We are excited to welcome Marco Orlando back with his next blog post.
“LOYALTY MAKES YOU FAMILY”
Marco Orlando
I started performing karaoke at Jesters on Friday nights in October 2014. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect in the beginning. A wiccan waitress kept promoting it on Facebook every week, and eventually I decided I was going to at least try it, just to see if I would like it. It turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I met someone who means the world to me, who would soon become the older sister I never had.
I arrived to the bar, and a tanned, toned, tattooed blonde introduces herself to me as DJ Kat. She hosts karaoke at Jesters on Friday nights. She could sense that I was trying to acclimate myself with unfamiliar surroundings, so she goes out of her way to make me feel welcome. I appreciated her doing that for me. She didn’t have to. I could have been just another random guy to her. But somehow, even back then, I got the sense that DJ Kat took an instant liking to me. It made me wonder what she saw in me. I just knew at the time that DJ Kat was giving me the perfect platform to showcase my love for music and performing in front of a live audience.
From there, she and I started bonding over our mutual love of music and performing. I learned early on what a tight knit group of performers Kat had at Jesters on Friday nights and how they would all back each other up if they needed to. After a while, she became the unwitting Miss Elizabeth to my innocuous Randy Savage. Even during the middle of a performance, I would look in her direction just to make sure she was okay.
Every now and then, Kat would remind me that she’s more than capable of holding her own at the bar if things should ever get dicey. But thankfully, she understood that I didn’t exactly see her the same way that other guys did, that I didn’t really want her in the “sex” kind of way. She was engaged at the time, so it wasn’t my place to want her that way. I’ve never been the kind of guy to try to steal another guy’s girl away from him. That’s not my style. I don’t believe in it.
Over time, Kat and I became kindred spirits, and we shared a more profound bond as friends and protectors. As much as I give her all the credit in the world for gripping me tight as she raised me from perdition, I would venture to say I’ve likely done the same for her at times as well. In many ways, Kat was the kind of friend I had waited my whole life to find, like we were both owed a “cosmic debt” for all the hardships we have endured in life. But along the way, I realized that she was also the kind of family I wanted in my life. Kat invited me to her wedding on April 19, 2015, and even now, I can’t get over how truly magical that day was, seeing her marry the man she loved in front of her three kids who all grew up great.
To this day, I’m convinced that DJ Kat came along at a time in my life when I needed someone like her in it. It’s true what they say about there being two different kinds of family, the kind you’re born into and the kind you make for yourself. I take the stance that blood may make you related, but it’s loyalty that makes you family to me. I only owe my loyalty to those who have never made me question theirs, and DJ Kat has earned my loyalty because of it. I love her to the ends of the earth and back with every fiber of my being. She represents all that is good and right in the world to me. Everything I do in life, I do it for her because she believes in me.
