Personal: Lowering the Bar

I am writing today a different person from who I was a few months back. I've changed jobs, and no longer work nights, and my world has expanded from its little three-square-mile patch of existence into a much larger patch of existence. A change of scenery has had no effect on my mood so far. I want to talk today about the effects of raising the bar, and about those moments that give life fullness, meaning, and joy, and especially why you shouldn't have them too early.

These aren't accomplishments of mine, so they're not something I can take great pride in, but they're experiences I've had. Most of them were engineered, directly or indirectly, by my mom. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, but she was determined that I be a well-rounded person with a lot of experience to draw on. She pushed me into the Chattanooga Boys' Choir, which is a professional boys' choir in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It tours both nationally and internationally, and gave me some amazing performance opportunities, all before I could even drive. I missed most of a summer band program going into my freshman year of high school because I was out on my third and final tour with them.

She also pushed me into 4-H, and as much as I hated it at the time, it was probably the best decision I ever had taken out of my hands. I learned more useful things in my peripheral association with 4-H than I did in all my years of formal education. The bar was set very high for me at a very early age, and I usually met the challenge.

One quite memorable experience had almost nothing to it – pure dumb luck, I suppose. My college was hosting a Nobel Prize nominated poet from Nigeria and I knew both the professor whose house he was staying at and the professor who had invited him to come speak, and as a result, I got to meet him in person at the little get-together they were having after his lecture. I wasn't the only student there, but I got a little more personal treatment than I really deserved. As a favor to my professor, he agreed to come to our class the next day and read the poem that had earned him the notice of the Nobel committee. He read it out to us, and as I was sitting there thinking about it with the rest of the class, he finished, and he looked up and our eyes met, and he said “Now, you.”

Words still fail me. In seven years since it happened, I cannot describe the emotional height I had reading that poem TO THE MAN WHO WAS ALMOST GIVEN A MILLION DOLLARS FOR WRITING IT. I was exhilarated, anxious, nervous, and all of those other words to a degree I can't really name. It ranks right up there with my first kiss and the day I was baptized. And when I finished reading he gave me a small round of applause, which the rest of the class joined in, and I was so drained from only a minute's reading that I thought I was going to pass out in my chair.

I was twenty years old when that happened.

I am now 28 years old, and here are just a few of the experiences I've already had -

I've traveled all over the country, including to Alaska, where I stayed up all night on the summer solstice and watched the sun not set.

I've traveled to England, where we saw the Queen Mother, who got into her car and almost ran over our accompanist. Royalty always have the right of way in England.

I've written two novels.

I've performed in two operas and one touring Broadway musical.

I've met four or five published authors and talked about their work with them.

I've seen most of the works of Norman Rockwell.

I've swum with dolphins, and also petted sharks.

I've been to Disney World so many times I had the layout memorized when I was 13.

I've been camping in the Tennessee wilderness and escaped from a bear and a scary old man, on separate occasions.

I've taken photographs of Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty, Pike's Peak, and the World Trade Center when the twin towers were still standing.

I've sung on national television with a contemporary gospel music star.

I've met a Nobel Prize nominee, a CEO, two congressmen, three TV stars, and seen one ex-president playing tennis.

 

I rode in one of the first electric cars ever manufactured.

I've eaten fish and chips in London, baked beans in Boston, pizza in New York, crawfish in Louisiana, cheese steak in Philadelphia, lobster in Maine, and barbecue in Memphis.

I've clawed my way back to functionality from a crippling mental illness.

I've paid my respects to the Unknown Soldiers and broken a known one's collarbone when he wanted to see which of us was stronger.

Now, at 28, I'm living on my own, working my job, and generally trying to figure out where to go from here.

Where do you go from here? That's a list of things to do before you die, not before you turn thirty. What can life offer me that can possibly compare to what I've already had? How do you go from a list like that and work upwards? I think perhaps I have to accept that I've probably passed my prime. Life from here is mostly about paying the bills for the good time I had.

I don't have the right to sing the blues. I've had a good life. Now what am I supposed to do to pass the time till my clock finally runs out?