Yeah, I’m Thinking I’m Back

I'm a big believer in fate.

Destiny.

Specific pre-determined outcomes in our lives that, no matter what choices of free will we make, are required to happen during our lifetimes.

My fate is to create.

My name is Matthew Thomas Hoover. Friends, family, co-workers, customers call me Matt or Hoover - and a few real ones call me Hort - but I've chosen to put the name my parents decided to call me when I was born on my professional creative work. Matt is a pretty basic name - one I've never felt is taken very seriously in things, as it sounds boyish - and Google will reveal a plethora of Matt Hoovers in America, so I've chosen to use my full government family name. So, for anyone wondering: no, it is not an ego-driven decision, but rather a marketing one...and a nod to my folks. I've got great ones. I think we should all honor our bloodlines.

Sales is what I've done my entire professional career, spanning about 20 years now. '83 baby here. We're getting old. But we 100% grew up in the best time possible.

But sales was never the plan. It just happened to be what I was good at and where I could make the most money after college, because I kinda pissed off in those years and for almost a decade after. I didn't choose to become a lawyer or a doctor; no, I indebted myself a few hundred grand because at first I wanted to work in football for life and then I wanted to be a big-time movie director. But I quit football as a sophomore in college and by the time I graduated with a BA in Media Arts with a concentration in TV/Video from a school I shouldn't have been studying that at, I didn't want a single thing to do with going to Hollywood.

At one point, I wanted to become a pastor.

I burned through a lot of money in higher education...some good, some bad. I don't recommend it. Not until you're sure.

Advice for youngsters: have a dream, but don't be stupid about it. If you're 16, 17, 18 years old right now...unless you know EXACTLY what you were put onto this earth to do with your life...just wait. AI is here. It's not coming, it's here. Everything is going to change. The world is a mess. Nothing is stable. Just wait...spend some time with your family, find some work, learn a trade, or join the military, and set yourself up to do whatever it is you want to do after all this mess shakes out.

As for me, I'm too old for that advice. I've got a beautiful, angelic wife - hi Allyson - and two of the most incredible step-daughters a man could ask for. Which means I've got a roof over our heads to pay for, food to put on the table, lights to keep on, cats to feed.

We live in the Horizon West area of unincorporated Orange County, FL outside of Orlando; our address says Winter Garden, but we just tell people we live next to Disney World, which is true: as the crow flies, we are 7 miles from Magic Kingdom, and I can watch the fireworks from my bedroom window every night. Fun fact: I've never once been to Disney World ,and I've lived in Florida going on 7 years. But it's expensive, and we have to live here to be within distance of the girls' father until they both graduate high school. So, selling is what I'll keep doing.

I'm not a native-Floridian. I grew up in a teeny, tiny town called Spangler, in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, just under 2 hours east of Pittsburgh and a little over an hour west of State College. It doesn't even exist anymore. Not on a map. Not in listings. Some jagoffs a few decades ago decided to celebrate the 100 year centennials of two neighboring towns by merging them into one, for supposed growth benefits. It's called Northern Cambria, now, which is the name of the school district. None of that good stuff ever came. But Punxsutawney Phil? An hour or so north. The Johnstown Flood? About 40 minutes south. Indiana, PA, the birthplace of Jimmy Stewart? Just 40 minutes west. Penn State University? Just a 1 hour, 20 minute drive through the mountains to the east. Coal country. Steeler country. Sounds great, right?

In so many ways, yeah. In so many ways, it isn't now. You'll see in my writing how much I am heartbroken over what has happened to places like my hometown; the places where my mother and father were raised, and where their parents grew up. You'll see my frustration and rage over the state of the world we live in. But you'll also see how much I absolutely love those places, too. There's no place like home.

It's where I went when my life unraveled at age 30.

It's where I left again while building it back up at 35.

It's where I was supposed to be born, supposed to return, and supposed to leave. Because our lives, like stories, have a beginning, middle, and end.

When you're a writer, you get to write your whole story. But not in life. You don’t get to write your opening chapters. Even the middle sometimes isn't up to you; it's your own Hero's Journey, as Campbell defined, constantly fighting to overcome obstacles, some placed there by others, some by ourselves.

The part of our lives we do get to write is from somewhere between the middle and end. Destiny gives us that part. The power to twist our own fate.

That's where I'm at now.

I'm launching my writing career. I'm pivoting back to being what I do best: create.

I'm sitting here at my desk and in a drawer to my left is a notebook of old superhero drawings I was making when I was 12 years old. That was over 30 years ago. Somewhere along that beginning & middle, I stopped using my gift. When I look at those drawings - when I think back to the creative ideas and worlds I'd come up with next to my cousin Jimmy at my Grandparents' house, or by myself lying on the floor of the bedroom I shared with 2 brothers - I'm transported back to the period of my life where I felt most alive.

Life - meaning the real world - has a way of taking away your essence if you let it. For me, I chased other things for a long time (football and women, mostly). Then it was money, out of necessity. Survival. I'm not living like that anymore.

To steal a line from a guy named John, "I'm thinking I'm back."

To steal another one from another guy named John, "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

I'm a big believer in fate.

Destiny. Specific pre-determined outcomes in our lives that, no matter what choices of free will we make, are required to happen during our lifetimes.

My destiny is to create.

Gonna be doing a whole lot of that from now on.

MTH