It's been about five months since I felt as though my world was crashing down around my ears. When you work in ministry -- really, when you work in any sort of job you love and believe in -- it's so easy to wrap your life's meaning around the work you're doing.
When I accepted the role of morning host at The Family, I thought, this is where I'm meant to be; this is what I'm meant to be doing. I believed I had, finally, found my purpose in life.
The only thing wrong with that was, I already had a purpose in life. More than one. I have a God who loves me. An amazing wife. Four beautiful children. And as much as I gave this idea lip-service, I lived my life as though it was my job that gave me my purpose.
I have finally come to an understanding, and today I was able to put it into words: I am not my job. You are not your job. We weren't put here for a purpose, but for many.
But it took losing my job for me to understand it.
When you lose a job, it can feel as though you've lost your purpose. This is where depression comes from, I think. That hopeless feeling. That now-what-ness. But the truth, the reality, is that this is the beginning of a grand adventure: seeking new purpose -- and learning to recognize the roles you're already filling.
This was never a self-help blog, and Heaven help me if I ever turn it into one. If you're dealing with a major life change, such as job loss, I'm not going to tell you what to do. What I can do is tell you what I'm doing, and if it works for me, hey, maybe you can glean a little something for your own life.
So, for me, step one was recognizing that, indeed, I am on a journey. Step one was to recognize who God has placed in my life, and to ask the big question: why? Could it be that one of my purposes is to be the friend, husband, and father that each of them needs?
Now that I'm at home most of the day, I'm able to help my wife get the kids around for school. This reduces her stress in the morning and helps her get to work in a better state of mind. That's something right there -- and it's not a small thing! I'm able to get stuff done around the house, attempting to create a more pleasant environment for everyone (when I actually, you know, do stuff). I'm able to be here for my kids when they're out of school, and not be the exhausted zombie they used to come home to. I can ask them about their day and truly be able to listen to their answers.
This is Big Stuff. This isn't "passing the time while I wait for the next job" stuff, but truly important, life altering work.
Step Two: I can explore my passions. As a mediaphile, my job did afford me the equipment I needed to work on some of the projects I wanted to... but in order to do so, I had to take more time away from my family. When I lost my job, I discovered I'd gained something (actually my wife pointed it out on day one) that I didn't have before: time. Time is precious, and no matter how much money you have, you can't buy more of it. Equipment is another matter. Equipment was something I could buy.
So now, thanks to an encouraging and understanding spouse, I have both the time and equipment to explore those passions of mine. And I am, and as I do so, I discover more and more ways to use those passion to create purpose. Or, perhaps, to find it.
For a season -- four years, to be exact -- one of my purposes in life was to be an encouraging voice on the radio; to be the person who maybe said just the thing somebody needed to hear at the right time; to offer an ear to my callers and words of prayer when necessary.
That was my purpose -- or one of my purposes -- in life. And now, it isn't. Now, my purpose is to explore all the things God already had for me to do (like being the person my family needs), and to find out what's next.
It's an exciting journey, fraught with surprise and even a little risk. It's not a journey to take lightly, or to take for granted, but even though I haven't -- and may never -- reach a final destination, I can already tell you it's a journey well worth taking.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Murdered, She Was: Fondly Remembering Sunday Before Netflix Killed It
Netflix finds new ways to irritate me every single month by pulling away more programming and trading it out for new, less entertaining fare. Whether it's losing the BBC contract for Doctor Who or, in its latest showcase of brilliant negotiation, losing all programming from Food Network, DIY, HGTV, and The Travel Channel, they continue, by and large, to utterly fail in the promises they made when they first changed their business model to "encourage" all customers to move away from DVDs and to the streaming service.
Anyway, this is starting to get away from me. Though the exit of the Food Network is a big loss for us (my wife, kids, and I all truly enjoyed the programming), one of the most personal losses for my wife and myself is that of Murder, She Wrote.
For us, M,SW had become something of an unofficial Sunday afternoon tradition. We would send the kids upstairs for "Quiet Time" (getting our 9- and 12-year olds to agree to naps is a hill not worth dying upon), start the water boiling for tea, and turn on the next episode to see what Jessica Fletcher and all her friends in Cabot Cove have gotten themselves into.
