The Ouchii Guy

Me at my 40th birthday party on May 16th, 2026. A joke was just made about my being bald. I of course had to rise to my feet to give them a show. Seeing everyone in that room brought me so much happiness.

As of today, May 20th, 2026, I am 40.

In my 30s, the last thing I was thinking about was my death, or the death of anyone I grew up with. We have so much longer to go — and yet here I was faced with the ultimate grim reality that even at this age, death can come for anyone. My sister-in-law had passed from colon cancer, and she was my age.

It set in motion a series of choices I’ve made that on the surface could appear like a mid-life crisis.

I decided I wanted to get muscular, so I started lifting heavy weights and finally tracking my macros. I decided I missed going out to clubs, so I started going out more. I decided I wanted to wear crop tops and go to concert after concert. I started traveling more and more. I started showing up to more events in general. I started reaching out to people I don’t see often enough to reconnect, or at the very least show love.

Conversely, I decided anywhere I don’t want to be but felt obligated to attend, I simply do not have to go. My time is valuable.

My ultimate realization was that time is not infinite, and we always think there will be time to catch up with a loved one, go on vacation, hit up that club, or pick up that dumbbell next week or next month — and then in the blink of an eye, a year passes.

Then another.

The realization that time is finite was something I already knew, but now at 40 it hits harder and with more urgency.

Over the past weekend, I had a bit of an extravagant birthday party (by my standards, anyway). I gathered all the different groups of people in my life into one room — something that was taken away from me during my pandemic wedding.

Honestly, I wish I could have had double the space because there were so many others I wanted in that room.

Every person I had a moment to pause with, I leaned in or grabbed their shoulders, looked them dead in the eye, and said something meaningful.

Floros, while great people, are not always the best at expressing what we feel. As I age, I realize how important that is.

At 40, I understand the concept of a mid-life crisis differently. Television and movies usually position it as something negative, or as a source of comedy. But I see it from another lens.

If others turning 40 are anything like me, maybe they are lifting those weights, taking those vacations, buying the concert tickets, or reconnecting with old friends because they suddenly realize time has gone by much faster than they thought.

Maybe a mid-life crisis isn’t always a crisis at all.

Maybe sometimes it’s simply someone realizing their life is precious.

So now that I’ve arrived at 40, with my health intact and a stable job, I will continue living life to the absolute fullest and continue chasing all the things on my checklist because like you, I have one life to live.

Me thanking everyone for attending. Of course I had an outfit change. I shared my thoughts on time and not waiting to tell people what you feel.

Ouchii masks during the pandemic.

This blog was actually birthed during the pandemic. What a wild time. If you click around or scroll back, you’ll see at least four posts where I recapped a lot of current events that were going on during that time. When life resumed, I kind of fell off from blogging regularly. Shocking, I know.

In 2019, I was actually really stressed and spread thin. I was trying to figure out what to do with Ouchii’s various locations as I felt the stress of keeping them up and running was wiping me out. Continually releasing new merchandise while also designing and being creative was exhausting. It started to not feel fun anymore.

The fact that I was also teaching full time at Silver Creek was brutal.

I was physically a stick at the time as I was coaching 12 Zumba classes a week all across the Bay Area.

So when the pandemic hit, it literally forced me to stop.

One of my worst traits is spreading myself thin and trying hard not to disappoint people. So when I was on that high-speed train, there was no stopping it if I had my way. The pandemic gave me no choice.

School thankfully went virtual, so I was still employed. But now, since it was distance learning and all my side gigs had paused, I suddenly had all the time in the world to do things I had been putting off, and little by little, a lot of unexpected things started falling into place.

For the longest time I kept this to myself because I knew a lot of folks were struggling, but enough time has passed now that I think I can share.

During the pandemic:

• My cousins and I actually became closer through Zoom calls and new text threads.
• Jey and I got married.
• Ouchii unexpectedly took off because of the masks I designed.
• I started Ouchii Fitness online to help people stay in shape, which paid me more than any gym ever had.
• I bought a new car.
• Jey and I bought our first house.
• I got my baby boy corgi Archie.
• I got certifications to become a personal trainer and group fitness coach.
• I got promoted at Crunch and became a group fitness manager for the first time.

Each of those bullet points deserves a blog post all on its own, and maybe in due time they’ll get one.

But as I reflect on the pandemic — something that was inherently awful and scary — it is wild to me that all those blessings found their way into my life.

