Saturday, March 17, 2007
A Voice In The Dark
Five years ago, I had an incident that reminded me that, despite seeing myself as a "society of one", I can't always face the world alone.
I figure that I had finally realized that I may be unemployed for awhile and that I may need to look outside IT for a "temporary job" until something opened up. The NCAA Tournament was on and I watched Ohio State win their 1st round game. From there I headed to Arby's for dinner and off to the Barnes and Nobel for the monthly gathering of a local poetry group.
Now this was not your typical buncha poets. Other than me, they were mostly high school kids. Their creativity was well beyond their years. Well this day things turned renegade, the moderator no-showed; we decided to read anyhow and got the OK from the store managment, as long we kept it down and kept things clean.
After this we had a little birthday party for one of the other members, and I realized that kids like these existed in my circle of friends, but I never really took the time. I found myself doubting myself and went home with this cloud following me. I decided to call my Brother, for reasons I don't yet understand. I had to leave a message.
The next day I felt even worse, I managed to slog through my day and decided to sit down and watch the movie version of Contact(read the book, it's a LOT better).
So about 1/2 way into the film, the phone rings! It's my brother, who tells me that I didn't sound too well. I explain why and this begins a conversation that lasts a good 45 minutes to an hour.
I couldn't believe he of all people was helping. Here was a kid who had managed to get everything I had wanted and could have easily thought "he's getting what he deserves", but decided to help me out anyhow.
His final words may have been the best advice I could have received; "Watch some of the tourney or some TV, go to bed and start over tomorrow."
So I did, and I felt a lot better the next day.
It wasn't until two years later when he drove me home from the rehersal dinner for his wedding that he gave me the only answer to why he did what he did that made any sense to me:
"You don't turn your back on your own". ¶ 12:13 PM
Five years ago, I had an incident that reminded me that, despite seeing myself as a "society of one", I can't always face the world alone.
I figure that I had finally realized that I may be unemployed for awhile and that I may need to look outside IT for a "temporary job" until something opened up. The NCAA Tournament was on and I watched Ohio State win their 1st round game. From there I headed to Arby's for dinner and off to the Barnes and Nobel for the monthly gathering of a local poetry group.
Now this was not your typical buncha poets. Other than me, they were mostly high school kids. Their creativity was well beyond their years. Well this day things turned renegade, the moderator no-showed; we decided to read anyhow and got the OK from the store managment, as long we kept it down and kept things clean.
After this we had a little birthday party for one of the other members, and I realized that kids like these existed in my circle of friends, but I never really took the time. I found myself doubting myself and went home with this cloud following me. I decided to call my Brother, for reasons I don't yet understand. I had to leave a message.
The next day I felt even worse, I managed to slog through my day and decided to sit down and watch the movie version of Contact(read the book, it's a LOT better).
So about 1/2 way into the film, the phone rings! It's my brother, who tells me that I didn't sound too well. I explain why and this begins a conversation that lasts a good 45 minutes to an hour.
I couldn't believe he of all people was helping. Here was a kid who had managed to get everything I had wanted and could have easily thought "he's getting what he deserves", but decided to help me out anyhow.
His final words may have been the best advice I could have received; "Watch some of the tourney or some TV, go to bed and start over tomorrow."
So I did, and I felt a lot better the next day.
It wasn't until two years later when he drove me home from the rehersal dinner for his wedding that he gave me the only answer to why he did what he did that made any sense to me:
"You don't turn your back on your own". ¶ 12:13 PM
