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Through a Mic (Updated)

One of the most humiliating moments of my life was in high school. It's a vivid nightmare I look back on when I think of public speaking. A crowd of my teammates and their families. Two hundred people. I had prepared a speech, but lost my confidence in the words I had written down. Fifteen-year-old me decided the best decision was to throw the paper away and riff. I opened the ceremony with, “I forgot my paper,” followed by “Give it up to the coaches,” and started the applause. I must have given out ten different moments of applause, all the way down to the cheerleaders, who weren’t even present. I was the captain. The leader of the team. I was clutch in big game moments, in front of thousands of people. But I choked during a simple end-of-year banquet speech. In college, I remedied this by taking a public speaking class. Bashing on the injustices of political discourse and failures of the justice system. When I was passionate, I prevailed. I rehearsed. Delivered. When I held frate...
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Quarter to Life


August 3, 2000. 2:22 PM.

Twenty-five years later.

Something about the quarter-life sentiment struck the fear of God in me.

Am I really at my quarter-life point?

My father — three strokes and two heart attacks before fifty. Still hanging in there, somehow.

My father’s father died of a stroke before fifty.

My father’s mother died before forty, of cancer.

I’ve already had open-heart surgery.

Sure, they had their vices: smoking, chewing, sitting around.

I don’t remember my grandfather. I never met my grandmother.

The only biological grandparent I have left is sitting in memory care.

I want veins on my arms and legs. I want clear piss. No acne. A jawline. 

When friends ask me to hike Mount Timpanogos, I don’t want to debate myself.

I don’t want limits anymore. Being active has always been the solution to everything, so why the hell have I avoided it?

I want to feel better. Look better. Live better. I want sex to be better. I just want to be better.

The uncertainty of what’s ahead flipped a switch in me — I fell behind.

Maybe I won’t reach fifty. Twenty-five years is plenty of time to die, but it’s also plenty of time to do something. To make this life matter.

I don’t believe in a next one. Never have. Never will.

I just don’t understand why I pissed away the first part of mine. No more.

“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.”

― H.L. Mencken