06/30/08 by Mark | Blog, Uncategorized | No Comments »
I was just asked how it’s going with my sobriety. I can’t imagine what my face looked like because my mind started racing at 300 miles per hour, attempting to scan every conversation I’ve had with this guy to figure out exactly what he might be referring to. It’s not like we’re the closest of friends, you know, like someone I would tell my secrets to, who would then be given permission to ask me questions like this. I had just told him how meaningful, joyful, and story-filled are my times on the weekend during my bartending shifts at the hotel.
“I mean, it must be difficult being around the alcohol and people drinking all the time,” he clarified.
My head was still spinning. I’ve lived my whole life doing what the best publicists do for all the celebrities—spin control. You know how they take their client’s random acts of stupidity caught on tape and turn them into something career-building? That’s what I do for my biggest client—me. Except it’s a bit more subtle. If I can keep up the appearance that everything is the way it’s “supposed to be” then there won’t be anybody trying to get underneath, to see what’s really brewing in my cauldron of gooey pleasantness. There’s nothing intriguing about nice.
Being nice is a great way to keep people at a distance. And for an attention-hungry, insecure, emotionally-driven narcissist, I can get pretty hungry for attention. So I’ve learned subtle ways to manipulate people into giving me a taste of the sweet honey I crave.
When you show a chink in your nice, especially if it’s a briefly revealed glimpse of pain on your face, it concerns people.
“What’s wrong?” They ask because they think they care, they actually just want everyone around them to be nice. It makes things better.
I let out a big sigh. “Oh, nothing.” Most people just walk away, but that’s okay. They don’t really care anyway, I guess. But when a person actually stops for a minute to dig deeper, that’s when I feel like I hit the jackpot, even though I’m acting like I’m four-years-old.
I’ve driven through several remarkable blizzards. And ended up in several remarkably deep ditches as well. One time I was driving back to college in Blair, Nebraska, after spending the weekend at home, working at the radio station and going to church in Omaha. I’ll never forget how so suddenly a switch in my brain literally flipped telling me to turn left. In the middle of the highway. Where there was no road. I can’t explain it. But I made a perfect 90 degree turn straight off the edge of the road and into the snowy ditch. This was in the days before cell phones. So there’s nothing to do, except wait for somebody with a truck, and the time to help, to drive by and hopefully find me. Like Gilligan in the snow. I think people prayed a lot more back then. Now we just pick up the phone to call for help.
On snowy nights, kind people with trucks will actually drive out into the bad weather looking for people to help. These people should get free cable TV for life or something like that. The problem for me is that people who stop and help tow people out of the ditch don’t stick around. They’ve got other people to go help. So I’m left to keep driving. I was helped, but I’m still alone.
Some people continually look for ditches to drive into, so they can keep getting rescued. This helps them feel alive. I am prone to be this way, though I’m thankful I don’t have to resort to this kind of desperate behavior very often. Though, I probably do more often than I realize. My self-help term for this kind of behavior is self-sabotage. To the extreme, self-sabotage inflicts great pain on yourself in order to hopefully bring about great rescue.
I don’t need someone to rescue me, though there are days I feel like I’d love Calgon, or somebody similar in effect, to take me away. My life’s mission has been to find someone who won’t walk away. I don’t mean that I need someone to continually ask how I am really doing. But someone who I can share life with, someone who will tell me the thoughts they think are stupid, and try to describe the feelings that don’t seem to have any words that fit. A compadre. A teammate. Another me.
Until then, I get to live with what feels at times like relational bumper-cars. I’m sitting in my car driving mostly in circles, attempting to bump into anybody near me. We crash bumpers, our heads jolt back, we laugh. We do it again, and then we find someone else to bump into. We keep crashing into each other until the Guy shuts off the ride. I’ve been stuck so often in the corner, unable to back up my bumper car, so far away from all the action going on. The teenage kid usually has to come over and physically push my car out of the corner to get me back into the game.