And for the record, yes, I said "tea." Though my wife and I are resolute coffee drinkers, some things are simply right. When you play Halo, you drink Mt. Dew. When you watch football, you drink beer -- or the commercial swill that passes for beer. And when you watch Jessica Fletcher solve another murder, you drink tea.
For us, Jess, Doc Hazlitt, the Sheriffs, even McGraw and Hagarty, were old friends we invited into our homes every Sunday. We watched and laughed and sat, fingers to chins, trying to solve the murder along with our favorite mystery writer. We chuckled knowingly as she calmly fixed tea for her guest right before just as calmly accusing them of murder (my favorite part: she really was a gutsy old broad).
Eventually, if we wish to continue our tradition, I suppose I'll have to buy the series. Or hope Neflix eventually pulls their collective heads out. Probably, I'll have better luck with the DVD thing.
In the meantime, do you have a favorite mystery program or Sunday afternoon goody? Share it in the comments, and help the wife and me fill the deep hole left by Netflix's sucking.
Anyway, this is starting to get away from me. Though the exit of the Food Network is a big loss for us (my wife, kids, and I all truly enjoyed the programming), one of the most personal losses for my wife and myself is that of Murder, She Wrote.
And for the record, yes, I said "tea." Though my wife and I are resolute coffee drinkers, some things are simply right. When you play Halo, you drink Mt. Dew. When you watch football, you drink beer -- or the commercial swill that passes for beer. And when you watch Jessica Fletcher solve another murder, you drink tea.
For us, Jess, Doc Hazlitt, the Sheriffs, even McGraw and Hagarty, were old friends we invited into our homes every Sunday. We watched and laughed and sat, fingers to chins, trying to solve the murder along with our favorite mystery writer. We chuckled knowingly as she calmly fixed tea for her guest right before just as calmly accusing them of murder (my favorite part: she really was a gutsy old broad).
Eventually, if we wish to continue our tradition, I suppose I'll have to buy the series. Or hope Neflix eventually pulls their collective heads out. Probably, I'll have better luck with the DVD thing.
In the meantime, do you have a favorite mystery program or Sunday afternoon goody? Share it in the comments, and help the wife and me fill the deep hole left by Netflix's sucking.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Adventures in Unemployment: Forgiveness
For my beautiful, amazing daughter, who has more to offer the world than she realizes...
We're all pretty familiar with those well-worn "stages of grief." You know the ones: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and, finally, Acceptance. If you've followed along with this blog, you've most likely seen me going through most of these steps since my loss of employment.
But the problem is, it doesn't really end with acceptance. Because when you're dealing with grief, you're dealing with people. In a situation like this one, you're dealing with other people. There's a sixth stage, one that, while it isn't as automatic as the other Five, is just as -- probably more -- important.
See, I ultimately did come accept my firing. To realize that, maybe, even if it wasn't ideal, I can make this work and possibly even turn it into something better.
What that handy 5-stage list doesn't tell you, though, is that even when acceptance happens, the anger is still there. It may be suppressed, but it exists. I talked about some of the anger back in October. I didn't go into everything then. Partially because, while I had by then started to work out my forgiveness of the organization over the firing itself, I still hadn't dealt with the human aspects of the situation.
The person who fired me was someone I considered a friend. My direct supervisor, who wasn't there when they let me go, was a friend. I had a lot of friends there. People I could talk to, and who could talk to me. People whose company I legitimately enjoyed.
When I was let go, some of my former co-workers reached out to me. I appreciated this more than I can say. Through calls, messages, letters, and even just popping by, these individuals let me know I meant something to them, that I was more than a coworker, and that I'd be missed. They still check in, and I'm grateful.
A few never reached out. Didn't respond when I did. That hurt. Possibly more than the firing, the silence of my friends stung.
Forgiveness took some time. But ultimately, I had to. Because, forgiveness isn't about the other person. It's about me. It's about you. Not the person who needs forgiveness, but the one who was hurt.
