Um, it actually probably truthfully started Spring Break 2014. I went home to visit my family and my two brothers were there. They were in high school at the time and we were all downstairs. I was watching NBA TV on my laptop just ready to lay low for the week. And one of my brothers is like “We should do something.” And just really threw it out there like, I think he wanted to go somewhere. I was like “Go somewhere? Like go where?” And he’s like, “I dunno, like New York.” And you know, we had a good chuckle ‘cause you don’t just go to New York, or at least I don’t — never had. And, um, somehow, someway, we just let ourselves think like, “But can we? Like can we really?” Or like, “What’s actually stopping us? Like what’s literally stopping us from doing it?”
And before we knew it, we were entertaining this notion, and a day later, we were driving to New York City, driving to the heart of Manhattan, which was the craziest thing for me. And I know a lot of people go to New York. A lot of people go to big cities, but for me, I never stopped to think — I never figured I’d go to New York ‘cause I could never think of a good reason to, and it’s like, what, am I gonna pay for a plane ticket to New York, and for what? To see the Statue of Liberty? I don’t have that kind of money. And then it was such a surreal experience because it seemed like I was locked out of New York City for 30 years of my life. I just didn’t know how to even, what context would allow me to ever go there? It just seemed complicated and out of reach, and then because my younger brother’s like “Why don’t we just go?” And we did. We found ourselves in Times Square like 30 hours later, and I was — I remember sitting being like “I can’t, I can’t believe I’ve done this, we’re now in Central Park. I — yesterday, I was watching NBA TV in my dad’s basement and now I’m in a place I never thought I’d actually go.”