You know what I want to do? I want to recap my past ten years. Settle in and get to know me.
1994-95, Age 16: This was the year in which I earned my driver's license. I hit three home runs in the championship game at Clark Field and tore the ligaments in my right ankle after my pitcher didn't cover first base. Fresh out of a walking cast, I got into my first car wreck, which was just me rolling slowly into a USPS Jeep on Vineville when I leaned over to pick up a cassette tape that'd fallen on the floor. At this age, I also delivered my last sermon in the church of Christ.
1995-96, Age 17: I was the Captain of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for two years. Unpopular and unsuccessful at making Christians out of Athletes, I did not seek election in my senior year and set my sights on other things. I also dropped my dreams of baseball stardom when I found out I wouldn't be on the varsity team but someone with half my ability would be. I stripped down to my undies, left my uniform on the field and walked back to my car as the rest of the crew was taking the team picture. This was the year I joined the Macon Telegraph Teen Scene as an artist but began writing. By year's end, I won 12 awards doing both, which I was told was the record. Thanks to Mrs. Middleton, I got into politics and represented South Africa at NAIMUN in Washington, D.C. Dijbouti was my first choice. Oh and lest I forget, I was thrice suspended from school for stupid antics, I was almost arrested for an activity involving fireworks and soon went to Nashville, TN for college at David Lipscomb University.
1996-97, Age 18: Though popular enough at Lipscomb, I sought more friends and bonded with someone who was my 'in' at Vanderbilt. I was intended to be the date of someone I didn't like but there I found Kris who later became the first real love of my life. Before she could fully capture my attention, I was in pursuit of a lady named Kameo who inspired me to rent a limo for a Halloween tour of the Music City. I was supposed to split the cost with 9 other people but at the last minute, most of them pulled out and I went broke. It was lame. However, I was rewarded justly meeting then two of the greatest friends I'll ever have: Gallwitz and Hemingway. This was when I got serious about doubting my faith tradition. A former long-distance love introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut and from there, I started collecting and reading all the books I could.
1997-98, Age 19: The summer between this and that, Kris eMailed me out of the blue when I'd learned not to think about her. Long story short, she and I became an item in November that year. It was an arduous process, but I was at the height of believing I was destined for greatness. Sachem taught a class that exposed me to the crazy insane history of American Religion. It inspired me to rebel and that's when I experimented with an iconoclastic lifestyle. At the same time, I was writing, printing and distributing anti-church material around campus. On the softball field, I was playing with the newly formed Blue Haggards, who I've heard still exist at Lipscomb in a pseudo-fraternity manner. On the sly, the Tribe of Thomas was coming together. A group of disaffected church of Christers with social justice leanings. We joined an anti-death penalty march and I found faith in doing good for/with the disadvantaged. Somewhere in there, I found out that drinking and smoking was fun stuff.
1998-99, Age 20: I dropped out of college and had to scrap to stay in Nashville. Jeremy and I moved into an apartment and I worked for SunTrust after deciding that the Army wasn't for me. These were the golden days. Most of our friends still lived on campus so we had most of the parties and good God wasn't it fun?! Drunk, drunk, drunk. But it wasn't all fun and games. Jere's bro moved in and soon, he had two other folks living with him in his room. One left on her own and the other had taken advantage of us so we kicked him out. Kris went to Leeds, England to study abroad and I saved up money to take a trip across the pond. I landed in Paris, we traveled by train to Venice, then Florence and finally Rome. Two weeks in Europe and I thought I'd never be the same. I've never been the same but then again, I’m never the same.
1999-2000, Age 21: Things are still good. My friends are getting ready to graduate as I would have been had I stayed in school. When I returned from Europe, I'd quit SunTrust, which I'd hated because I hate money. My spiritual searches had increased and my spirit was leaning socialist. I became pretty active politically and was working for AmeriCorps. It was all very radical. My faith was totally lost after I saw Prince of Egypt and decided I couldn't worship a God who'd slaughter babies to teach the Pharaoh a lesson. Especially when He himself had hardened the dude's heart. When Kris finished her senior year at Vanderbilt, she moved to New York City to get a Master's at NYU. In her absence, I became a Youth Minister at a Southern Baptist Church, an activist and lonely as most of my friends left town for brighter lights.