I’d like to think some of that was due to a higher power, but I also have to give myself some credit too. I’ve always been a hustler, and for once I finally had time to sit still and focus that energy.

So with that, I have two takeaways from the pandemic:

1. Blessings can come at the most unexpected times.
2. Sometimes life forces you to stop because you were never going to stop on your own.

And sometimes, when everything goes quiet, you finally hear where you were supposed to go next.

Ouchii Fitness online classes.

A pandemic wedding with a 1/4 of the guests. And no, we were not supposed to be indoors and we were supposed to have masks on during this specific window of time.

Very appropriate that if I was going to run into anyone in the craziness after walking the stage, it would be her.

To outsiders looking in, it would appear that everything in my life was great. My grades were good. I was highly sociable. And get this—I was senior class president.

I somehow was able to convince enough of my peers to vote for me. I’d like to think it was purely confidence in my ability to lead the class into glory. The pessimistic side of me says it’s because the alternative would have been a complete train wreck.

Senior year was full of late nights preparing for rallies, dances, hanging out with friends, trips to the beach, and movies at Great Mall. There were some genuinely great memories made that year.

My senior prom, however, I did not enjoy.

I was exhausted from helping with all the setup that morning. Leading up to prom, I was also stressing about what to do about a date. All my friends had significant others. There was absolutely nothing wrong with going to prom alone, but I wasn’t sure if that was something I wanted to do. I was back in the closet, so asking a guy was out of the question.

Sarah, a casual friend of mine who wasn’t part of our main friend group, also didn’t have a prom date, so I asked her. Thankfully, she said yes.

One of the harder parts for me was seeing my former gay best friend bring his boyfriend to prom. I was incredibly envious of him in that way. In my eyes, Marlon got to experience the high school life I wished I had. He was good at tennis, open about who he was, got to explore his sexuality freely, was a decent student, and people genuinely liked him.

Ironically, years later, we drifted apart and I eventually heard through other people that he had been resentful of me for things outside my control. He felt like people naturally gravitated toward me and that I “had everything” at school.

Little did he know, I was envious of him the entire time.

I suppose we’ll never really know each other’s full perspective. Sometimes I think about reaching out and clearing the air.

I am thankful for all the meaningful relationships I have in my life today, but there is definitely something to be said about having a gay best friend—or honestly, any close gay friend at all—who isn’t your husband.

Graduation day came, and I gave my senior class speech. Ms. Mello, my drama teacher, had read it in advance and told me it was very well written. Once we officially walked, everything became chaotic. People were everywhere. Families were flooding in. Everyone was trying to find each other.

I remember seeing Kristabel and immediately feeling relieved and happy. We took a photo together.

But outside of that, I honestly don’t remember finding many other people.

For a while, I couldn’t even find my own family in the chaos. I remember standing there feeling strangely alone despite being surrounded by hundreds of people. Eventually, my immediate family found me, we took photos, and then we all went to dinner together.

I use this phrase all the time now, but “two things can be true at once.” Senior year, I experienced some of the highest highs. Simultaneously, some of my own internal struggles resulted in the lowest lows.

Today I come across articles, memes and reels discussing how being gay can sometimes feel incredibly lonely. I can see it. Graduation and prom were probably the beginnings of that realization for me.

From the outside, everything in my life looked great. But internally, I still felt very alone sometimes.

At the same time, high school also taught me that I could be successful and that I had a strong network of friends behind me.

I was ready to go into college and once again, start over.

This time, with confidence.

Me and Honey Gubuan in 2004. Advisor for FASA club at the time.

Quick notes:
• Monica, Mon and Gaby I appreciated a lot during this time. They kept me company while a lot of my friends were busy chasing love.
• Our last song of the evening for prom was “Burn” by Usher.
• Overfelt had a wonderful staff. Most of my teachers I found to be personable and good at what they did. Above all, patient.
• Some of the best Hip-Hop and R&B tracks came out during this 2003-2004 window of time that are still spun at bars and clubs to this day. Petey Pablo, Too $hort, 50 Cent and Beyonce are just a few off the top of my head.

Me with Lorraine (and Chris, my future college roommate and buddy), 15 years old, 2002. I forget what movie we were waiting for. Based on the year, it was likely a Harry Potter film.

