Month: December 2024

The Familiar

The air was cold, and the wind was whipping. I shivered a bit as I stared at a row of pine trees.

I must have been 4 years old, maybe 5. And I was tagging along with my godmother and godfather as they shopped for a Christmas tree.

My godparents didn’t have kids of their own yet, so they were extra keen on involving me in the process.

Which tree do you think is best for us to bring home? my godmother asked.

My reply was filled with fear and panic.

I…I don’t know. They just look like trees. And I’m cold.

My godfather must have been cold as well. Or else he’d seen enough.

He and my godmother quickly conferred, before summoning over the attendant.

They pointed to their top choice. And the attendant prepared it for the long car journey to come.

We had taken two vehicles to this Christmas Tree Farm out in rural Connecticut.

My parents, my sister, and I were in one. My godparents and the tree in the other.

And on the long drive back to the big city, I peppered my parents with questions.

We didn’t have a Christmas tree at home, you see. All I knew was that we’d go to my godparents’ house late in December, and there would be an elaborately decorated tree in the living room. Then, the next time we visited, the tree would be gone.

I was too young to connect the dots. After all, I had no frame of reference.

So, my father spelled it out for me. He explained that Christmas trees were generally grown out in the country – preferably somewhere dry and hilly.

As fall set in, many got cut down and shipped to the big city. That way, the trees would be easier for urbanites to buy, set up, and decorate.

But not all trees got an early axe. Sometimes, as the air got chilly, people would come straight to the farm to select their tree and haul it back home. The experience was more authentic that way. And the tree would likely stay fresh throughout the holiday season.

Wait, so there are people who just grow Christmas trees? I asked.

Yes, my father replied. They prepare all year for one day. But that day is so big that they do quite well for themselves.

This was a lot for me to take in. So, I changed the subject. And never thought of it again.

Until now.

Where does America grow its Christmas trees?

It’s not really a question that’s top of mind. Even though hundreds of millions of people from coast to coast add a tree to their home each December, the where from hardly seems relevant to many.

But not to me. I looked it up.

It seems that thousands of small farms like that one in Connecticut still do grow Christmas trees these days. But the bulk of America’s holiday décor comes from two locations – the forests of Oregon and the mountains of North Carolina.

In a normal year, each region produces about 2 million Christmas trees.

But this is not a normal year.

I’m writing this column roughly three months after a hurricane trudged through the Smoky Mountains. The unprecedented weather event flooded Western North Carolina, leading to widespread death and destruction.

And that hurricane also disrupted the Christmas tree supply chain.

Fortunately, the short-term impacts of this particular development haven’t been too severe. There haven’t been widespread reports of Christmas trees being sold out or broadly unavailable. Oregon and the other growing locations have picked up the slack.

But this is only one year. It’s hard to forecast what the long-term implications of this devastating storm.

Will the Christmas tree farmers of Western North Carolina be able to rebuild and regrow? Will children in the Southeast still trek to the mountains with their parents and help pick out the perfect tree? Will another hurricane roll in and wipe the slate clean again?

It’s all up in the air.

The Christmas tree is not the end-all-be-all of the holiday season. The gifts under the tree and the people around it matter more.

Still, it’s far from insignificant.

In fact, I’d argue that the Christmas tree is one of the three most prominent symbols of the season, along with Santa hats and multicolored lights.

The tree is universally familiar. And that familiarity brings us a sense of inner peace.

That’s why so many people go through the motions of hauling a tree into their living rooms each winter. That’s why they decorate those trees with lights and ornaments. And that’s why public trees – such as the gigantic one in New York’s Rockefeller Center – become tourist attractions as the season’s chill sets in.

There are many staples we’ve let go of over the years. We no longer send faxes or travel by horse and buggy.

But the Christmas tree tradition? I can’t envision a shift away from that. Not now, not ever.

It needs to work. But how far will we go to ensure it does?

There was a time once when a large swath of us lived off the land.