A pastor once explained it to me this way: refusing to forgive is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. My grudge didn't hurt my former co-workers -- they didn't even know anything about it. But it did hurt me. It affected my ability to find closure. It damaged my ability to move on. It stuck in my mind like a thorn and infected my spirit.
But I am learning how to forgive. I don't know why I was fired. I don't know why my friends never reached out and contacted me. I may never know those things -- but it doesn't matter. Because it's about me. Not them. No, they didn't respond to my firing the way I would have if situations were reversed -- the way, in fact, I have responded under such circumstances. But they aren't me. The truth is, they were put in a hard (and awkward) situation. I don't know exactly what they thought or are thinking. But I'm choosing to forgive.
Maybe I'll be able to tell them so one day, and maybe not. It doesn't matter, because it's not about them. They had reasons for exiting my life, and it's up to them to decide whether they'd like to be a part of it again. But I've done what I can. Should the time come that they decide they want to reach out, I'm here, and I'm ready to accept them back into my life. And if not, I mourn the loss of those friendships.
It's easy to say. As a Christian, forgiveness is not only marginally easier, but is a requirement of faith. I am forgiven and so I forgive. It doesn't always come naturally, but it must come.
And if you're in my situation, the best advice I can give is that it must come for you, too. Because it's not about your former employer. They may or may not care whether you forgive them for firing you (and let's face it: they probably don't). It's about you.
And because it's about you, there's one more thing you need to do. One more thing I needed to do as well. And it has to happen before that whole "acceptance" thing can really happen: you have to forgive yourself, too. Even -- maybe especially -- if you don't know why.
We're all pretty familiar with those well-worn "stages of grief." You know the ones: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and, finally, Acceptance. If you've followed along with this blog, you've most likely seen me going through most of these steps since my loss of employment.
But the problem is, it doesn't really end with acceptance. Because when you're dealing with grief, you're dealing with people. In a situation like this one, you're dealing with other people. There's a sixth stage, one that, while it isn't as automatic as the other Five, is just as -- probably more -- important.
See, I ultimately did come accept my firing. To realize that, maybe, even if it wasn't ideal, I can make this work and possibly even turn it into something better.
What that handy 5-stage list doesn't tell you, though, is that even when acceptance happens, the anger is still there. It may be suppressed, but it exists. I talked about some of the anger back in October. I didn't go into everything then. Partially because, while I had by then started to work out my forgiveness of the organization over the firing itself, I still hadn't dealt with the human aspects of the situation.
The person who fired me was someone I considered a friend. My direct supervisor, who wasn't there when they let me go, was a friend. I had a lot of friends there. People I could talk to, and who could talk to me. People whose company I legitimately enjoyed.
When I was let go, some of my former co-workers reached out to me. I appreciated this more than I can say. Through calls, messages, letters, and even just popping by, these individuals let me know I meant something to them, that I was more than a coworker, and that I'd be missed. They still check in, and I'm grateful.
A few never reached out. Didn't respond when I did. That hurt. Possibly more than the firing, the silence of my friends stung.
Forgiveness took some time. But ultimately, I had to. Because, forgiveness isn't about the other person. It's about me. It's about you. Not the person who needs forgiveness, but the one who was hurt.
A pastor once explained it to me this way: refusing to forgive is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. My grudge didn't hurt my former co-workers -- they didn't even know anything about it. But it did hurt me. It affected my ability to find closure. It damaged my ability to move on. It stuck in my mind like a thorn and infected my spirit.
But I am learning how to forgive. I don't know why I was fired. I don't know why my friends never reached out and contacted me. I may never know those things -- but it doesn't matter. Because it's about me. Not them. No, they didn't respond to my firing the way I would have if situations were reversed -- the way, in fact, I have responded under such circumstances. But they aren't me. The truth is, they were put in a hard (and awkward) situation. I don't know exactly what they thought or are thinking. But I'm choosing to forgive.
Maybe I'll be able to tell them so one day, and maybe not. It doesn't matter, because it's not about them. They had reasons for exiting my life, and it's up to them to decide whether they'd like to be a part of it again. But I've done what I can. Should the time come that they decide they want to reach out, I'm here, and I'm ready to accept them back into my life. And if not, I mourn the loss of those friendships.
