I feel really weird saying goodbye to 2021. Half of me wants to say get the hell out; while my other half still can’t believe – much less process – the life-changing things that happened. So yeah, when I am old and busted, which may be happening at a faster rate than I want to admit, I will be regaling the childrens with this tale. I intend to be the hip-hop/BTS-playing, Ms. Pac-Man pro, wily tennis player who is nice and warm when I get old. Telling weird stories over and over. Ay-yo.
*taps mic* Is this shit on?
Yep, all the shit was on this year.
I won a lot of stuff, a lovely thing that I ultimately feel pretty ambivalent about. It’s my challenge of heart and soul. I am so grateful for the Oakland University Alumni Award and the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame awards. Both super big deals. I know these things happen once, and not to most. The people who chose to nominate and advocate for me are angels. I enjoyed dressing up all fancy. I loved seeing my family and friends happy about the occasions. I didn’t enjoy speaking…but I did it. Price of admission. I am more of a listener than a speaker, but that was the game when you are the main event.
The parts I am left with are lovely plaques/trophies and memories. But also the nagging feelings of, what now? I’ve been in this business for reals since I was 20. I still have another 20 years to go. When you are getting lifetime achievement awards when you are at the halfway point…then what? Can I retire to West Palm Beach and start eating dinner at 4?
I remembered this conversation on this very subject with a friend who won a Pulitzer Prize. He was 47. Everybody looked at him differently after the news. He was no longer a colleague or a friend. They treated him like he was a god, or somebody who didn’t deserve the glitter. The love and admiration, along with the jealousy and hate, were all so real. He went into a funk, feeling crushing pressure to make something epic every time he wrote. Could somebody with the biggest prize in writing/journalism now be average or just good? What was the next? What if he failed? What if this was all not for real or merited? How do you see yourself when the world shifts and warps?
I wish I could talk to him now, he died a few years ago of lung cancer, about what he did to get his mind back. I am FAR from the cavernous hole he went into. Thank God. Nobody creates altars to the small-in-the-scope-of-things awards that I won. But I get his world a little more. You feel you need to live up to the labels that are placed on you. And you had nothing active to do with the perceptions. They come and hang the stuff on you like an Olympic medal and a rough-roped noose. Some hug you and wish you well. Some want to drop the floor to let you hang. Their jealousy is the poison they want you to drink.
One of my colleagues, in congratulating me, said I should now know what will be in my obituary – the HoF thing. That kind of rattled me. Whoa. (Then again, I plan on writing my own obit. Always take control of the editorial process and don’t let others speak your narrative. Boom. BOOM.)
These are good issues to have, because it’s helping me redefine some things. Ambition and drive changes as you go through life. I want to work hard, and smart. You give fewer thoughts to those who don’t matter – or never mattered in the first place…they were only real because you gave them the power to be alive.
So 2021, damn damn damn. You left your mark on me. Peace out.
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