of emotions may have happened through sex… like my sexual experiences and through those sexual experiences, I've developed the communication to be able to have conversations with people like Cam Frasier. Shout out to him. Um where we got to talk about how a lot of men do sports is also how a lot of men do sex. And being able to like have an exchange with somebody about that blew my f****** mind, y'all. And I think that that was very spot-on. And now here I am in 2025 from an accumulation of experiences that I was aware of at least between 2012 and 2017 now having like the language and understanding of what was happening for me with my emotions and like yeah the the anger thing man like I have been angry and unable to really express that anger and in that intensity of an emotion like it feels very needy for me to have my emotion of anger.

00:08:20 Courtney Brame: It feels very needy because I feel that I am emotionally intense. I know that. I know I'm intense emotionally. I do know that like, it takes a very specifically kind of traumatized person to be able to do the work that I do. And for me to have accumulated the skills and the connections and everything that I have accumulated over the years to be able to continue to do this and at some type of a consistent basis. I just lost my train of thought. For me to have been able to accumulate all of these things is low-key, nothing short of divine everything, divine intervention, timing, all of that. And so I share all of that just to say that, you know, in this grief, they talk about stages of grief, but grief is nonlinear. You might be sad, you might be mad, you might always be something that you don't know you are, and then you realize it and bam, you're there. But this morning, um, I want to make sure that I remain consistent in posting a podcast episode every week.

00:09:39 Courtney Brame: And I don't have a herpes topic today. Um, I deactivated my podcast website Selfed which um the reason that I did that is because there's a number of reasons actually that I did that. One of the reasons is that um… it it it… I feel like it takes away it has taken away and maybe I'll be able to come back to it but it takes away from what my capacity is right now for being able to continue to run Something Positive for Positive People and Selfed was more so for me to just like have a space as a man to just process stuff the way that I am now like being able to press record on something have the accountability of doing it once a week. It's like a weekly check-in for myself. A big thing happens over the week. Um, an emotionally intense thing and then I maybe journal about it and then I go to Selfed and then I talk about what that process was like for me. And I've been f****** separating my existence.

00:10:50 Courtney Brame: I'm tired of “Oh well this part of me goes here, that part of me goes there”. I'm f****** exhausted from it. And as I'm speaking right now, like maybe you hear an undercurrent of emotion in my voice, but yeah, there there is. And I feel so good about it and where I'm speaking from because this feels like this is in fact a transformation. So I was going to just start this podcast with that I'm eulogizing my lowercase C self, but I realized that that probably sounded like a suicide note or something. And that is not what's happening. All right? I want y'all to know that. So, here we are. It's April 5th, um, 2025, and I've been away. I've been home in St. Louis for the past month. This is the longest I've been home since I left uh, consistently, right? Like even when I was here for the summer of 2023, I was traveling and going to see places.

Grieving the Future and Claiming a Polyamorous Identity

00:11:54 Courtney Brame: But the point of this podcast episode is letting go for real… letting go and integration. I have been grieving for a long time. Um, I've been grieving in my relationship even while things were quote good between us. I think that there were, in looking back, a lot of signs, a handful, there's a handful of very distinct moments where I knew that I was going to eventually have to let go of my identity in association with this person that I was in a relationship with. It's not about her. It's not about what happened uh in the relationship. It's about my attachment to this big picture of my life and the attachment being to becoming that person only in association with her. And that's a very challenging thing to grieve because the entirety of the relationship like I was working towards that or working on that and being that person and changing my belief system, changing my behavior patterns and forcing myself to like even try and change like who I am.

00:13:33 Courtney Brame: And in doing so, there were all these inconsistencies. There were all of these like resistances that I had internally. And there wasn't a balance. I think that everything is uh it there's like a fluctuation to it. It's a dance. There's contraction and expansion, right? We look at the universe starting from this big bang theory, right? like everything was condensed and then bam, explosion and now everything's expanding from that contracted state. And so what I would do is I'd have so much inner resistance or contractions in trying to restructure who I am and then on the outside there was so much like allowing and accepting and uh expansion externally. So there's so much inner struggle that isn't being let out and then externally there's so much acceptance minus any bringing up of a “here are inconsistencies that need to be pointed out”. And I tried to take all of this s*** on myself and again like maybe this is a socially conditioned thing as a man thing where like yeah you just you deal with it, you fix the s***, right?

00:14:52 Courtney Brame: And I thought, I thought that I was good at communication and I thought that I was getting better at communication and I thought all of these things and this isn't the first time that this kind of thing has happened. It's a pattern for me of wanting to not necessarily just like merge, but also just like being excited, man. Being excited that, you know, I found my f****** person that I'm the kind of person who likes to have my cake and eat it, too. And I thought I found somebody who also wanted to eat cake with me. And that wasn't what it was. That wasn't what happened. And over time, like I tried to make myself not like cake. Throughout the relationship, I was like, "All right, well, you know, maybe I can” and trying to convince myself of things that I've already worked so hard in being able to accept about myself. So all this acceptance for myself, you know, I'm meeting with these resistances for the sake of becoming this big picture self person that I only saw in relation to being with this person.