It's easy to say. As a Christian, forgiveness is not only marginally easier, but is a requirement of faith. I am forgiven and so I forgive. It doesn't always come naturally, but it must come.
And if you're in my situation, the best advice I can give is that it must come for you, too. Because it's not about your former employer. They may or may not care whether you forgive them for firing you (and let's face it: they probably don't). It's about you.
And because it's about you, there's one more thing you need to do. One more thing I needed to do as well. And it has to happen before that whole "acceptance" thing can really happen: you have to forgive yourself, too. Even -- maybe especially -- if you don't know why.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Hypothetical Dating For Beginners: Why My Descent Into Lonely Depression Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
I'm going to tell you about one of the worst emotional periods of my life, and why I thank God every day that it happened.
The loneliest time in my entire life was my Sophomore year in college. Some time in the middle of my Freshman year, I'd fallen for a girl. We were good friends -- best friends, even. Had many of the same interests. Loved spending time together. She was as quirky and uncertain as I was. We went to concerts. We walked the streets of Ann Arbor with no goals in mind other than enjoying one another's company.
For her birthday, she said she wanted me to write her something, so I wrote her a letter: a deep and moving piece of sophomoric prose detailing everything about her that was amazing. She called me that night to say she'd been moved to tears.
But always, always, there were other guys in the picture. She'd end it with one boyfriend just to pick up with another. She'd call me crying and asking why she couldn't just find one good guy.
Early in my Sophomore year, after another night of lamenting to a close friend that we she and I never seemed to click on a romantic level, this friend, a photographer, got her to agree to a photo shoot. During the shoot, he asked her straight out: what, exactly, are you looking for in a boyfriend? I can't remember everything she said, but my friend responded, when she was finished, "you DO know who that pretty much exactly sounds like, right?"
Her: "Don't say Randy."
He told me this, I believe, in order to give me hope. It was his way of telling me she really did have deeper feelings for me, but didn't know it yet.
What I heard was, she wanted everything I was... but not me.
What followed was months of soul-crushing loneliness. I shouldn't have been lonely. I had friends -- good ones! I was constantly busy between the college radio station, classes, the student newspaper, and my job in Dining Services. But I couldn't shake it. I was depressed. I was so lonely, I could actually feel it, like an ice-cold, iron hand wrapped around my heart. I wanted nothing more than for the loneliness to stop. I even considered quitting school. It was... awful. I remember at one particularly low point even reaching out to an ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to talk to somebody who'd loved me once.
I did try dating during that time. Once. She was a Freshman Art student. We had mutual friends, and she seemed interesting enough during our limited interactions. Again, my photographer friend took point in true Wing Man style, setting up a photo shoot in which she and I just happened to be the perfect subjects. We had a great time, laughing and enjoying ourselves and at the end, when I asked her out for a cup of coffee, she said yes.
As broke artsy college student dates go, it wasn't bad. We enjoyed the coffee and the company. We talked and laughed and found ourselves completely and overwhelmingly... uninterested in one another. I asked her to tell me about herself, but my mind wandered a bit as she revealed her disdain for the '60s and '70s (I grew up with that music and was -- am -- a die-hard, unapologetic Dylan fan), and I barely heard her say, "and I really hate guys who say 'dig' instead of 'get' or 'like.'
I nodded. "I can dig it," I said.
After that night, we hardly saw each other again, and greeted each other on our small campus with a friendly nod as we passed. It wasn't that we decided we hated one another. She just wasn't looking for another friend, and neither was I.
In the Spring of that year, my friend Melanie returned from a trip overseas. We knew each other, mostly through work and a class or two (I was a Business Major in my Freshman year), and had developed a friendship during my Freshman year. She knew I was someone she could talk to, and I'd always enjoyed her company.
After she got back, we spent the work days joking around with another friend, the three of us surviving the hot drudgery of the Dining Commons with humor and sarcasm. She and I got to know each other better and, after she became the student lead for banquets and catering, I found myself volunteering for these events as often as possible. Sure, as a poor college boy, the extra money was an enticement, but really, I just found I enjoyed working with her.
