This is the outside podcast with Paddyo.

At 30 years old to 33 years old, you did your flag in the ground, life-changing trip.

And there's somebody else who did some pretty big stuff

from 30 to 33. And that person was Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know if this makes you

outdoorsy gay Jesus, but I am just going to put that on you. Patty, you just came up with the

headline for this podcast, Outdoorsy

Gay Jesus. And it shall be. I am a pretty crummy sleeper. At best, I get somewhere between

four to six hours of nightly slumber. Sometimes, though, like a couple nights ago, I bank a whopping 90 minutes.

Praise be you to coffee. I wish I could blame it on my recent sleep apnea diagnosis, but my

soft palate being a lazy jerk is not the real culprit here. It's my brain's nocturnal review

of my life's many moments of embarrassment, the social gaffs I keep

filed away in the caverns of my cranium.

It starts out seemingly harmless, like the time I walked into the chandelier at my

homecoming date's house when I was 14, smacked it so hard, the thing swung around like a disco

ball. But the memories invariably

get heavier as I mull over my drunken 20s and the moments when my character was put to the test

and I faltered. There are things we keep so hidden, we can't put words to them, as if the breath would bring them back to life.

Maybe we let our parents down, crush the heart of our spouse or child, failed to speak up when someone we love needed us most.

Whatever the situation, shame is a fire that we too often stoke with the timber of our heart.

The stories we tell ourselves become our reality, and we drag shame through that reality

like an anchor.

But who would we be if we could unchain ourselves from that shame?

...