00:16:18 Courtney Brame: And this morning as I was journaling about this, like I asked uh ChatGPT, what's that word for uh what they do at funerals where they like honor the person who passed? And um it was like I gave it a little more context of what I wanted to do. I wanted to have this podcast recording where I just like honored the life of my lowercase C self. And so he gave me a template. And as it gave me the template, I choked up. I started crying. And two tears fall out. Then my mom text me, "Can you talk?" I like, "How do you know I'm crying?" And then she called me with something that took me out of being able to feel my feelings. And I think that I do that a lot. Maybe everybody does that a lot where we're starting to have big feelings or emotions and then we reach for our phone. We start to have these big emotions and then we, you know, text that person.

00:17:11 Courtney Brame: We ain't got no business texting, right? And I mean, I use myself as an example here, too, where I recognize that because I've done a lot of masturbating over the last like month. I let myself… I was like, "Yo, this is my coping strategy. Like, I'm just going to let myself do this." And uh with that, I was watching p*** and there was a day cuz I'm also listening to No More Mr. Nice Guy again, which is a book by Dr. Robert Glover that talks about men integrating um being being what it what it looks like to be a man of integrity. And so one of the things in there that they speak about is not watching p***. They call it healthy masturbation, right? And being able to see like what comes up, what feelings, what emotions, and allow yourself to do it without any external stimulants. uh but treating it also as a meditative practice of some sort. So it was just me, my hands and my coconut oil.

00:18:12 Courtney Brame: And I felt… s*** like, that s*** was intense. But I recognized that that was probably the most present that I've been with my body during sex. I mean, it was just me, right? But it wasn't performance-based. It wasn't contingent on having the orgasm. It was just like something was happening in my body. That probably happens all the time when I masturbate or all the time when I have sex. And I was able to feel that like I didn't start crying or anything. Like I did think that, you know, maybe there would be a time where I would cry like just thinking, "Oh, I used to do this with her." But that's. that's not what it is. Like it's not about her. It's not about the relationship. It's literally about my attachment to who I saw myself being in the future relationship with her. And that's who I have to grieve. And the person that was working up to that I call lowercase ‘C’ Courtney.

Navigating Freedom vs. Safety

00:19:25 Courtney Brame: Lowercase ‘C’ Courtney is probably best described as my inner feminine. Lowercase ‘C’ Courtney is very impulsive. Lower ‘C’ Courtney is like, "Man, I'm not making any money here. Let's move to Portland." And then my higher self, capital ‘C’ Courtney is like, who… what… who like does the things to make that happen, right? Courtney is like, do this. We want to do this. And then capital ‘C’ Courtney is like, all right, like let's make it happen. And they're very representative of this external seeking of safety and freedom. So lowercase Courtney very much values freedom. Capital ‘C’ Courtney very much values safety. I think that capital ‘C’ Courtney is like there's this… there's this thing on the internet it says um you you need to be looking out for two people. Your 80-year-old self and your 8-year-old self. Like those are only two people that you need to like approve… have approval from. Would your eight-year-old self look up and be like, "Courtney, I'm proud of you"? And would your 80-year-old self look back and go,

00:20:49 Courtney Brame: "I'm proud of me"? So, for where I'm at right now, you know, I'm down there halfway there. But my eight-year-old self is very much that lowercase C self. My eight-year-old self that didn't have any freedom. You know, I grew up in Ferguson, Missouri, and that's not like this is where Mike Brown was murdered, and all the protests started. Um, and it wasn't, it wasn't a bad place to me, like I mean, but that's what I knew. So, a lot of stuff that is bad to me, I'm like, what? So, uh, I remember not being able to go past like three houses to the left of where I live and three houses to the right of where I live. And that my neighborhood was so big. It was shaped like an eight. I remember it was shaped like an eight. And we were on foot all the time. And like we play frisbee, we play basketball at one of our places.

00:22:01 Courtney Brame: And we also like, couldn't go into people's houses because my mom was very protective of us. My mom, um something happened to her when she was a kid and she made damn sure that that thing didn't happen to me or my uh, my siblings and I didn't have I just didn't have freedom and I very much valued being able to go around the block. And as I got older and became more independent and I got a bike, right, like it didn't make sense to just stay on the street where she can come outside and see me. And my mom also, like, she worked she worked a lot of different jobs where she wasn't really at home a lot. And safety was also something that she valued because we had a code for this was like when caller ID first started. We had a code for if she was the person calling like don't answer the phone for nobody. Don't lock… Don't unlock the door for nobody. Like I remember these things and I remember being in trouble for like losing a key because it was unsafe to lose a key because someone could find the key and break into your house and steal your s*** and kill everybody in it.

00:23:16 Courtney Brame: So this is the kind of childhood that I had. It was one where safety was so much more emphasized than freedom was. And I couldn't do s***. Like to me, I couldn't do s***. And not being able to do s*** for me was very like … it it felt… I think that I might have been a slave in a past life or something because I f****** hate being told what I cannot do. Like in my body there's an activation of rage. It makes me angry. Not like, you know, illegal stuff, right? But like things that I especially have worked so hard for myself to be able to do. And my eight-year-old self did not have the opportunity to have freedom. My 8-year-old self didn't get to play. I think my little sister was born when I was seven. Seven years older. I think I'm seven years older than my sister.

00:24:24 Courtney Brame: And then like that was where I became a big brother. And now like it's not just like my mom having to keep me safe, but also the responsibility of me having to keep my little sister safe from the same things that um I had to stay safe from. And so this was ingrained in me very young to not really have space to play. And then I guess I can translate this to herpes, but like eight-year-old me being so safe and not having the experiences of freedom gets to high school. And in high school, like I play football and now I got like an excuse of being able to venture into new territories as long as I got the gas to get to where I need to go and the money to be able to do whatever I need to do there. And I started to venture out and these lifestyles that were way outside of what was in my little 8-shaped neighborhood became exposed to me or I became exposed to. And I got to talk to people who weren't in survival mode, who didn't have like to stay within two streets of their home when they went outside because the neighborhoods that they lived in were way f****** different than mine.