I think I had developed something of a crush at that point. I didn't think much of it at the time, but my loneliness had departed as we spent time together. The depression was gone. I was, in point of fact, happy.
Eventually, we began spending off-work hours together as well. I'd stop by even when I wasn't working in the kitchen, just to say hi. She'd pop in to the college radio station while I was working to keep me from being bored during my shifts. Or call randomly to request a song I hated just because it made us both laugh.
That Summer, we both stayed on campus. We worked together and actually enjoyed it. When we both had time, we'd find ways to spend time together, walking around the tiny municipality of Spring Arbor, hitting the coffee shop or ice cream place. Her brother told her we were dating, and we laughed it off.
But by then, I was already smitten. The more we'd talked, the more I'd gotten to know her, the more my little crush deepened and turned, becoming something much more serious. How could it not? She was beautiful -- former head cheerleader beautiful. She was smart. Competent. Funny. Way, way, way out of my league. She still is.
By the time she was preparing to head home for a few weeks' vacation, I was in love with her. Completely. I didn't know it yet, until she mentioned someone from home had written and that she was considering seeing him during her stay. It was at that point the lessons I'd learned started coming back to me. I realized I couldn't lose any more time. I couldn't risk her going home to New York and seeing this guy, whoever he was, and coming back to school with a new boyfriend. (I didn't know it at the time, but that scenario had never crossed her mind. I'm glad I didn't know.)
I asked her if, "hypothetically," I were to ask her out, what would she say? She said she'd want to know where we were going, and I said dinner and a movie. "You know. Date stuff."
After we failed to talk about it again, I realized I had to grow a pair and let her know I really wasn't speaking hypothetically at all, but actually wanted to ask her out. On a real date. She had to think about it. We were such good friends. It was sounding awfully familiar.
During one of our many non-date excursions, conversation became stilted. Awkward in ways it never had been before. Indeed, our comfort talking to one another was one of the things we'd enjoyed most. It was getting weird. So, because she's intelligent and outspoken, she asked me. "Do we need to talk about something... or is there nothing to talk about?"
We talked. We talked for a long, long time. We talked so long, we ended up going to breakfast at Denny's and then going back to her apartment to talk more. There were no resolutions when we were done talking. She knew where I stood. I knew she had feelings for me, too... but that she was afraid of losing another friendship. It's a valid fear, and she knew where she was coming from in this case. It's not as though it hadn't happened before.
But I'd come from the other side. I'd already sacrificed my heart once on the altar of friendship, and that friendship had died along with it. When it was time for me to go, I stood at the door, my hand hovering over the knob.
"Something wrong?" she asked, a hint of amusement lighting her eyes.
There was. I never fully told her what was running through my mind in those moments, but it was the lessons I'd learned with my former friend. It was the realization that I couldn't just let it go without trying. It was knowing the way I felt about her was far beyond anything I'd ever felt for anyone, ever, It was a truth that, just maybe, hadn't been true in the previous situation: that we -- our lives, our futures, and our happiness -- were worth the risk.
So awkwardly -- as anything done by a shy, nerdy college student must be -- I told her I wasn't sure why, exactly, but I really needed to kiss her.
She responded with the single best piece of relationship advice I'd ever gotten: "Don't analyze it."
We were engaged a few months later; married a year after that. It's been 17 years, we have four kids, and every day I thank God I had my heart broken by a friend. Because, without it, I not only wouldn't have found something even better with Melanie, but I wouldn't have been scared enough of a repeat to do something about it.
The loneliest time in my entire life was my Sophomore year in college. Some time in the middle of my Freshman year, I'd fallen for a girl. We were good friends -- best friends, even. Had many of the same interests. Loved spending time together. She was as quirky and uncertain as I was. We went to concerts. We walked the streets of Ann Arbor with no goals in mind other than enjoying one another's company.
For her birthday, she said she wanted me to write her something, so I wrote her a letter: a deep and moving piece of sophomoric prose detailing everything about her that was amazing. She called me that night to say she'd been moved to tears.
