One Small Step (Life Blog)

Hey everyone...and of course my future self! Todays blog is going to be a more traditional lifestyle type blog, in that im going to talk about my current situation / state of affairs and my mindset.

So as of 04/21/17, I David J. Irizarry became a proud first time home buyer in the state of Florida. Its been a super challenging, frustrating and exhausting process from start to finish, but it was definitely well worth all the added stress as I am absolutely excited and just couldn't be any happier with the house and my current situation! 

To think, im only 23 years of age and I have now successfully applied a house on top of my student loan debt and added it to my name....Yayyy MEEE, lol!! In all seriousness though, I am really loving the upgrade from my old apartment in The Three Fountains of Viera, Viera FL (Melbourne FL) to where I am today. Its a big step for me and I got a tremendous amount of learning and troubleshooting to do as a first time buyer. Its going to be quite the challenge, but overall I feel like its a real positive position I put myself in...one small step towards my bigger goals and aspirations in life!

2017 has been full of ups and downs for me thus far...definitely more then enough downs then I care for...but I am determined to end this year on a good note for myself, and this house is one small step in that direction. From losing my first real girlfriend who I truly cared for in life, to losing my cousin / little brother in Christian in death; I was really wondering what else could go wrong in 2017... But with the addition of Blue, my families constant support, making a bunch of new friends and now adding a house to my life resume, things are starting to look up, not to mention the growth and strides I am making at my company, which is always a plus ;) Sometimes you just got to take the bad with the good and make the most of it.

It sure is a good thing I am so positive and rugged, because I know that trouble is just around the corner waiting to screw with me some more, but that wont stop me. Im way too determined to finish the year on a strong note and to reach my greater goals! Not to mention Gods got my back as well so, I got nothing to fear :) 

On another note, I cant say exactly what it is thats compelled me to be so vocal, outgoing or less introverted (its definitely a combination of factors), but I am planning on starting my own video podcast via my YouTube channel. I have always wanted to do something like this, but never felt like I had the courage to upload videos of myself in that manner....,but Im Over That lol! Im planning on having a bunch of my family and friends on for each podcast discussing all kinds of topics. I think its a great idea from the standpoint that it will help me completely break away from the fears of my past, keep me intellectually challenged and intrigued, as ill be able to hear people of various personalities and perspectives, discuss issues / topics that are near and dear to their hearts or have something to do with their professions or passions. I plan on each podcast being around 15 to 30 minutes but I have to feel it out and see what works best, also im going to try and do a podcast every week, but since its hard to be consistent when you rely on others, the physical day I upload my videos my vary. My hope is I have a video on either Tuesday, Friday or Saturday each week, so lets see how that plays out.

Anyway, as always thanks for reading and feel free to check out the pictures and video in the link below as its a video of me making a MTV Cribs style video of my house ;)

Video: Dj's First House (MTV Crib Style)

My YouTube Channel

Curious Podcast (My Future Podcast Channel!)

This Is Christian… (Eulogy 07/9/1997 - 03/30/2017)

Let me first off start by saying that, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would have to write something like this for someone I loved that was younger than me… I wasn’t even sure what to say or how long and detailed I should make this as there is no way in my mind that I could ever summarize the life of someone so dear to me in a couple of pages…

So I figured I start with a little background on my relationship with Christian, some of the memories I have with him and my perspective of who he was as a person.

To do that though, I have to tell you all a little bit about myself to kind of set a tone. I know most of you here are family, but for those who don’t know, my name is David Joseph Irizarry (although Christian knew me as DJ). I was an only child for 11 years of my life, I was terribly dreadfully shy, quiet and reserved as a child and was just god awful at making friends. So family…well my cousins in particular ended up filling that need in my life. When I was younger I was lucky enough to live right next door to my cousins in Anthony and Christian. They always came over to play, whether it was with toys, video games, hiking in the backyard or just playing hide n seek inside the house. So many good times I had with them and in particular (just so you know I love you death Anthony) but Christian would always want to stay over and spend time with me the most. Christian ended up being one of if not the closest cousin I had, he was more than a cousin to me, he was my best friend for most of my life growing up and my partner in crime, as we would get in trouble together quite often.

