This space is a living memoir.
It’s told out of order, the way we actually get to know people in real life. Some stories are funny, some tales are strange, some are heavy or heartbreaking, some seemingly coincidental, some mysterious, some are dark and some light, but all of them are true.
All are threads in the larger tapestry of who I am.
I was going to say, “who I am becoming,” but to be honest, I feel more like a sculptor; uncovering who I am by hacking away, stripping away, and brushing away who I’m not. Like the “true me” is in there somewhere, frozen in time, just waiting for me to be brave enough to do as a favorite poet of mine, Rainer Marie Rilke, wrote to the young poet, Franz Kappus, on November 4, 1904:
“How could we be capable of forgetting the old myths that stand at the threshold of mankind, myths of dragons transforming themselves at the last moment to princesses? Perhaps all dragons in our lives are really princesses just waiting to see us just once beautiful and courageous. Perhaps everything fearful is basically helplessness that seeks our help.”
Here’s a thread example, randomly selected, but a good peek into what happens when I tug on something intriguing to me and see where it goes.
I used to work at Starbucks as a barista. Customers would ask me, “Hey Joey, what’s going on in your life today?”
I’d shrug. “Nothing much. Just working. Why do you ask?”
They’d grin and shake their heads. “No, no. Every time I ask you this, you’ve always got a story. I know there’s something in there.”
And the truth is, they were right. I could really almost pick anything from my day and find out it was a life slice story.
Like just this morning:
I got one of those random scam texts.
“A friend passed along your contact information.”
Sure they did, I thought with a giggle. I knew it was a scammer, but I answered anyway.
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Which friend?”
The scammer went on:
“My name is Lani Lynn. Anna recommended your number to me. She told me that you sell burgundy red wine. Is that right?”
“Nope,” I wrote back. “Wrong person. Sorry, good luck.”
Of course, I knew the whole thing was fake. That was obvious from their first message. But sometimes I find it entertaining to play along, so I did.
“Are you Tina?”
“Nope. My name is Josie.”
“Sorry, I sent you the wrong message. I hope you are not mad at me.”
“Not mad at all, darling. We all make mistakes.”
“Thank you for your patient reply. You seem very polite and welcoming. I'm Lani Lynn. Nice to meet you. I live in Los Angeles. I wonder if you've been here.”
“I used to live in LA,” I said. “Been a decade though. This is me.”
“Are you a woman?”
“😂😂😂,” I responded. “Have you seen a man with tits like mine?”
That’s probably the end of that conversation. haha.
It reminded me: stories are everywhere.
Not every scammer stays a scammer. One of them became a close friend a few years ago—and still is. They live in Nigeria. They aren’t a scammer anymore. We met on OkCupid, where they pretended to be a woman. It took me a few weeks to catch them in the act. We’ve kept in touch, had video calls, phone calls, and I’ve even seen them thrive on LinkedIn.
That’s the kind of thing I mean when I say my life has been a string of stories. Unexpected ones. Interconnected ones. Stories that always, beyond my understanding or explanation, eventually connect to something in me that needs to be freed.
As Walt Whitman put it in Song of Myself:
“(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
That’s me. And this space—Whatever Happened to JRP? —is where I’ll share those multitudes, one story thread at a time. A living memoir, told in slices, and out of order. Just like you get to know people in real life.
If you’re curious, follow along. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine too. But if you’re someone who values truth, authenticity, and the quest to figure out who you really are at your core: then welcome.
What this Substack is about
If you subscribe, you’ll get story-slices from my life:
moments that seem small but turn out to matter
encounters with strangers that bend into something deeper
reflections on identity, creativity, queerness, ADHD, faith, and everything else that makes up the multitudes of world I live in and with
and the connective tissue between them, as I see stories interweaved everywhere
Most of my posts will be free. If one day I add a paid tier, it’ll only be when there’s something worth paying for — like live conversations with guests, or audio versions of my posts read aloud. For now, you get everything.
I’ll be posting here twice a week. To start, I’ll be sharing a couple times a week to build up a rhythm — I’ve got plenty of stories ready to tell and I’ll likely do this for more than a month. Over time, once a week will be the steady pace you can expect.
Why subscribe?
This isn’t a blog to “teach lessons” or push content. It’s a living conversation, a series of stories that reveal something about what it means to live as a whole, complicated, unfinished person.
If you value truth, authenticity, and unexpected stories brimming with reslience and possibilities, subscribe. Let’s find out together: Whatever Happened to JRP?
Your Turn
I’ve told you a little about me. Now, I’d love to know about you. Feel free to answer one, two, or all of these, or just share whatever’s on your mind.
What brought you here?
What’s a line of poetry, song lyric, or phrase that has stuck with you for years?
What’s a small, everyday moment that turned out to matter more than you thought?
I’ll be reading and responding in the comments. Can’t wait to hear from you.
~ Joey ✨
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