But always, always, there were other guys in the picture. She'd end it with one boyfriend just to pick up with another. She'd call me crying and asking why she couldn't just find one good guy.
Early in my Sophomore year, after another night of lamenting to a close friend that we she and I never seemed to click on a romantic level, this friend, a photographer, got her to agree to a photo shoot. During the shoot, he asked her straight out: what, exactly, are you looking for in a boyfriend? I can't remember everything she said, but my friend responded, when she was finished, "you DO know who that pretty much exactly sounds like, right?"
Her: "Don't say Randy."
He told me this, I believe, in order to give me hope. It was his way of telling me she really did have deeper feelings for me, but didn't know it yet.
What I heard was, she wanted everything I was... but not me.
What followed was months of soul-crushing loneliness. I shouldn't have been lonely. I had friends -- good ones! I was constantly busy between the college radio station, classes, the student newspaper, and my job in Dining Services. But I couldn't shake it. I was depressed. I was so lonely, I could actually feel it, like an ice-cold, iron hand wrapped around my heart. I wanted nothing more than for the loneliness to stop. I even considered quitting school. It was... awful. I remember at one particularly low point even reaching out to an ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to talk to somebody who'd loved me once.
I did try dating during that time. Once. She was a Freshman Art student. We had mutual friends, and she seemed interesting enough during our limited interactions. Again, my photographer friend took point in true Wing Man style, setting up a photo shoot in which she and I just happened to be the perfect subjects. We had a great time, laughing and enjoying ourselves and at the end, when I asked her out for a cup of coffee, she said yes.
As broke artsy college student dates go, it wasn't bad. We enjoyed the coffee and the company. We talked and laughed and found ourselves completely and overwhelmingly... uninterested in one another. I asked her to tell me about herself, but my mind wandered a bit as she revealed her disdain for the '60s and '70s (I grew up with that music and was -- am -- a die-hard, unapologetic Dylan fan), and I barely heard her say, "and I really hate guys who say 'dig' instead of 'get' or 'like.'
I nodded. "I can dig it," I said.
After that night, we hardly saw each other again, and greeted each other on our small campus with a friendly nod as we passed. It wasn't that we decided we hated one another. She just wasn't looking for another friend, and neither was I.
In the Spring of that year, my friend Melanie returned from a trip overseas. We knew each other, mostly through work and a class or two (I was a Business Major in my Freshman year), and had developed a friendship during my Freshman year. She knew I was someone she could talk to, and I'd always enjoyed her company.
After she got back, we spent the work days joking around with another friend, the three of us surviving the hot drudgery of the Dining Commons with humor and sarcasm. She and I got to know each other better and, after she became the student lead for banquets and catering, I found myself volunteering for these events as often as possible. Sure, as a poor college boy, the extra money was an enticement, but really, I just found I enjoyed working with her.
I think I had developed something of a crush at that point. I didn't think much of it at the time, but my loneliness had departed as we spent time together. The depression was gone. I was, in point of fact, happy.
Eventually, we began spending off-work hours together as well. I'd stop by even when I wasn't working in the kitchen, just to say hi. She'd pop in to the college radio station while I was working to keep me from being bored during my shifts. Or call randomly to request a song I hated just because it made us both laugh.
That Summer, we both stayed on campus. We worked together and actually enjoyed it. When we both had time, we'd find ways to spend time together, walking around the tiny municipality of Spring Arbor, hitting the coffee shop or ice cream place. Her brother told her we were dating, and we laughed it off.
But by then, I was already smitten. The more we'd talked, the more I'd gotten to know her, the more my little crush deepened and turned, becoming something much more serious. How could it not? She was beautiful -- former head cheerleader beautiful. She was smart. Competent. Funny. Way, way, way out of my league. She still is.
By the time she was preparing to head home for a few weeks' vacation, I was in love with her. Completely. I didn't know it yet, until she mentioned someone from home had written and that she was considering seeing him during her stay. It was at that point the lessons I'd learned started coming back to me. I realized I couldn't lose any more time. I couldn't risk her going home to New York and seeing this guy, whoever he was, and coming back to school with a new boyfriend. (I didn't know it at the time, but that scenario had never crossed her mind. I'm glad I didn't know.)