So when this guy asked how it was going with my sobriety, he was in effect asking me if I ever needed to be pushed out of the corner. What an intriguing question. My answer is an unquestionably and exclamatory, “Yes!” But to put a label on exactly what puts me in the corner won’t do it justice. It’s not simply bartending, It’s not simply drinking or any particular action. Sometimes I just get tired of all the crashing into other people and want to see if anyone is out there there who will push me out of the corner.
06/27/08 by Mark | Blog, Uncategorized | No Comments »
“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are.” —Don Miguel Ruiz
I like to look at my life like it’s my own special kind of reality television show, probably because fear is such an incredibly powerful force in my life. Let me count the ways: I’m afraid of being run over by a semi while I drive next to one on the Interstate; I’m afraid of falling from someplace really high like a skyscraper or getting sucked out of plane without a parachute; I’m afraid of getting stuck in a tiny crevice I have to crawl through to escape from a cave and then water starts seeping in until I’m completely underwater; I’m afraid of someone sneaking up behind me while I write this in my hopefully empty house with all the doors locked; I’m afraid of tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and green peppers—though not as much as I used to be.
I’d heard so much about people running headlong into their fears and emerging victorious. They’d jump out of a plane, or spend the night in a haunted house, just to zap their psyche free of their paralyzing fear. I decided I would drive over to my local Sonic and order a BLT just to attempt my own headlong run into one of my fears. My history would tell me I was going to hate it, that I would probably want to vomit right there in my drive-in stall.
“Welcome to Sonic, can I help you?” the friendly voice asked, completely unaware of my predicament.
“Um, yes.” My voice is shaking. “I’d like to…order…number…” My head is spinning. The check engine light is flashing on the dashboard of my brain.
“Do you have a BL…T?” Maybe they didn’t have one. Maybe they are out of tomatoes. I hear the cicadas screaming just beyond my car.
“We sure do! Would you like the combo?” She couldn’t be more cheerful.
“No thanks. Just a sweet tea, though please. Large.” I never get sweet tea. I must be delirious.
She told me how much it was going to cost, but she had no idea how expensive this order really was. I thought about driving off, but they’d recognize my car and I’m not that kind of guy anyway.
Standing on the edge of my own Grand Canyon, I ate the dang thing and something really unexpected happened. I was completely blown away. The sweetness and juiciness of the tomato and crispness of the lettuce deliciously complimented the crunchy toast and crispy bacon. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed that sandwich. It’s the perfect summer sandwich when it’s super hot outside and you don’t feel like eating a lot of food. And the sweet tea had just the right amount of sugar. That night I dove into a sandwich I had been afraid of my whole life and I emerged with one less fear.
06/17/08 by Mark | Blog, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Drive through my neighborhood on Thursday night and you will see everyone’s identical black trash container lined up like soldiers awaiting their, um, emptying? It’s a weekly reminder that underneath it all, we are all basically the same: We all throw out a ton of crap. Continually. There isn’t a week without garbage. But for me and my incredible neighbor Louise, it’s more than just trash day. It’s a contest. Mind you, Louise is in her 90s. You won’t know it looking at her, or talking to her, she’s simply amazing. She’s got vim and vigor, as my Grandma used to say.
Answers.com defines vim & vigor as: Ebullient vitality and energy, as in He was full of vim and vigor after that swim. This redundant expression uses both vim and vigor in the sense of “energy” or “strength.”
Perfect. They should have a picture of Louise next to their definition. She reminds me a lot of my great-grandma Adeliza Glaze. Addie. She bowled, drove and worked well into her 80s. She loved baseball, the sport of her son, Kenny. Addie also had more than a bit of spit-fire attitude in her, right up until the end. I don’t see the spit-fire attitude in Louise, but I do sense a common desire to not let life stop her from living.
The contest between me and Louise is to see who can roll the other’s garbage can back to their house before the other person does. She continually wins. And I can’t help but smile, and love her a little bit more each week.
Lately, I’ve been leaving early on Friday morning to go visit guys in prison, so I’m not around when the garbage truck rolls by, but Louise usually is. When I pull back into my driveway, there sits my black container, sitting next to my house, like Kirby at the back door, anxious to come back inside after going potty.