00:25:57 Courtney Brame: And I got to befriend these people and the the f****** challenges of understanding and communication. Like me and all my friends, we lived with our moms and we saw our dads on weekends. Like that was that was normal to me. Like when I got around these people, they had both parents in the household and it was a completely different feel. And it was like whoa. I remember asking one of my friends. I was like, "Whoa, your parents together?" like shocked and this might have been one of the biggest like shocks to me, but like I don't have to do things the way that I've seen people do things. I don't have to do things the way that I've only seen people do things. I've watched my grandparents get divorced. I didn't watch that, but I very distinctly remember an event that occurred that my grandmother was living with us and then my grandmother was not living with us.

00:27:03 Courtney Brame: And it was me, my mom, my granddad. I remember I don't remember my parents ever like ending the relationship, but to me, they were just never together. Like I always had my mom and I saw my dad on weekends. My grandparents on my dad's side. I don't know how many times he done remarried. Like my grandfathers remarried a few times and my family, man, like their relationships, like I don't I don't want to just have kids, right? Like I don't care to just like have a baby mama. I don't care to just like have kids out here. The thing that I didn't have was freedom, but I damn sure had safety. Like they, every… everybody kept me safe. And I do a real good job with safety. I don't do a great job with freedom. I don't even know if that's the way that I meant to say that, but like I've gotten so many examples of safety just being don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.

00:28:20 Courtney Brame: And when I have so much safety, I don't have freedom, right? And as an adult, I've come to value freedom in order to feel safe. Like I need to have my freedom in order for me to feel safe. The more I can be free to be myself, the safer I feel. I remember I was in college. I remember like I think I was probably the only person talking about, "Oh yeah, yeah, I masturbate in the shower. I take my phone in there." And like everybody laughed, but like that was freeing for me and safe for me. But then I'd end up in relationships with women who would be like, "Ew, Courtney, that's f****** gross." Like, "Ew, you watch p***, ew, you masturbate in the shower, ew, you…” and because of my upbringing, I guess, like that safety was like, "Oh, okay. Well, maybe this is wrong. Maybe I do need to stop doing that. Maybe I do need to stop doing these things." But like if I like doing these

00:29:32 Courtney Brame: things and I just like don't do them like I… or maybe I just won't talk to people about it. Maybe I just won't be vocal about it. Maybe I won't be loud about it. Maybe I won't be myself. And I remember this starting as early as childhood. And I remember it being reinforced when I was in college by, you know, I'd be in relationships with people and be like, "Do you even f****** like me, man?" And I don't know how relatable that is where, you know, you end up in a relationship because of safety and then like you're you're you feel safe, but are you having fun? Are you able to be who you are? Are you able to like live out your life without having to f****** explain your existence or why you like certain things or why you are the way you are? And this has been such a f****** pattern for me. And this is why like I've I've thought that I've been very selective and picky in who I choose to be in relationships with.

00:30:38 Courtney Brame: And I'm 0 for four. I've done that s*** four times. I love being in relationships. I… the dating stuff like I depending on who you talk to about me like you might hear something different but dating is I'm not good at dating and one of the things that I've realized um especially recently is like I don't, I don't care to like date and like oh let me you know do these things get to know you I'm going to date around like the the the transition period between a breakup like people get on dating apps and they're like, "Oh, I just got out of relationship. Not looking for anything serious right now." All right, cool. So, you want to like practice that over the thing that you've practiced and gotten good at. Like for me, let me not speak for other people, but for myself, right? Like coming out of this relationship, I have learned that I absolutely need to detach from my identity as who I see myself being in association with the other person, right?

Fluidity, Rejection, and Embracing Non-Monogamy

00:31:47 Courtney Brame: So that's what I have to grieve. If I didn't have to grieve that, it wouldn't be anything to grieve, right? Like my life is actually really f****** good and the most peaceful that it's been for a while. Like me just coming home, being around my people, being around my support system and having a plan for what my life looks like. Still working on something positive for positive people. um the developments of what's to come and the skills that I've learned and being able to network locally with people and organizations that have always been here. Like the ending of this relationship wasn't about the ending of the relationship. This was 100% about my own inner resistances, especially to coming back home. And this is where lowercase ‘C’ Courtney comes in because it was like I got to get out of St. Louis. St. Louis is suffocating. No one here is like capable of or doing the things that I'm doing or that I want to do.

00:32:50 Courtney Brame: And this just isn't my space. I'm not going to find my people here. I'm not going to find, you know, my person here. And then, don't get it to when I talk about like my person. I do know that the kind of relationship that I will be in is one of much more openness than I've had in past relationships of like cuz I I ask everybody I ask, I ask my partners what do we do one day if I wake up and I decide I want to f*** a dude? How we going to handle this? And the way that they respond to that tells me a lot of information. And all of the responses that I've gotten up to the most recent relationship have always been like some form of judgment or judgmentalness about it. And it's like, well, the sexuality is supposed to be fluid, right? So, I don't know what if one day that happens? How are we going to handle it?

