TWENTY YEARS OF BECOMING: MY JOURNEY AS AN ARTIST

Twenty years ago, I started a journey.

But the story started a little earlier.

The Beginning:

2003 — Joined a high school band

2004 — Started playing solo acoustic gigs in bars

2005 — Entered the UST Conservatory of Music

2006 — Started writing original songs

2007 — Formed a band

2008 — Recorded our first demos

The Long Years:

2009 — Dropped out of college

2010 — Worked in a Call Center

2011 — Still working in a Call Center

2012 — Frustration grows while working in a Call Center

2013 — Resigned to pursue the band full-time. It didn’t work out. Lowest point of my life.

2014 — Went back to work in BPO

2015 — Choosing between a Corporate or Music Career

2016 — Resigned again to pursue the band. Drove for UBER. Teatrino Concert.

For years I was in survival mode. I was too stubborn not to believe that one day everything I started would have meaning.

2017 — “Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig” was released

2018 — People started listening

2019 — December Avenue became the most-streamed OPM artist on Spotify Philippines

But that introduced a different kind of struggle.

2020 — Questioning everything.

2021 — Losing my sense of reality. Anxiety. Depression.

2022 — Therapy, reflection, and learning to understand myself better

Years of struggle wired my brain to keep reaching something I didn't fully understand. Took a while to realize that I was finally there.

Healing:

2023 — Got married

2024 — Became a father to Izzy

2025 — Rebuilt and restructured

2026 — A clearer sense of purpose

I used to think the important part of this story was finally making it. But NO. It's all the years of being trapped in a cycle:

Going to work.

Coming home exhausted.

Writing another song.

Playing on empty bars.

The frustration, the disappointment.

The constant worry.

Survival.

Starting over again.

There was no guarantee what I would become today.

I only had two options: QUIT or Keep Going.

I chose the latter.

Twenty years later, I'm still learning, still creating, and still becoming.

Twenty years later, I finally understood.