Kylen

I’m 6’6 and every pair of sweatpants I own hits mid-calf. I eat Wingstop with a frequency that concerns the people who love me. I read Jung for fun and can explain the entire Star Wars arc (all nine films, the animated series, don’t test me) through a Jungian lens. I was once the number one ranked amateur beach volleyball player in the country.

None of those things are related. That’s sort of the point.

I grew up getting hit by the person who was supposed to protect me. I learned early that if I was funny enough, charming enough, the kind of kid other parents wanted around, I didn’t have to go home. So I got really, really good at being wanted. At performing. At being adorable. It’s a great survival strategy until you’re 28 and realize you have no idea who you actually are underneath the act.

Volleyball was the one honest thing. I wasn’t performing on the court. I was just good. The kind of good that makes people forget where you came from. And then my mom got sick and I walked away from it. Took care of her until she was stable. Then my dad got sick and I walked away from everything else too.

Nobody tells you what happens after you sacrifice your dream for the people who were supposed to sacrifice for you. What happens is nothing. You sit in an apartment that smells like old takeout and play video games until 4am and tell yourself none of it matters. The numbing started in high school (drugs, screens, anything to not be present) but after volleyball died it became the whole show. A decade of convincing myself that caring was the problem. That if nothing mattered, nothing could hurt.

Which is a comfortable place to be when you’re terrified that everything matters. That you matter. That the kid who got hit and learned to smile through it might actually deserve something better.

Here’s what I’ve learned that I didn’t expect: I have compassion for my father. Not the simple kind. Not forgiveness wrapped in a bow. The kind that comes from understanding that his mother was in Hitler Youth, not because she believed in it, but because she didn’t have a choice, and she raised him alone, without a father, doing the best she could with what she had. The damage traveled downhill. It landed on me. And I’m the one who gets to decide if it keeps going.

I’ve buried friends. Drugs. Suicide. The people I grew up with didn’t all make it out. I’m loyal to a fault, to my own detriment, to people who don’t always deserve it, because when you come from where I come from, the people who stay are everything.

I’m 33 now. I own four pairs of the same sweatpants. I eat leftovers of questionable age. I’m discovering that who I am exists because of the darkness, not despite it. And that’s either the most depressing thing I’ve ever said or the most freeing. Depends on the day.

How I ended up here

Kenda won’t let me quit. I’ve tried.

She’s annoyingly persistent about people becoming who they’re supposed to be, and for some reason she decided I was one of those people. Her mom always told her it takes a village. I guess I’m the kid the village showed up for.

Nobody had ever looked at me and said: you’re worth it. She did. And then she refused to let me argue with her about it.

The Kylen and Kenda Show is what happens when someone refuses to give up on you and you’re too stubborn to admit you needed it. It’s a podcast, but really it’s a mentorship. Gen X meets millennial, one person pushing, the other pushing back. We talk about the stuff nobody taught us. What masculinity actually means. What happens when you take the controller out of your hands and try to build something real.

I’m not the polished one. I’m the one who shows up in too-short sweatpants and says something either profound or stupid and we don’t always know which until later.

That’s the whole point.