00:33:44 Courtney Brame: Like, are you going to end the relationship with me? Because I'm in the state of Missouri and like I've even had I've had sexual partners um who've been like, like “I can't be with a man who isn't uh dominant or who isn't, who would like let me put my finger in his ass”, right? Like these kinds of conversations have been like common here in my dating relationships experience here. So yeah, like what happens? Like I guess I need that freedom and to be able to know like all right, are you okay with the change? Cuz to me that's the most extreme change for me at least because like as far as I've known for the last 36 years, I've been straight and I don't foresee that change and like life lives and whatever the f*** ends up happening in life ends up happening in life. And so you know I asked that to see how flexible somebody is. And you know, I got like loopholed in my most recent relationship because like that wasn't the worst thing that could happen to her or that wasn't the most extreme thing that could happen to her.

00:34:59 Courtney Brame: And I bypassed what her response was, thinking like, huh, okay, well, that's new. But even then, like, I now know my intention for asking that kind of question. And so my thing about, you know, whatever relationship that I end up in, because I've also just like casually seen, it ain't even casual dating. Like these were casual relationships. And in my casual relationships, there have been um there have been moments of like I've not always been with monogamous people or non-monogamous people. Like there's been this hope for more. There's been a hope for something more that I might not have consciously been aware of, but the way that these people some some of these people responded to me saying I had a girlfriend, like they lost their s***, man. And I'm probably exaggerating, but the response was not what I expected at all. And so, oh, where am I going with this? Oh, the relationship thing. So, ending a relationship and then like jumping out into the dating world and like trying to f*** as many people as I can.

00:36:22 Courtney Brame: That doesn't appeal to me. And I want to, you know, have like relationships that work for me. Like I am not, I'm… I… What? what happened? And talking to my ex, and I'll say this because she's openly talking about being single and celibate for however long. And for me, like, why would I do that? Like, why would I… I get it. I hear you in the sense of like wanting to make space and spend time with yourself and date yourself and get to know, that s*** sound good. But like the more you do a thing, the better you get at that thing. I've been single. I've been single and unintentionally celibate. I've been single and out here. And now for where I am, like coming out of a relationship where I'm like, damn, you know what? I like I'm, I'm seeing things I'm capable of that I didn't know that I was capable of before.

00:37:25 Courtney Brame: And some of the things that I've learned in this relationship are uh that this is what things can look like. And I think a lot of that was outside of my realm of possibility. And again, this isn't in relation to her. This is in relation to me. Like I got to see myself be a supportive boyfriend of, you know, regardless of how sporadic some of the things were that I might have been supporting. I got to like see, okay, let me make this happen for you. Like I can make this thing happen and I can do this externally. I can do this for someone else. I can get these resources. I can make these asks for someone else. and this is somebody that I care about. Like, yeah, like I never get over like I do things and she'd be like, "I didn't ask you to do that." And it's like, "Well, you shouldn't have to like if you're the person that I'm seeing myself be with for the rest of my life, I'm not going to watch you have to struggle through and suffer through whatever while I'm over here like living good." like that

00:38:42 Courtney Brame: that don't make sense to me. And so it it doesn't feel fair for whoever it is that I'm supposed to be with if I were to just like all the things that didn't work in my last relationship, shut that s*** down and not do those things because they didn't work in this relationship that obviously I wasn't supposed to be in. And so now moving forward into the new relationship, like the reality is that whoever it is I'm supposed to be with, whatever I'm doing is a fit for that person. Whoever I am is a fit for that person. Like we're a fit for each other. And damn, I was supposed to just like read this eulogy. Uh I'm eulogizing my lowercase self. My lowercase C self. But I guess this s*** needs to come out because I've been trying so hard. I don't know how many times I tried to record a podcast episode and ended up just cutting it off because I bring up the relationship after saying like I don't want to give that any energy anymore.

00:39:45 Courtney Brame: So, this is really about now, you know, lessons that I've learned that can be applied here um for other people to be able to take and also see man like herpes ain't the worst f****** thing that is going to happen to you. It's not. And if it is, or if it has been, you've had a very good life. I don't know how many times I said that. I haven't said it a lot, but for real, man, if herpes is the worst thing that happened to you, you had a real good life. So, I think about, you know, another time where my freedom was taken and it was upon my diagnosis. Like, I didn't think that I would ever have sex again. Who's going to want to have sex with somebody who has herpes? So during that time like I was focused on just working to work getting the money and then like the universe presented me with people who didn't mind that I had herpes.

00:41:00 Courtney Brame: But these people weren't like, "Well, I tried to be in a relationship and then I met someone who had herpes and then right like all that stuff, but my sexual freedom was taken away from me”. I perceived it as that. And as my sexual freedom was taken away from me, like I had to find other ways of being able to explore that part of myself. And this is one more of those things where it's like I'm angry. Why did this happen to me? I didn't have those emotions. But those emotions were driven into my shadow and my shadow has come out during sex. Not to say that I'm like, you know, doing f***** up s*** to people, but like the intensity and the passion is like there. And sex might have been unhealthily used as a vehicle of expressing the same emotions that I would have expressed in uh playing sports in competition, right? So that repressed anger may have come out as people pleasing like, oh, you know, well, let me do this for you.

00:42:08 Courtney Brame: Let me be nice to you. Let me do these things for you and your family and the people around you. Right? And I never really made that connection of like an intense emotion like anger being linked to people pleasing. But I think that I think that that's what it is. I be getting chat banned on Call of Duty for when I fumble through words. I don't say that F word. I don't say the R word. These are the things that people get banned for, but I stuttered over saying pizza box or something and they chat banned me for 14 days. And then I'm on my third one from not not even saying anything f***** up. So, I'm working on my tone of speech so that people can understand me so that the AI doesn't pick up me stuttering and then discriminate against my ass uh and chatban me. So, anyway, I reconnect with my sexuality in a way that this m************ episode all over the place.

