Posted 6 months ago
3 Notes
9 things I did during 2011…
…and why each has made this year exponentially better than the last:
1. I witnessed the birth of my son
There is nothing like experiencing the miracle of life. The range of emotions that wash over you as you watch someone you love give birth to your child is akin to riding a roller coaster. In the waiting room, there’s anticipation. When the anesthesiologist reveals the epidural needle, there’s horror. During contractions, there’s empathy. When it’s time to push, there’s optimism. And in the fleeting moments after the baby is born, you run the entire gamut…but you end in awe. Over the course of a few hours on a cold January morning my year was made.
2. I canceled cable
This one was tough. Although I spent most of my middle and high school years without cable, I became a hopeless addict during my freshman year of college. I lost more sleep — and more GPA points — to television than I’d like to admit here. I don’t think my life was changed that much on 9/11, especially when compared to those closer to the tragedy, but the event did plant in me the seeds of dependence on 24-hour cable news. By the time the minute-by-minute news updates on 9/11 and our subsequent wars gave way to hour after hour of punditry, it was already too late. I was hooked, and not just on the never-ending news, but reality TV and 24-hour sports as well. It’s only been in the last 14 months or so that I’ve begun to notice the negative impact of spending nearly a decade sitting in front of the TV watching people yell at each other. It makes for great theatre, but lousy intellectual stimulation. So this year I cut the cord, and that decision is paying dividends in my personal productivity, outdoor life, diet and, most importantly, emotional balance.
3. I interviewed for another job
I absolutely love what I do. And I absolutely love who I do it for. But I’m glad I was given the opportunity to try on a different suit (so to speak) this year, if only for a couple of hours. Interviewing for new gigs, I’m told by career counseling pros, is a good way to maintain your edge in a competitive job market, even if you’re not actively looking. Doing so gave me a reason to refresh my resume, hone my long-term career goals and learn about how my career field has evolved since the last time I was on the market. It also reminded of all the things I enjoy about my current job and my current employer, things I might have taken for granted otherwise.
4. I read a novel
I know it doesn’t sound like much, but you have to understand I haven’t read a novel since my freshman year in college (For one of the big reasons why, see No. 2 on this list). Thing is, I read all the time. Reading is a huge part of my job and one of my favorite pastimes. But I’m used to reading newspaper articles and blog posts and tweets, not 400-page tomes. Getting back into reading books wasn’t easy. In fact, I tried and failed a few times before selecting a piece of fiction so compelling that I couldn’t put it down — The Road by Cormac McCarthy. If you’ve read McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of love and survival in a post-apocalyptic North America, you know the structure of the book is not conducive to taking breaks (it’s also pretty short). So I finished most of it in one sitting and when I reached the back cover a day later, my rite of passage was complete. Since then, sitting down to read has been surprisingly easy. I can focus, read until I’m tired, set the book down and then pick it back up the next evening with the same vim and vigor I had on the day I cracked the spine. My wife, who has always been a better reader than me, prefers to use her iPad. But for my money, you can’t beat the simple pleasure of creasing the pages of a hardback. Everything about the experience feels significant, something that is sorely missed in this, the Age of Internet Memes.
5. I acquired the taste for beer
I was the guy who, until about a year ago, preferred cocktails and malt beverages over a good old-fashioned lager. I’ve been mocked by my beer-swilling friends for years, most mercilessly after my occasional attempts to fit in by ordering a fancy brew, then complaining about its taste until it warmed to the point of un-drinkability (not even a word). I lived in Denver for a while and even in the Napa Valley of Beer I couldn’t get into it. But in 2011, the “acquired taste” everyone always talked about in high school and college finally found its way to my lips. I’ve become particularly fond of Anchor Brewing’s Anchor Steam and Big Sky Brewery’s Moose Drool. It feels pretty great to not be referred to as “my wussy friend who only drinks hard lemonade” anymore. Plus, and I didn’t know this before, there are apparent health benefits to drinking beer. I wonder when I’ll acquire the taste for Brussels sprouts?