Farming, hunting, ranching, coal mining — those were a means of sustenance. Both in terms of goods sold and consumed.

A bad year meant more than a light piggy bank back then. It meant going hungry through the fall or shivering through the winter.

Christmas trees were a staple back then too. But rural settlers were far more likely to cut down the nearest fresh pine themselves. And as such, they understood what it took to bring the joy of the holiday through their front doors.

Society has shifted since those days. Most of us are city dwellers or suburbanites now. We’re more likely to buy our supplies from a store or an Internet browser. And we rarely give a second thought as to how those goods arrived on our doorstep.

Oftentimes, this approach is sensible. We already have plenty to concern ourselves with. The intricacies of supply chains needn’t be added to the list.

But in this case, at this moment, it might be wise to reconsider.

The profound joy that we experience this time of year – it doesn’t just emerge out of thin air. There are plenty of people working hard to provide it to us.

We owe it to them – and to ourselves – to take a closer look. To drive out to a tree farm to pick our prize. To support a farmer waylaid by Mother Nature. Or to otherwise honor the regions of our great nation that help make our holidays merry and bright.

The familiar matters this time of year. Let’s show how much it does.

The Web

It started with Beanie Babies.

A friend of mine was obsessed with them. And he showed me his nascent collection when I visited.

You have to get some, he exclaimed.

Soon enough, I had a miniature plush dog named Bones. My sister had a red plush dog named Rover.

But naturally, we wanted to be as cool as our friends. We wanted more Beanie Babies.

Our parents got us the Beanie Baby guide – a book covering all the stuffed animals in circulation, and all the limited-edition options we’d missed.

At the start of the book was a disclaimer.

The collection continues to change. Go to the Ty website for a more detailed list.

And thus began my first cannonball into the waters of the Internet.

There were no smartphones back in those days. There were no Google Chrome browsers. There wasn’t even a broadband connection.

To get online, I needed to log into the America Online app on our home computer. This process would tie up our landline, blocking phone calls to the house. And it would cause a bunch of odd sounds to come from the modem next to the computer.

Once connected, I’d need to navigate to the web browser — and then enter the Ty website. The page would load over the course of several minutes, with images loading line by line for several more minutes after that.

A click to a deeper webpage – in this case, the complete Beanie Baby collection list – would start the process over. All told, I was on the web for a half hour or so before I found what I was looking for.

But eventually I got there. And I once I did, I spent several minutes – and ink cartridges —printing out the entire list of Beanie Babies. That way, I could pore through it on my own time.

The Internet was just a digital guidebook to me back then. No more, no less.

As I grew up, my relationship with the web shifted a bit.

We got broadband in our family home, and I got my own computer in my bedroom.

After I finished my homework each evening, I’d spend hours at my desk browsing.

I’d read sports columns on ESPN’s website. I’d set my fantasy baseball or football lineup. I’d chat with my friends on AOL’s Instant Messenger (better known as AIM).

But as I moved off to college, my reliance on the web dwindled.

I still hopped on to keep up with sports news, and to update my social media profile. But I now had text messaging on my flip phone, allowing me to communicate with friends on the go. And with my life centered on a college campus, I valued in-person connections over endless online browsing anyway.

The web was back to being a convenient novelty. But that was all about to change.

I sat in the lobby of the CBS Miami news station, dressed in my finest suit.

My palms were sweating as the bright Florida sunshine filtered into the room. I needed this interview to go well.

You see, I’d decided what I wanted to do with my life after my college graduation. I wanted to make a living as a TV news producer.

I’d taken most of the requisite classes. I’d volunteered on the campus TV station’s sports and news broadcasts.

But I didn’t have any true local news experience on my resume.

This internship – in the last semester of my last year of school – would be my final chance at filling that gap. I’d do whatever was needed to get brought on board.

Soon enough, I was in a conference room with Dave Game. He was older, a bit heavy-set, and came off as a bit blunt.

How much do you know about Internet news, he asked.