The Eulogy of "Lowercase 'C'" Courtney

00:43:17 Courtney Brame: you stuck through to this point and I ain't even got to the thing that I came here to do. Thank you. I appreciate you because it… it… not everybody wants to listen to Courtney and not everyone's able and willing to hear all of what I'm trying to say as I try and process the things. So, thank you for giving me your attention for this long. All right, skipping all that s***. Hopefully everything is closed out full circle. But today we honor the life of the lowercase ‘C’ Courtney. He just wanted to have fun. He just wanted to play. He wanted to make friends. He wanted to always play. If I could compare Courtney to somebody lowercase Courtney. I don't know who I compare him to, but I know he wanted to play. Like that's all he wanted. He just wanted freedom. He just wanted to play. He wanted to go outside those three houses to the left, three houses to the right.

00:44:41 Courtney Brame: He wanted to be out past when the street lights were on. He wanted to be able to ride his bike into the other neighborhoods. He wanted to be able to make mistakes and not have the consequences be so f****** detrimental. And in adulthood, he prioritized opportunities to play. He maybe put himself in a handful of dangerous positions. He may have in his curiosity discovered his own like limitations of freedom. But it never stopped him from pushing those boundaries and pushing those limitations. It's very impulsive. Very impulsive. Like, oh, I like it here now that I visited. Let's figure out how we… Let's… Let's move here. Let's move here. And lowercase Courtney kept Capital ‘C’ Courtney busy behind the scenes just manifesting and making possible all of the cases and scenarios for lowercase Courtney to be able to play, to be able to have fun, to be able to dance, to be able to freestyle rap battle himself in the shower.

00:46:18 Courtney Brame: for him to go to the beach and just like sit to want to just like have conversations with people talking to strangers and sex. Lower case, lowercase Courtney really enjoys sex and like there, there's not really much more to put into that. Like that that's just the case. Like it's play. Like someone wants to play and we don't have to like I mean toys are cool but like we don't have to go to the bar and get drinks to be out in public in a space like rents paid. So we can play it here. We can play literally almost anywhere where it's legal or where it's not illegal I guess. But that was Courtney's play. Like getting herpes and thinking like no one's going to want to play with you ever. And then learning that, oh s***, despite having herpes, people are going to want to play. And there's these different ways of play. And there's all these like things that you get out of play.

00:47:29 Courtney Brame: And that's all Courtney lowercase C wanted to do was just play. He was so curious. He ain't give a f*** about being in survival mode. He was love. He was extroverted. What I loved, what I loved about lowercase ‘C’ Courtney the most is that no matter how many times he fell on the playground, he got up and he played again and continued to play. Some of his playmates outgrew him. He outgrew. And that never stopped him from just playing and finding new people to play with, finding new ways to play. And you know, we we call that failure when things don't go the way you want them to go. But Courtney had lowercase Courtney had never just given up. Never looked at it as failure. Just keep playing. You just keep playing. Oh, you can't play over here anymore. Okay, we'll go over here and play.

00:49:07 Courtney Brame: Oh, this person doesn't want to play with me. Okay, I'm going to go play over here. And you want to talk about the embodiment of freedom, like to be able to just do that and trust that you're protected. That's what lowercase ‘C’ Courtney taught me. He taught me to trust. Lower case ‘C’ Courtney taught me to trust because how else can you play and play and play and fall and bruise yourself and you know be hurt by people coming and going and the games changing that you play right that's what I loved about him and that he's extroverted lowercase ‘C’ Courtney is very extroverted. So, those are the things that I loved about him. And what he taught me is, he taught me balance. He taught me balance. He taught me that I don't have to stay in the survival mode. I don't have to just do my best to make money. I don't have to work f****** seven jobs.

Shadow Work and the Cost of People Pleasing

00:50:34 Courtney Brame: Like I was teaching medical students to give genital exams. I was working as a standardized patient. I was hosting the podcast, doing these trainings with health professionals, uh and webinars and doing the conferences and speeches uh the the the talks, whatever you want to call them. I'm doing one-on-one support calls. I was teaching yoga. I'm in yoga therapy training. I was in yoga teacher training. Tried to teach yoga classes. Tried to put events together. Trying to run programs for Something Positive for Positive People and run a whole ass other nonprofit, Selfed, to put together symposiums for that and teach yoga through that and try and tap into the the space of men's emotional wellness and I f****** took away lowercase Courtney's ability to play for about two years. I have not let lowercase ‘C’ Courtney play. Not two years, a year and a half because I somehow convinced myself that all that work was so much more important.

00:51:47 Courtney Brame: My identity as who I saw myself as in the future, a husband, a father, partner. I convinced myself that that thing way out in the future was so important that Courtney, lowercase ‘C’, was not important. And I I just f****** cast him into the shadows. I cast him into the shadows. I cast him back there with my anger. I cast him back there with the intensity of all of my emotions for nobody to see. I don't want people to see that. It's ugly there. It's dark. And in my big four relationships, I was affirmed in that. Courtney, who you are is not good enough. Who you are is not enough. Who you are is you don't make enough money. You know, my… I don't want to say names. That relationship. Courtney, you want too much for yourself. You're too ambitious. Courtney, I'm jealous of you that you found what you should be doing, want to do in life, and I haven't.

