How to Get Born Before You Die

How to Pay for Bad Coffee

"I just looked down and he wasn't there! Someone could have taken him, oh my god, what if someone took him!" screamed my mother in 2005 at the Downtown branch of the Nashville Public Library. The truth is, I had run off into the elevator while she was returning her books, headed to the fourth floor, and was looking through comic books only one hundred feet above her. My mother relays this story like Caesar would relay the tale of his death. But to little 5-year-old me, it was fun. Away from my mother, reading books I wasn't allowed to read, riding an elevator by myself. This feeling of independence and newness became the most coveted feeling in the world to me. After all, what could be more attractive than the feeling of complete aloneness?

But it wasn't really the feeling of aloneness that I was searching for. I just wanted to do the things that I considered "adult." Rent an apartment. Live with my girlfriend/wife. Buy my own food, pay people when they paid for me. Make other adults laugh when I told them jokes. This, to me, was independence.

This led to me having a lack of respect for my parents' house (and later, houses). I had no wish to decorate or even maintain my room, or the kitchen, or anything really. I would leave things around the house, wouldn't do my dishes, and didn't care about decorating my room.

"Why should I put up a poster? I'm gonna move out in a few years anyway." I began stockpiling posters and prints for my dream house like an A-Grade hoarder and answering every question asked by my parents with the words "yeah" or "no."

At first, I wanted to go to college.

"Finally," I thought, "I will live away from my parents and be able to dictate my own life!" This is one of the many things that draw people to higher education after High School. But unfortunately, I quickly realized that because my parents would be helping me pay for tuition and graciously letting my stay at their house on breaks, this would not be real independence. "I would still have someone to answer to," I thought. In my brain, I referred to this as Fake Independence. "All those dumb kids going to Belmont and Lipscomb are going to regret going there once they see the money draining out of their bank account and they go back home to their parents four times a year."

This is obviously a VERY cynical way to look at the college system and the kinds of people that know that college is the best option for them. I'm sure I would love going to college! In fact, every time I drive to a school to visit a friend or two, I'm always a bit jealous. It seems cool!

I realized recently that the reason I was so eager to leave the house for so long was that there was never the threat of me being pushed out of the house. My father, a lawyer with many degrees in many things said something about the college system that made me reconsider my views on going.

"Well, when I was your age you basically HAD to go to college, unless you couldn't afford it or were so wealthy you didn't need to go. I went into a close college straight after high school with no idea of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. That's what a lot of people did back then. But now...you don't have to go to college to do the thing you want to do."

Ah.

...

My good friend Ben Bowman said something a few weeks ago that made me get a little introspective. We were driving in my car to Party City to get a confetti cannon. The reason why we were driving to get a confetti cannon is not important. Ben was in a bad mood. He took a long time to respond to basic questions, which is never a good sign. Eventually, I asked him what was wrong.

"I dunno dog. I'm nervous about money for college, and we shouldn't have gotten that coffee because it was bad and I feel bad about spending money on it. And we're taking your car, so I'm nervous that the car I drove to the coffee shop is gonna get a ticket, and you're spending gas money, so now I owe you gas money."

Huh. So, I thought, he views some friendships as a constant exchange of money or time, which both need to be repaid at some point in order to maintain a healthy balance. I literally hadn't even thought of any of the problems he had mentioned before he said them. I tried to think back to the times that Ben and I had gone to restaurants and I had offered to pay, then remembered the infallible half-of-the-check Venmo payments I had received from him upon every swipe of the card.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from a book called "The Art of Asking" by Amanda Palmer, and this quote defines the way I view relationships and friendships.

"Sometimes it's your turn to ask, and sometimes it's your turn to be asked."

Basically, pay it forward. I first learned this concept at the young age of seven while checking out at a Target. I had been saving for weeks to purchase a very specific nerf gun and was proudly counting out my pennies for the cashier...until I realized that I hadn't factored sales tax into the equation. I was two dollars short. Thankfully, a very kind woman behind me in line had some extra cash and helped me out. I remember stammering and telling her I would pay her back, or that I could mow her yard if she lived in the area. 

"Hey kid," the lady chuckled, "don't worry about it. Go have fun."

I don't remember that woman's face or even her name, but I'm never going to forget her. 

This interaction was life-altering, but it left me with a question. Who do I owe this two dollars to? She didn't owe me two dollars, but here I am holding this NERF Zombie Strike Braisaw shotgun. 

Pay it forward.