I’m not sure exactly why she does this. I know my reason stems from wanting to help her out. You know, she’s old, she could probably use a hand. It’s simple enough for me. I think her desire might be the same, combined with a bit of that fiery determination to show me she’s still more than able.
I just talked to Louise out in front of my house. She looked like a million bucks, like she was going to have lunch with the other ladies from the Country Club. I told her how beautiful she looked.
“I’m going for a check-up,” she smiled.
“Well, I hope it’s a good report.” I tried to be optimistic, forgetting how impossible it is to one-up her chipperness.
“You know, It’s not big deal.”
It seems like all the things I worry about are such a big deal, but as I get older, the things that used to be so big, are in fact quite small, or even non-existent.
“You just have to live life,” she continued. “You can’t worry about tomorrow. Enjoy today. That’s all you have to do.” She keeps reminding me of this truth each time I see her. I believe her. Again, for the first time.
Thanks, Louise. I needed that. I’m glad you live next door to me, and I’m glad that we have trash day on Friday.
02/27/08 by Mark | Blog, Uncategorized | No Comments »
I have lived under the curse of potential my entire life. I’ve been bombarded with comments from people all saying the same thing: I can’t wait to see what happens to you! Will you still remember me when you’re famous? Seriously, I’ve had it. When someone says that to me nowadays, I roll my eyes and say, Yeah, me too. My reaction usually elicits some sort of Awww, hang in there type of encouragement. Maybe what I desire more is empathy over actual success.
If my life was going to be a Broadway musical (please God please!) the curtain would open, the orchestra would begin playing, and one-by-one several signs would light up all over the stage looking a little like Times Square, but it’d actually be downtown Nashville. The music would build to a climax as our hero makes his arrival down the middle aisle, through the audience, and when he arrives front and center, with suitcases in hand, probably wearing a Newsboy cap and knickers and an overwhelmed Golly, I’m in the big city now expression, he turns to face the audience and starts singing:
I’m gonna make it.
I’m gonnna do it.
I’m gonna make my dreams come true
With lots of hard work, and determination
People will quickly discover me
I’m gonna fake it
Until I make it
My big smile will see me through
Nothing can stop me, I’m on my way
I‘m gonna make my dreams come true
People will look at me and say
How did it do it?
He made it through it!
He made his dreams come true
It will be a grand celebration on stage and in the audience. Kind of like how excited everybody was as they were boarding the Titanic.
After that first song is over the hero holds his final pose just a little too long. He’s filled with confidence, but as the applause dies out, fear begins to creep in. Thank God he has a plan. He rips open his coat and proudly reveals a shirt that says Pick Me with an arrow pointing to his face.
I’ve lived my whole life hoping that someone would pick me. It’s funny the things that desire will make a guy do.
I’m a wannabe. Officially. That’s even what my license plate says. The term has an unfairly negative connotation to it, one which I hope to redeem. If someone comes to Nashville with a dream, and they are perceived as being a bit delusional, as if it’s possible to have a dream that’s a little too big, they are labeled as a wannabe, and usually dismissed. In contrast, there are people who come to town who are incredible beautiful and talented, and it’s determined that they could be a source of income for a lot of people, they are called artists. So in effect, a wannabe is someone who no one thinks they can make any money off of. Valueless. Worthless. Funny enough, In spite of the occasional, needle-in-a-haystack success story, both wannabes and artists are usually hard-pressed for cash.
So why do I want to label myself as a wannabe? Because I am a person who is continually striving and reaching. I want to dream bigger than what other people think is reasonable. There are so many things I want to accomplish, but it goes beyond just doing. It’s about being. I don’t ever want to settle for the ways things are. I believe that it is possible for me to learn and grow into more and more of the person that God wants me to be. Fortunately, my faith tells me that God is all about that, as well. When people ask me, What is it that you wanna be (they usually chuckle), I can say, There are a lot of things I want to be and do. I want to be a great friend, a great son and brother, a great writer, musician, actor, creative-type person. I want to be a great listener. I want to be compassionate. I want to be loving. I could go on…
When I can clearly see what my target is, I have an easier time aiming my arrow in the right direction.