00:53:14 Courtney Brame: And now, like questioning like, why are you the way you are? All of these things just… it made me push lowercase ‘C’ Courtney into the shadows. And that's something that I learned. Like my shadows aren't f****** bad. Like I like sex. Sex is play for me. Sex is healing for me. Sex is fun. Sex is inspiring. I should be able to have healthy, consensual sexual relationships with people and the kinds of experiences that I want to have as long as, you know, this is talked about, negotiated without me f****** being made to be like a f****** demon for it, you know? I don't, I don't cheat. And that's one thing I can say about my lowercase ‘C’ self is that despite, you know, playing, you get caught up in the game. You get caught up in whatever it is that you're playing, whoever it is that you're playing with, and you're you're present. So like, maybe stepping out and communicating certain things or communicating them in the way that they need to be communicated doesn't happen all the time.

00:54:56 Courtney Brame: Maybe the play isn't as safe as it can be because you are so present and in the moment. Or maybe lowercase ‘C’ Courtney just never got certain things fast enough. Or maybe lowercase ‘C’ Courtney kept getting stopped. like, hey, don't play like that. Play like this. Okay, so let me unlearn what I learned and learn what I learned. And maybe also there was just a transition period for lowercase Courtney in all of his play that he got pulled out of the present and maybe harm was caused because of his inability to be present with multiple things at a time. But man, that little n**** could play, boy. He was playing. He was playing. And he taught me to, to live life present in a way that is present because it's so hard to be present. There's always something to be done. There's always something going on. There's always somebody who needs Courtney.

00:56:46 Courtney Brame: And they don't, they don't need lowercase ‘C’ Courtney. They didn't need the other version, but man, lowercase ‘C’ Courtney had friends, lost friends, we get rejected, would still keep it moving. And I thought that I needed to protect him. But as I said, the more freedom I feel, the safer I feel. So I put lowercase ‘C’ Courtney and all of his needs and wants and desires into the shadow where nobody could see it. Then I wore a mask. I wore a mask to try and act like lowercase ‘C’ Courtney cuz can't nobody just f****** connect with serious Courtney all the time, capital ‘C’ Courtney. And I think that as I eulogize the lowercase ‘C’ Courtney, as I'm sitting there thinking, damn, “is this a death? Is this like a death of self?” I think I've been going about this and approaching it all wrong. Like I'm going to try and finish this and then tie it all together some kind of way.

00:58:25 Courtney Brame: I don't f****** know what this is about to turn out as. But what I learned from Courtney is from lowercase ‘C’ Courtney is the importance of being present. Being present is important. I learned that I value freedom. And lowercase ‘C’ Courtney didn't f****** externally seek out freedom. He was free. And he found ways of cultivating that freedom within himself and tried to share that with other people. You know, that's a learned behavior to shut down and not talk to strangers, to push back and your desires or what you want to do or your impulses. That's learned. Courtney Jr. or Courtney Jr. Wow. Courtney, lowercase ‘C’, never learned how to filter himself. My ego did that s***. My ego. It's like, oh, you know, people, people may not like this part of you or we've got experiences where people have said that you shouldn't be this way. So, let's, let's do something different.

Killing the Ego and Letting Go

00:59:41 Courtney Brame: We're going to we're going to dial you back. Come over here into this dark corner and exist here. I'll take it from here. The moments that I'm letting go of in relation to lowercase ‘C’ Courtney, I'm letting go of this concept of capital ‘C’ Courtney. Capital ‘C’ Courtney put lowercase ‘C’ Courtney in timeout. Capital ‘C’ Courtney put lowercase ‘C’ Courtney into hiding. Capital ‘C’ Courtney put lowercase ‘C’ Courtney while keeping him safe. Like kept him in these boundaries and limitations and held him to expectations that ain't even f****** his. Regardless of how impulsive I am or have been, things have always worked out. And maybe I'm looking at this s*** wrong. Lowerase ‘C’ Courtney is me, is divinely protected. And capital ‘C’ Courtney is just my f****** ego coming in and like dimming the light of myself that does in fact need to shine out into the world. You know, I make I question s*** all the time about like, can I have a family and do the work that I do?

01:01:17 Courtney Brame: Can I really be with somebody who is going to support me and like actually like help me move forward in all of what I want to do in the world??? As ridiculous as it f****** sounds, people with herpes want to kill themselves. And I have just so happened to look up and be a reason that someone didn't through this herpes s***, all of the stuff that comes with it, the stigma, all that happens for people inside their worlds. If all I got to do is f****** exist out loud, for somebody to not kill themselves, for somebody to deliver a diagnosis in a way that's going to support them in not killing themselves, for somebody who doesn't have herpes to hear me talk about this in a way that is like, "Oh, well, I never I didn't think people with herpes were normal, then so f****** be it." But I'm in my own way. This eulogy is not for lowercase ‘C’ Courtney. This eulogy is for my f****** ego. My ego as the savior.

01:02:28 Courtney Brame: Like a test. Okay, my mic died. I don't know if any of that recorded. Okay, so I have a second mic that I'm using here now. Wow, that is embarrassing. I'm not editing that either cuz I was in the zone. Y'all actually got me with some tears and s***. But anyway, this is my ego. This is the eulogy of Courtney's ego because my capital ‘C’ self was a personified version of who I thought I needed to be in relationships or in like, my like, one on one relationships with the person that I'm like trying to make a family with. And I've done that s***. I'm 0 for four. I'm 0 for four on that. And that s*** ain't working. That s*** is not working. I've not been able to just be me, be accepted for who I am, and flaws and all.