I replied that I’d looked at the CNN and Fox News websites before, as well that of ESPN. But that I tended to watch local news on television. This was why I wanted to be a producer after all.

I watched intently as Game nodded.

That’s all well and good, he said. But trust me. Most of the viewers of our station are not like you. They’re doing something else while the news is on. Or they’re busy and miss the broadcast entirely.

They still want to get caught up on the news, but on their own time. My department brings that to them.

He went on to explain how the web department achieved that mission. They revised news scripts for easier reading on the web. They took the associated clips from the newscast and added them to the on-demand video feed. And sometimes, they added pertinent local stories that didn’t make the local broadcast.

If you take this internship, you’ll get a hand in all that, Game told me. It might not seem relevant to you. But trust me. News stations are hiring for these skills. You’ll stand out.

His words proved prophetic.

I took the internship, gaining a mastery on Internet news reporting. When I landed a job as a news producer at a TV station in West Texas, I brought those protocols to my new station.

I’d often be in the newsroom until midnight ensuring that all articles and video clips from the day’s newscast made the website. I told myself that the viewers that missed the 10 PM newscast needed me. And I powered through exhaustion to get the web content uploaded.

The Internet was now my passion. And it would soon become my livelihood.

I sat in a modest office in a suburb of Dallas, wearing the same suit I’d once sported in Miami.

Across the table from me, the man I hoped would become my boss perused my resume.

I see you have some experience writing for the web, he stated. How much do you know about blogging?

I stated that I didn’t have much experience with that forum. But I added that I was a quick study.

That’s good, the man stated. This role is for digital marketing, which is not news production. But content marketing is the way of the future, and I think you might have the online writing experience we need.

I landed the job, and my second career was off and running.

That first marketing role revolved around websites. Specifically, the half-dozen websites of the home remodeling companies my employer took on as clients.

A web designer built those sites. But I did everything else – filling in the product pages, posting blog articles, and helping ensure the sites ranked on Google.

After a layoff, I landed with a different company that provided websites to insurance agents at scale. I started that role with 20 agency websites under my purview. Eventually, that number ballooned to 120.

The Internet had gone from something I accessed for Beanie Baby lists to the technology that paid my salary. I was bullish on its potential.

Still, I could see the buzzards circling.

The smartphone had been around for more than a half-decade by the time I started optimizing websites. And the mobile experience was improving by leaps and bounds.

Content marketing and search optimization relied on consumers perusing Google results and clicking through to websites. With mobile apps entering the fray, there was now a new way to find information.

Soon, social media channels would turn into commercial marketplaces. And artificial intelligence would enter the fray.

The web was still powerful, and my job still drove revenue. But the returns were dwindling. It was time to pivot.

So, after earning a Master’s degree in Business Administration and weathering a global pandemic, I took a new role in product marketing. And I left my website-heavy focus in the rearview.

I still browse the web to catch up on the news now and then. But less often than I used to.

There are many reasons for this shift. For one thing, I have less free time than I once did. For another, the events of the world have grown increasingly contentious.

But the biggest reason is the paywall.

Indeed, many websites now charge money for access to their information. And given my other concerns, I have no desire to open my wallet for this unlimited access.

This shift to paywalls was inevitable. Prompts to get website readers to buy related items have fallen flat as new channels have emerged for purchases. Advertising follows audiences, so those dollars have also shifted elsewhere.

Websites simply aren’t as revolutionary as they once were. They still matter, but they hardly command the lion’s share of attention.

I’ve even seen this in my own company. My product marketing position oversees the website and digital marketing products I worked on for years. I promote them, but not as vigorously as the other products under my purview.

The product pricing is too paltry for me to evangelize those solutions. And I know the insurance agents I market to care more about my company’s higher-dollar offerings.

Add it all up, and those who still rely on the web for a living are left with few options. Charge loyal viewers for access or be left withering on the vine.