6. I landscaped my front yard
I live in a historic neighborhood. It was developed in the 1930s, back before the invention of the McMansion. Back when you could drive down street after street without seeing any two houses that looked alike. It’s a weird feeling, crossing the threshold into a house whose existence predates your own by 50 years. On Move-In Day a couple of years ago, I remember wondering aloud to my wife what the 80-year-old walls would say if they could talk. About the families who lived there before us. About the people who were born there. Or died there. The hardest — and simultaneously most exciting — part about moving into an old house is that you have to change its history in order to make it your own. Sometimes, that means new paint. Other times, that means a kitchen remodel. For me, that meant landscaping the front yard. I wanted to do our old house justice so I hired someone who specializes in landscape design from the period. She planted traditional American flora, cedar and holly and rose. She carved out the flower bed along the narrow pathway to our door, just like it had been originally designed all those years ago. When she finished, it looked fantastic. It looked unique. It looked like it was always meant to be. It’s my hope that the new/old look out front pays my old house the respect it deserves after standing strong on our block since my parents’ parents were kids, riding their bikes from street to street, never seeing the same house twice.
7. I started bedtime prayers with my daughter
As soon as my daughter began to speak, I began the process of teaching her this simple prayer: “Dear God. Thank you for this day. Thank you for mommy and thank you for daddy and thank you for little brother Wyatt. Thank you most of all for your son Jesus. We praise your name. Amen.” Every time we say it together, she fills in the names. Sometimes, she adds the names of her classmates at school. Sometimes she adds grandparents, or their pets. She takes inventory of her blessings, as best she can understand them, and she offers thanks for each one. While she quietly enunciates “little brother Wyatt,” I silently pray beside her: “Thank you for this moment. Thank you for this blessing. Thank you for my beautiful baby girl.”
8. I lied, then confessed
I’m almost ashamed to admit this. No, I’m completely ashamed to admit this. Earlier this year, I told a fib that would have made my mother shriek. It was a BIG one. And it was dumb. And although it was not premeditated, it was detailed. Absurdly so. It involved a fall, a severe injury and a frantic trip to the Emergency Room — none of which had actually happened. All because I was running late for a speaking engagement and I was embarrassed at my tardiness. You might be thinking: “So what? People lie all the time. Especially when they’re running late.” Well, not me. At least I work very very hard not to ever ever lie. My mom raised me that way. And that’s why, within 24 hours of telling the whopper, I called the two people I had lied to and fessed up. I’m almost 30 years old. There’s absolutely no excuse for someone my age to straight-up lie about something. But oddly, both of the people I called seemed more surprised by my confession than the fact that a grown man had lied through his teeth to them. One of them actually told me, “Thank you,” and the other just giggled uncontrollably before collecting herself enough to say, “I can’t believe you called me.” Had I not called them, they likely would’ve never known truth. They both would have gone on believing my tall tale until it eventually faded from their minds. But that wouldn’t have been the case for me. The lie wouldn’t have faded. It would have festered, metastasizing into shame. Can someone have a momentary lapse of integrity or is integrity just one of those things you either have or you don’t? Some might insist the latter…but they’d be lying.
9. I survived a car crash at 70 mph
Unharmed. I mean, not a scratch, bump or bruise. The person who crashed into me was OK, too. He just had a concussion and a bloody nose. It was raining hard — the first real rain Oklahoma had seen in months — and the road was slick with oil. He hydroplaned, lost control of his Camaro, caromed off the wall on the interstate and slammed into me, completely crushing the driver’s side of my little Honda four-seater. Recounting it today, it seems like everything unfolded slowly. But really, it happened in an instant. An instant in which neither the driver of the other car nor I had any control whatsoever. The strange thing about it is that even in the violence of the moment — the plastic pieces of his front bumper exploding onto the highway like confetti, the sound of wheels screeching, the crumple of the metal doors around my body — I remained completely calm. My adrenaline wasn’t even running. Perhaps it all happened so fast that my body didn’t have enough time to truly react. I’m not sure. But I do know that as soon as I heard my wife’s voice on the other end of the phone, I lost it. I mean, my life flashed before my eyes after the fact. After my survival was already assured. Standing ankle-deep in mud by the side of the road, looking at the deep gash in my driver’s side door, I imagined my life ending. My wife being a single mom and then eventually (presumably) remarrying. My son and daughter never truly knowing their father. All the school plays and baseball games I’d never get to see. All the arguments over curfew I’d never get to have. All the family vacations I’d never get to take. It was heavy. And then it was gone. Looking back, this bit of introspection happened almost as instantaneously as the wreck itself. The only difference: I didn’t come away untouched.