I have so many memories with Christian and there constantly flowing through my mind… I remember times when we were playing as teammates on a game called Halo together against some older cousins of mine from my Dads side of the family. They were always kicking my ass and were genuinely better then Christian and I (which is to be expected as they are older than both of us), but the more we played together the better we got and soon we started kicking their asses and making every game competitive and it was the greatest feeling, especially since both Christian and I hated to lose. I have memories of Christian when we would go to theme parks like Disney or Universal… He truly had an amazing and unique personality and I always loved having him around. He was always so funny and always gave me a reason to smile or laugh, it was just something natural for him. He was such a clown at times… he would always make some of the stupidest jokes and had no problem laughing at himself if it could get you to laugh and smile. I have memories with Christian as child, when I was pretending to be a movie director…we used to make all kinds of impersonation clips and short films with my mother’s video camera. I remember one time when we were trying to reenact a scene from Napoleon Dynamite in which Christian was saying some lines from Pedro (a character in the movie) that go like this “ I don’t like think I can do it” and then I was supposed to…like in the movie slap him and tell him he can or something like, but really I was only supposed to graze his face or fake slap him… but I completely slapped him pretty good, like he totally absorbed that entirely. I was really hoping he wouldn’t lean into it so much, but no Christian was always a good sport...and I let him slap me back to, so its ok!

I also have memories that were not so happy, that I wish I could go back to and maybe change something… Christian and me were very close and we also dealt with many of the same issues and struggles. I remember him telling me one time that he was so sad and depressed because he had such a hard time making friends, that people would bully and make fun of him for being overweight and that he just felt so alone and that nobody could really understand him. These being things that I myself struggled with and felt, really allowed me to bond with Christian and I told him how special he was to me, how much I loved him and his family loved him, how it doesn’t matter if the world doesn’t see his value or give him a chance to see just how funny and great a person he was, because the only opinion that matters is what God thinks of you. I always felt that I had to be a role model to my younger cousins and to people in general or more like an example of what you can do if you work hard, ignore all the noise of life, trust in God and believe in yourself, even when you feel like nobody else does. 

Seeing Christian struggle with these same issues of loneliness and a lack of self-worth, was one of the major driving forces in my life that compelled me to struggle through high school and eventually college to become an Aerospace Engineer. I remember Christian being there on the day I first went to Penn State to talk with a guidance counselor about my major…he told me, based on your High School performance in Math and your SAT scores, you might want to think about another major, I don’t know if Aerospace Engineering is right for you…and he went on trying to convince me that some other career is the career I wanted to be. I remember feeling devastated inside, talking to my parents and Christian about what he said and how I still wanted to be an Aerospace Engineer despite it all and I remember Christian telling me that “I should go for it and screw that guy, prove him wrong, if that’s what you want to be”. Christian even though he was states away from me, would always text me every other week or every few weeks asking how I was doing in College, always trying to cheer me up and cheer me on when I was depressed and stressed out of my mind. He was always there to support me and congratulate me on every accomplishment I made. The fact that we grew up and life separated us, never stopped him.

He was such a kind-hearted kid, who just wanted to be excepted for who he was. He had a beautiful soul and personality… and this imperfect cruel world took advantage of him. To me, Christians life, however short, can teach us so many things. He was never perfect, but at the end of the day we are all human and will never be perfect, but like Christian, we all struggle with different internal difficulties and challenges… we all long for acceptance, friendship and love… and like Christian we should all love God with all our hearts, we should all be accepting of others, cherish family and be open and honest with each other so that nobody has to ever endure loneliness and grief in silence; it can be as easy as just making someone laugh and smile. I feel like we all as a collective whole failed Christian in life and that we all could have done a little more, especially me. But I know for a fact that Christian would absolutely never want his death to result in distrust, hurt or disorder… he would want us all to become closer and have a positive impact on ourselves and others.

I lost more than just a cousin…I lost my best friend, my wing-man, a little brother…one of the few people who would actually take the time to hear me out and seek me out. This world just became a lot lonelier for me, but I promise Christian that I’ll never give up and ill continue to make you proud in everything that I do. That ill always be supportive and helpful to others, that ill do my best to open up and be more interconnected with the rest of the family, because I know you loved family. And I promise you Christian that ill never forget you, and you will always live on in my actions and my memories… and If I am ever lucky enough to have children, in particular a son one day, he will be named Christian after you and he will know all about you!

You always had to be first, and it looks like you finally were able to beat me at something other than basketball... It comforts me to know you’re in peace though, and I can’t wait to talk to you again one day and tell you all my crazy stories. But until then im going miss you… I know you loved me and you know I love you…God Bless

Video of Eulogy: https://youtu.be/xowGfRPqKq8