I asked her if, "hypothetically," I were to ask her out, what would she say? She said she'd want to know where we were going, and I said dinner and a movie. "You know. Date stuff."
After we failed to talk about it again, I realized I had to grow a pair and let her know I really wasn't speaking hypothetically at all, but actually wanted to ask her out. On a real date. She had to think about it. We were such good friends. It was sounding awfully familiar.
During one of our many non-date excursions, conversation became stilted. Awkward in ways it never had been before. Indeed, our comfort talking to one another was one of the things we'd enjoyed most. It was getting weird. So, because she's intelligent and outspoken, she asked me. "Do we need to talk about something... or is there nothing to talk about?"
We talked. We talked for a long, long time. We talked so long, we ended up going to breakfast at Denny's and then going back to her apartment to talk more. There were no resolutions when we were done talking. She knew where I stood. I knew she had feelings for me, too... but that she was afraid of losing another friendship. It's a valid fear, and she knew where she was coming from in this case. It's not as though it hadn't happened before.
But I'd come from the other side. I'd already sacrificed my heart once on the altar of friendship, and that friendship had died along with it. When it was time for me to go, I stood at the door, my hand hovering over the knob.
"Something wrong?" she asked, a hint of amusement lighting her eyes.
There was. I never fully told her what was running through my mind in those moments, but it was the lessons I'd learned with my former friend. It was the realization that I couldn't just let it go without trying. It was knowing the way I felt about her was far beyond anything I'd ever felt for anyone, ever, It was a truth that, just maybe, hadn't been true in the previous situation: that we -- our lives, our futures, and our happiness -- were worth the risk.
So awkwardly -- as anything done by a shy, nerdy college student must be -- I told her I wasn't sure why, exactly, but I really needed to kiss her.
She responded with the single best piece of relationship advice I'd ever gotten: "Don't analyze it."
We were engaged a few months later; married a year after that. It's been 17 years, we have four kids, and every day I thank God I had my heart broken by a friend. Because, without it, I not only wouldn't have found something even better with Melanie, but I wouldn't have been scared enough of a repeat to do something about it.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Five Things I Learned Recording My First Audiobook(s)
I'm thrilled to continue my work in audiobook production and expand my newfound freelance business in that arena. But this is still actually pretty new for me. In fact, The Ghost Box and Cruel Messenger were contracted within weeks of one another and were the very first audiobooks I had the pleasure to narrate. And with firsts come lessons! Since I'm still finalizing the latter book and those lessons are still at the top of mind, I thought I'd share them with you -- because you're interested, right? That's why you're here, after all!
The following is not in order of importance, but in order of "appearance."
1. The Pleasure Read
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because in general time to do this isn't necessarily guaranteed. However, it is a wonderful luxury if you can get it. I had the chance to read both The Ghost Box and Saint Death before starting work on the audiobooks (truth be told, I had bought both and read the first before I even knew there would be an audiobook). If you're able to build the time into the contract, a pre-read is valuable. Don't take notes. Don't read it as a narrator. Read it as a reader. This will give you an idea of timing. It will prepare you for jumps and gags. It will allow you to put character voices in your head. It really is useful.
But it's not strictly necessary. Sometimes, even more useful is the...
2. Author's Notes
With Cruel Messenger, I received a character list from the author. Not only did he provide a list, but also some general notes on characterization as he heard them. Now, this could be more than necessary -- on some level, the author does need to allow the narrator to do his or her thing. But, having notes helps. The short version is this: if I'm going to find out one to 100 pages AFTER starting to do a character that he or she speaks with a southern accent, it's extremely helpful to go into it knowing that in the first place. This is what this author did for me. I didn't have to guess about how the characters' voices were going to be described in the book, because he told me up front. That is a vital time-saver and, for the authors reading this, will save your narrator a TON of aggravation.
Again, not a lot of time is necessary on this. If you're a pro, you know how important it is to have a consistent sound. This means settings are standardized. Production is standardized.