2000-01, Age 22: A visit to NYC where I fell in love with Ralph Nader. Bill Murray was a guest speaker and that was my motivation, but given my political state, I was vulnerable to Ralph's sexy opinions. Later, I'd go back and attend the Critical Resistance conference to abolish the Prison Industrial Complex. My activism also took me to Orlando for a conference against prison privatization, and from there to Raleigh, NC where I held a forum at NCSU about involving the religious community in these battles. In Nashville, Matt and I tried forming the Prison Moratorium Project Southeast, but it didn't do too well. After helping put together a protest outside of a CCA stock holder meeting, things kinda fell apart. Days before my 23rd birthday, Kris broke up with me and I went insane. That year, I smoked pot for the first time.
2001-02, Age 23: I spent a year of insanity with Thomas, a deacon at the church where I'd been working. I'd quit the Youth Minister position and ended my involvement with the church. Thomas lost his job and his marriage in the same week. We were nuts. On the back, screened-in porch, we drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of cigarettes. My spiritual journey slowed and my activism was half-hearted. I met Arthur Copeland, a death row inmate in Nashville, and attended a class at Vanderbilt Divinity School taught by my Activist Father Figure, Harmon Wray. But neither lasted long. Andy and Kristen got married in Athens, GA. I attended and saw Kris for the first time in a year. She was a bridesmaid and I a groomsman because we introduced the couple. It was a great wedding but an awfully painful experience. I blew up my truck on the way down to it and in waiting for its repair, decided to move back to Macon, continue college and move to Athens where I wanted to finish my degree.
2002-03, Age 24: Fresh from Nashville and in dire need of a self-esteem, I visited my sister in Athens a lot throughout the fall. Tailgating and football games with intellectual drinkers brought back a side of myself I adored. They loved me and I loved them. It was great but Macon still sucked. I met Courtney, Magpye and Hoodrat at Macon State but needed something else. Thanks to a joke profile I'd placed on a dating site affiliated with the Onion, I was offered a free credit to contact anyone I wanted. I figured I could at least make a new friend and went searching through the ladies available (thinking that contacting a guy on a dating site would come across badly). There was Christy, a Vonnegut fan and lover of the eclectic – she’d seen the real profile I had on the same site and had already hoped to hear from me. We met up at Waffle House and combined our loneliness. It was a whirlwind love affair and we were engaged three weeks later. That March, she had major surgery and life was harder than hell. I saw very few people, had fewer friends and was freaking out on a near constant basis. The upside was I got a job working with kids again as the After School Coordinator.
2003-2004, Age 25: I was fired from my job because I accidentally broke a window and a parent complained that my actions endangered the safety of his daughter who wasn't even in my group. Things between Christy and I were strained and getting worse with the added aspect of poverty. Eventually, I got on with Terminix as a salesman but before I could make more money than God, we went to Bulgaria on some shady business, broke up and spent 24 hours of travel in a living hell. In time, we made friendly and she moved back from Alabama. In the meantime, I spent the first 8 months of the year moving through a couple of bad dates until I decided not to pursue any relationship. Thanks to good friends and cheap drinks, I regained a social life, but lost some of the brightest stars when Courtney, Big Round and Cliff moved away. They influence me still and I'm toying with just being a writer now. I'm going to give it a serious go and see what happens.
The present: Less than a week into age 26, I have little to report about where I am. While I know what I want out of the next year, I don't know what will happen. As I'm apt to say, the best way to make God laugh is to make a plan. Therefore, my only designs on the future are to do what it takes to make myself a better person in hopes that fate is kind enough to deliver some good times in exchange. I have recently refocused on getting my shit straight because I know I'm not ready for love yet though I'd like to be. There's an energy swirling under my feet and therefore, my time in Macon may be coming to an end. We'll have to wait and see.
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