01:08:31 Courtney Brame:Like, I'mma f******. I will. And one thing about me is I don't f****** twice. I don't or not the same way. Let me let me not say I don't f****** twice, but uh I don't f****** the same way twice. I don't do the same thing twice, but there are patterns that have created, you know, new forms of expression in the relationships that I've had. Like I' i've seen the patterns. So, but now I'm paranoid. I'm checking this battery. I think we good. Um, so I got to let go of my… the moments that I need to let go of or me trying so hard to stay when I need to go. Me fighting what's happening in my body. Me being inconsistent in who I believe myself to be and what, you know, I think I need to do. trying to be liked by everybody, trying to win people over. I got to let all this s*** go.

01:09:37 Courtney Brame: And that's ego. That's not like a bad ego kind of thing. It's ego and oh, I'm so good. That's what Dr. Glover said. He said the… I'm so good nice guy and then, the I'm so bad nice guy. I've been in such the “I'm so bad” because of my relationship ending and like learning that things that I've done have been like completely like I I didn't even know a lot of the things that I've done that were so negatively impactful and it's like well damn was in this relationship for as long as I was and I didn't I didn't know that these things had such an impact like I knew knew that they had an impact and was like, "All right, cool. Let's fix it and move on." But like that wasn't what was needed. And my ego of I'm so bad, nice guy has been having me linger in my badness in from the lens of one person of somebody that you know if I was just being who I was I wouldn't even been with.

01:10:52 Courtney Brame: And that's the reality. Like my ego turned me into somebody that I don't recognize. In response to, you know, just being attached to the big picture outcome and association with this person that's showing me freedom and safety in different ways that of course I'm going to integrate for sure, but also in ways that like I can't be with nobody who don't like me. I can't be with nobody who don't like me as I am, who feels like they want to change me. And I can't be with nobody who I can't even I've spent so much time just trying to like again ego create what the problem is so that I can just say that I fixed it. And the reality is that there might not have really been problems. It's just that we're different people. We're different people. And my ego tried to make me somebody different that was more fitting in order for me to be able to be in this space of being that person that I saw myself as.

01:12:10 Courtney Brame: The big ‘C’ Courtney, capital ‘C’ Courtney, capital ‘C’ Courtney was never real. Lowercase ‘C’ Courtney is just a label that I put on myself. But I'm done identifying with s***, man. I am the f****** space between the labels that we want to put on ourselves and each other and s*** even that's an identity to have to let go of but like that's where I feel more identified with like there's so much room for play there that's where nothing is but everything comes from identify with space that's what I identify with if I'mma put my identity anywhere That's what it's going to be. Infinite possibility. Obviously shaped from my lived experience. Not infinite possibility. Infinite. Wow. Oh s***. I'm tired. How long I've been talking? Let me see. Oh, it is almost time for me to leave. Uh, I got to teach a yoga class. Um, all right.

Establishing Real Boundaries

01:13:14 Courtney Brame: What moment am I letting go of? I am letting go of the moment where when people there there's a direct point of contact where I am not supposed to be excuse me there anymore like I'm letting go of externally seeking freedom and security because that's what I've done in relationships is I'm looking for freedom I'm looking for security safety safety and freedom you know, safety, freedom, security, you know, kind of the same things. I've been looking for those in others and in my relationships. And the reality is that I've I'm cultivating those within myself. And the transition of that really looks like me creating boundaries for myself around time, communication, my energy, emotions, my sex life, and my money. Did I say money? I don't know if I said money, but money, and my health, of course. So, yeah, I don't believe that. I don't want to have boundaries for my person. I don't want to have boundaries, you know, in whatever relationships that I have.

01:14:30 Courtney Brame: And that's real for me. Like I don't want to have boundaries with a person. I want to have boundaries around things that people can decide if those boundaries align for them and they make their way into my life. And I've not had to have boundaries with the people who are close to me and in my life. So that's where I stand. That's where I'm at and that's what things look like for me moving forward. Um, yeah. I did a good job of being in a relationship by my standards and that's what I want. Like, I found that and I had it and you know I didn't do a great job with it at parts and a lot of it just came from expectation setting but I did the right things with the wrong person and you know I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that now. And I think that over the last week of me being at baseline, I've been able to really accept that.

01:15:35 Courtney Brame: This is the first time I think I'm saying it out loud. But yeah, like even in me just not being in this space or trying to divide myself up. Well, Selfed is personal, Courtney in Something Positive is for you know the advocate Courtney. Like talking about herpes is not vulnerable for me anymore. This s*** is like I'm reading you from stuff that I've written down in my notebook. I'm talking about my personal life. I'm talking about the most difficult breakup for me to date. And this breakup is not with my ex. This breakup is with this identity that I f****** created for myself. Like that is ego is some s***. Like I thought ego was just like bad and it'd be obvious. But like for ego to have taken on this I'm so good role. Like oh look how nice I am. Look how good I am. Right?