Since my studio is in my home, one of the major house rules is, "nobody touches Daddy's equipment." This goes double when I'm mid-project. Every time I turn on the mic, it sounds the same as the time before. Every time I close out a chapter, the audio is compressed the same way as the chapter before it. Again, if you're a professional, this is academic. However, it's an important reminder largely because of...
4. The Sound of Silence
I'm going to spend a minute on this, because it made my life very difficult with my first audiobook, and pushed the release date back at least a week.
With a very, very few exquisitely- (and expensively-) engineered exceptions, there is no such thing as a perfectly silent room to an open microphone. The low level hum of Life On This Planet that the human ear mostly fails to notice is what most people call ambience, and what ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) and sound engineers call "Room Tone." ACX, with whom most of us will be producing audiobooks, has a requirement that each chapter or section submitted (i.e., each separate file) must have a couple seconds of Room Tone at the front and another few seconds at the tail. Do not cheat this. You can't simply eliminate the sound and opt to give them pure silence, because, A, though I've never tried it, I'm reasonably sure the ACX Quality Check team won't be fooled, and more importantly, B, because you're shooting yourself in the foot if you do. Room Tone allows your listener's ear to adjust to the ambience of recording before your voice starts. In other words, it keeps you from sounding like a recording. Further, it allows for consistent editing.
The problem is, Room Tone has to be basically flawless. Yes, there's a hum to any given environment, but basically, your needle doesn't move. You're not making a discernible noise. And if there is a discernible noise, your Room Tone is useless. When I sent my first files off for Quality Approval, easily a third of my chapters were rejected specifically and only because of noise in the Room Tone segments. Because of this difficulty, and how important it is to your final product, I would say Room Tone is possibly the most important five seconds in your entire production.
Fortunately, this issue taught me a valuable and time-saving lesson. It's very, very hard to create 5 seconds of pure Room Tone for every chapter. So don't. Here's what I do:
Set up my microphone, ready to record my first chapter. Hit Record. Say... something. Anything. Maybe "Room Tone Recording." Or, "Why am I doing this myself instead of hiring a professional?" Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's not going to be there long. After you say something, walk away and shut up. For at least 60 seconds. Do nothing after you walk away. The desire here is an empty studio space in which nothing is happening. Once you've recorded a full minute of nothing, come back in and stop the recording. Next: produce it. Any compression and normalizing you normally do to your chapters, do here. After you do that, trim out the best, most silent 3 seconds, title it "Room Tone End," and save it as a high quality file. Trim one second off that, save the remaining 2 as "Room Tone Beginning."
And then, simply drop them in as your last step before saving every chapter. highlight and replace the front and back of your chapter (everything before and after you talk) with your Room Tone. Just copy and paste. As long as you're consistent in your recording per #3, this will work just fine for your entire book -- and if you're really consistent, it'll work across several without ever having to re-record it.
5. Edit As You Go
With the first two books, I didn't know what I was doing, time-wise, and so didn't manage it well. At the end, after I was finally finished the narration, I was still quite far from actually being finished. This is no good for your voice, for your time management, or, ultimately, for your morale. With the books on which I'm currently working, I've found a much better system that has multiple benefits. I record 2-5 chapters (depending on length), and then walk away and edit them. This provides my voice with necessary rest, gives you some finished files, and really helps break up the day. Furthermore, when you have a lot of editing to do at once, the tendency and temptation will be to move quickly and get sloppy. By breaking up your editing into a shorter group of files, you'll be mentally prepared to pay them the attention they deserve. Believe me: you'll thank yourself for taking the extra time (he says, waiting for ACX to finish replacing some old files with cleaner edits).
On top of that, be sure to finalize production on the files before moving on so you can submit or upload them. This will allow your author or publisher access to the finished files and moves the entire approval process along more quickly.
Well, thanks for reading. If you're new to audiobook recording, hopefully this helped you out. If you're an Old Pro, maybe this puts you in mind of the things you learned after the first few attempts. Hey, if so, drop them in the comments. And if you have any questions, drop those off, too! Commenters with a valid email address are automatically entered to win a free audiobook!
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