The Ideas We Haven’t Had Yet

Yesterday we premiered Encounter Party on television. Five years ago in 2018, almost to the day (it was early December) Brian David Judkins called me and we discussed the idea that would become the show audiences saw last night. Over the last five years we made three seasons of a podcast as a proof-of-concept for this show, pitched the show endlessly and tirelessly to networks and companies around the world, and never strayed from our vision of what we could achieve.

Nearly eight years ago, in February of 2016, my whole life changed when my father’s cancer was declared terminal and we made the excruciating choice to remove him from life support. I moved to his house in Pennsylvania, leaving my career behind for a time, to handle his estate.

A week after my father’s funeral, they found a tumor in mother’s stomach, and my brother and I spent the next year helping her with treatments while handling dad’s estate.

Five months after dad died, they found a polyp on my left vocal cord and I had throat surgery that caused me to take another 6 months off acting and performing.

During all of this time I produced my first album, my first web series, my first podcast, and launched a tech startup.

The same week I was cleared to sing again by my doctors, my mother’s cancer was declared terminal, and I packed my life back into my car and moved to Maine to help her transition out of this life. During the time I lived with mom, I shared all of my projects with her, expounded on what I was working on, gave her an inside scoop to the creative life I was living while acting was on an indefinite hold.

About three weeks before she passed away we were listening to an album I produced, and she said, “you know what I’m excited for? I’m excited for the ideas you haven’t had yet. You’re 27, these ideas are just the start.” That was mid-April of 2017. On mother’s day 2017 we held her funeral.

18 months later, Brian and I had the phone call that would become Encounter Party. Encounter Party was the first idea I never got to share with my parents, the first idea I hadn’t had yet.

I’m having a really tough time, I’ll admit, not being able to share this with my parents. I’ve spent so many years coming to peace with their loss in every aspect of my life, but this feels different. This is a show I get to share with everyone except them. An idea that will never get to be excitedly shared with two voices who matter the most to me.

But there is a peace. A small kernel at the back of mind that smiles in this moment. Because the fact that Encounter Party has achieved the greatest heights of my career, means that my mom’s wish came true. The idea I hadn’t had yet was one to be excited about, and proud of.

And I am.

Back in April of 2017 mom placed the kernel in my brain that would help me see past my grief in this moment, and celebrate the kind of foresight that stereotypically only mom’s have. There was an idea there, I just didn’t know it. And she was excited for it, even if I didn’t know to be yet.

I told this story on set, at the beginning of every day each performer gave a little pep speech to the crew before we set off on an 8 hour day of recording non-stop Dungeons & Dragons action. When it came my turn, I recounted mom’s words, and how realizing them gave me a new peace and an excitement about this project. How the people in that room worked so hard to join our vision, and collaboratively make this beautiful project come to life. I told them how thankful I was that they jumped onboard my idea, and how excited I was to do the same for them someday.

So I offer you the same thing I offered them. The same thing mom offered me off-handedly in April of 2017.

You know what I’m excited for? I’m excited for the ideas you haven’t had yet.

When you have them, please tell me. I can’t wait to celebrate your ideas with you, to scream about your projects until I’m blue in the face. I am excited to celebrate the ideas you don’t even know to consider yet. Congratulations in advance on the joy you’ll feel someday.

I know, because that joy to me today resonates through every fiber of my being, and the sadness I feel at not getting to share this moment with my parents is matched by the joy I feel knowing they knew someday a moment like this would come.

And there’s more ideas back there just waiting to be found. I’m 34. Encounter Party is just the start.

Here’s to the ideas still to come.