01:16:30 Courtney Brame: Like oh I can do whatever you ask me to do. I can, you know, not have desires or want to have sex with anybody else except you. And look at me. Look at me. Like I don't actually want these things. I don't have needs. I don't have desire. The reality is I have needs. I get them met. And if someone sees those things and is able to support me in that those ways and make my life a little easier, which I've had people in my life who have and I didn't appreciate them and I I was not able to receive and I've been emotionally unavailable to be able to receive and reciprocate because it it's always felt like I've not had enough to give back. And I do. I do. And I've thrown it in the f****** shadows. So playful Courtney, um I welcome you back and we going to do stuff right, we going to do stuff wrong, but I am integrating all of that which I have casted into the shadows.

01:17:29 Courtney Brame: I am integrating myself back here so that I can play, so that I can smile, so that I can radiate that positive ass energy that people have been drawn to that's created these opportunities and the spaces for me to be able to f****** thrive and not survive. for me to have the safety that comes from me being freely expressive and being free in my f****** thoughts, my opinions, and being able to go on my podcast and share what I'm really feeling without the fear of like saying the wrong thing or something being misinterpreted and like triggering the f*** out of somebody and that causes issues. I'm not doing that s*** no more. Like I am liberating myself through this eulogy. So I guess this isn't like a death of you know my identity of me but it's a death of my identity created from the expectations of someone else of me and the unset and unspoken expectations that I had on myself that manifested as the ego. So that's it, man.

01:18:31 Courtney Brame: Like I I don't know if this is like a this feels like a killing of the ego more so than like reading the eulogy and seeing it all. But yeah, I thought this was one thing and it turned into something else. So I'm so grateful for this space to be able to process things like that. Um yeah, I'm letting go of other people's expectations of me. letting go of my ego and this identity that I created for years out in the future based off of a year and a half of being in a relationship where there were such beautiful and good moments. But I guess I guess none of them were real if this person was who I had become. Like that relationship was probably just my ego. And this isn't me like in denial. This is me exploring possibilities, right? Like obviously if I was in a relationship for a year and a half, there were good moments to me that far outweighed any bad moments of things that happened.

01:19:26 Courtney Brame: And so now like I got to just let go. I got to let go of that. And yeah, I know that this is right. I know that this feels good because there's no shift in my nervous system, right? Like I went to like, I went to go and delete our text messages and Apple told me it was 32,000 texts. I cried. I was like, I can't do this. I can't delete this. And then when I did it again, like I did it. I let go because that's not, that's not me. And it's very unfortunate that, you know, I feel s***** for not recognizing this and acting on it sooner because I wanted so bad to just I wanted to save somebody and I got a whole ass job saving people. And also like I don't want to be the bad guy being like, "Hey, I can't save you. You gotta save yourself." And then I don't want to feel bad asking for what I

01:20:22 Courtney Brame: need, knowing damn well that my needs are emotional intensity. So there's, there's a lot there. There's so much. There's so f****** much, y'all. But I gotta get my ass up. Hopefully I didn't just mess the mic up. There we go. But I had to get up and I thank y'all. Thank y'all for listening. Thanks for being here. Thanks for, you know, helping me be accountable and remain consistent. I'm getting up off my ass. I'm about to go teach this class. Hopefully people pass. But no, it ain't fourth grade. I'm just f*** with that. See, look. There we go. There we go. Freestyling Courtney back. I'm smiling. I cried a lot in this episode. But um yeah, this is a eulogy for my ego. That's what this is.

01:21:11 Courtney Brame: And I encourage everybody to do this. Um, yeah, thank y'all for taking the time to listen. I mean, this concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People. I ask that if you like this episode that you leave a comment, some type of review, reach out to me, tell me because I ain't going to lie, like this really went up and down and I was just supposed to read something out my journal. But that's that's rawness. That's vulnerability. And I guess that's letting go letting go of expectations because this is what… I chose to do this. And choice is something that I find myself being more and more empowered through and from. And that's, that's what we doing. Oh, so this case I need to play around with this case. Uh yeah, if you haven't already, uh you can donate. I have a webinar coming up for herpes disclosure workshop or it's a webinar herpes disclosure webinar where I'll be teaching people how to disclose their herpes status.

01:22:14 Courtney Brame: It's virtual. It's going to be May 23rd which is the sixth year anniversary of Something Positive for Positive People being a nonprofit. It's a Friday night so you can pregame if you want. You can do whatever before we before you go out if that's what you going to do. Um I am also not hosting the conference anymore. For the Something Positive for Positive People Herpes Stigma Minimization Conference because I just haven't been in a good place to be able to really plan for it. Um and yeah, that, that's it for now, man. Like thank y'all. If you want a one-on-one support call, hit me up. I'm teaching yoga. I'm a yoga therapist in training. So, if you want to work with me and do this kind of thing that I just did, I left the yoga out of it, but there are yoga concepts that align with this. um the yamas and niyamas the internal and external like um ethics and the one that I touched on today was uh not I don't think it's brahmacharia maybe it is brahmacharya but the concept is non-attachment a parigraha is non-attachment um and that was really what this was it was just me processing it so if it was somebody else I'd have probably just asked you some questions and like led us to what the attachment is so that we can work through um the grief in such ways. That's what I'm going to put up around. I'm going to put up like yoga philosophy so that I can glance at them and remember that's what I'm missing. All I got to do now, I got a couch in my apartment, y'all. Everything's like together. All I need to do is have my dad help me put this uh wall mount up so I can put a TV up and then I can start watching. Oh my god. Where's a plug? Damn. If I put a TV on the wall, I don't know that I have a place for a plug outlet because there's a fireplace. All right. Or anyway. Anyway. All right, y'all. Uh, till next time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank y'all for being here.

Transcription ended after 01:40:12