My brother, AJ, is three years older than me and was about to start his senior year at Silver Creek. Originally, I wanted to go there too because that’s where everyone else was going. But the district blocked it because Overfelt was our home school. I think we could have fought it if I really wanted to, but in hindsight, that probably would have been awful for me.

Going into high school, I was once again presented with the same opportunity: a fresh start. What I knew going into freshman year at Overfelt was that I was not going to let middle school happen again. There was already a narrative I felt people had created about me among my peers, and I refused to let that follow me into high school.

At freshman orientation, I was greeted by friendly administration. Two out of three, at least. Tim McDonough and Lynne Murray did a great job making me feel welcome. I still remember Lynne’s “Freshmen, freshmen, freshmen!” chant. It was ridiculously stupid, and we were a tough audience—but clearly it struck a chord because I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Thanks to the foundation built by Ms. Weaver and my parents, I managed to maintain a 4.0. I joined a bunch of clubs. I took drama with Ms. Mello. Eventually, I found a group of fellow misfits who didn’t really belong here nor there. Looking back, I’m not even sure what we all had in common aside from being Asian. Andrew “Tank Man” became one of my steady friends, along with Richard, who I had known since kindergarten but never really connected with until then.

Sophomore year completely changed the trajectory of my high school experience.

Kristabel and I were still close, of course, but by then she had really gotten into tennis and had her own circle of friends. Through her, FASA (the Filipino club), and leadership activities, I slowly started finding my people. Lorraine especially became one of my closest friends. Through that group, I also met one of my first openly gay friends, Marlon. And of course, not forgetting where I came from, I brought Andrew into the fold too.

Around this time, dial-up internet was fading out and DSL was becoming the norm. Xanga blogs were huge. There was also this absolutely jacked-up website called FindAPix.com where people uploaded photos of themselves and strangers rated them from 1–10. Naturally, we were all on it. Through that site, I started connecting with other gay youth around the Bay Area.

Lorraine and I became especially close during this time. She was one of the first people I fully came out to, and it felt good to finally confide in someone. We had a notebook we’d pass back and forth where we basically wrote journal entries and letters to each other. God, I would love to find that notebook again someday.

One of my favorite memories with her was when we snuck off to Oakland as 15-year-olds. I honestly cannot believe we did that. I had been chatting online with a guy my age through FindAPix, and Lorraine and I decided to take BART to meet him. I took advantage of my parents sleeping in on a Saturday morning, casually told them I was going to Lorraine’s house while they were half asleep, and quietly slipped out.

We obviously couldn’t drive, so I asked an older friend to drop us off at the station.

Thankfully, the person we met turned out to actually be who he said he was—and kind. We watched The Ring, and I even met his family. I still remember his dad singing karaoke in the apartment. Total Filipino.

Looking back now, the whole thing was unbelievably stupid. We had never ridden BART before, had no idea how to navigate Oakland, and this person could have easily been someone completely different and dangerous.

By late afternoon, my mom already knew we were lying. She had been increasingly on guard because she had started realizing I was gay and I was trying hard to hide it. I think she was worried—not just about the lying, but about my safety.

She called my giant brick cell phone with no apps and told me she wanted me home immediately.

Lorraine and I went into full panic mode trying to come up with a story. Our brilliant plan was to say Lorraine’s parents had been drinking and couldn’t drive me home yet. My mom didn’t miss a beat. She immediately said she’d come pick me up herself.

What we didn’t know was that my mom had already gone to Lorraine’s house looking for me. Lorraine’s sister Jessica answered the door and told her we weren’t there.

Busted.

My mom ended up driving all the way to Oakland to pick us up. Man… that was an awkward drive home. I felt terrible for dragging Lorraine into it. I think that one incident alone caused my mom to distrust a lot of my friendships for a long time. In her mind, my friends were leading me into bad situations when, honestly, they had very little influence over my choices.

My parents raised me well. They taught me right from wrong, kindness, respect, and responsibility. Even when friends around me started experimenting with different vices, I never really followed that path. That’s a testament to them.

But what they didn’t fully realize at the time was that as a young gay teenager trying to figure himself out, what I needed most was open and honest communication. Instead, I was scared—of disappointing them, of being found out, of saying too much.

Thank goodness for Lorraine.

She gave me something I desperately needed during those years: someone I could be honest with.

And when you spend so much of your life hiding parts of yourself, having even one person who makes you feel safe enough not to is everything.

Not sure what year this is, but based on our appearances if I had to guess, we were both 21-22 years old. We need another one.