It breaks my heart to see this. I grew up on the web. I built my career on the web. I still use the web to share this column with you each week, dear reader. (With no paywall, I might add.)

Still, I understand it all. The web had a good run at the top of the mountain. And it will remain in the picture for the foreseeable future.

But the next big thing is already here. And so is the thing after that.

It would be foolish not to chase after them.

The Anchor

The culprit was a rogue sidewalk crack.

I didn’t spot it in time while heading to our family car. And suddenly I was off my feet.

The magnetic pull of gravity sent me hurtling to the ground, skinning my knee in the process.

I yelped, and my parents rushed me back into the house.

As they cleaned, treated, and bandaged the gash on my knee, I cursed gravity.

If not for that magnetic force, my knee would still be unblemished. Stinging pain wouldn’t emanate from my leg. All would be fine.

Not long after this, I learned about space travel in school.

As I stared at pictures of astronauts floating around spaceships, I was filled with jealousy.

Why couldn’t we all be free to glide? Wouldn’t it be better this way?

I imagined life without the scab on my knee or its associated itchiness. I daydreamed about soaring near the ceiling without fear.

What I failed to consider was how I’d take a drink of water or use the restroom without causing a mess.

Yes, it seems gravity had its benefits too. Wishing it away might be more than I bargained for.

I couldn’t just throw out the bad and leave the good. I needed to consider the consequences.

My childhood adventures instilled an important lesson.

Some forces are too big to be controlled. They must simply be managed.

Gravity is one of those forces.

Surely, Sir Isaac Newton didn’t desire to get bopped on the head by an apple to experience its pull. But once he did, he understood that gravity needed to be studied further.

This recognition led Newton to derive mathematical theories that solidified the immutability of gravitational pull. And we’ve worked off that premise ever since.

No longer do we attempt to be Icarus, brazenly flying close to the sun with wax wings. We factor gravity into everything we do — whether we’re working with its leverage or counteracting it.

Yes, gravity-induced tragedies do still occur. But we’re better positioned to avoid them than we were in Newton’s day, thanks to increased measures of anticipation and prevention.

I see the value in this now, and I’ve come full circle.

Gravity might prove to be a pain now and then. Still, adapting my life around it is better than trying to navigate its absence.

Gravity might be an immutable anchor in life. But it’s not the only one.

Indeed, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve recognized the importance of three factors – where I live, what I do, and who I spend time with.

None of these are as absolute as gravity. But collectively, they keep me anchored.

Where I am defines what I can do. What I do defines the way I can live. And both help define who I spend my time with.

I’ve tinkered with these factors multiple times over the years. But I’ve rarely done a wholesale rip-and-replace operation.

Only twice, in fact.

My first defiance of gravity came right after my college graduation. I moved halfway across the country for a new job in a town where I didn’t know a soul.

I remember feeling wholly discombobulated.

I liked my new home, but I knew there was nothing tying me to it. Sure, my new furniture was arrayed throughout the place, but my only other connection to the space was a monthly rent check. If I ever couldn’t pay it, I’d be without a home address.

I felt confident with my new job, but I knew I wasn’t on solid ground there either. I was green and prone to making mistakes. And I knew a bad mistake could cost me my livelihood.

And I quickly discovered how challenging it was to meet new people. Unlike college, I wasn’t in an environment full of adolescents seeking to make connections. Many of my neighbors were older or more established. Several had families. And nearly all of them worked a different schedule than I did.

It was clear that I was beyond my depth. I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for. But I had no choice but to soldier on.

It was only after I collapsed in the Texas heat — ending up in the Emergency Room in the process — when things started to change. Alarmed by my ordeal, several co-workers urged me to add their phone numbers to my address book. A few of them invited me to socialize with them off the clock as well. I started doing just that, and my social circle started to grow.

Suddenly, my new home and job started feeling a bit less temporary. For the first time in a while, I felt the tug of the anchor beneath me.

But it wouldn’t last.

A few years after my arrival in this once-foreign town, I loaded my belongings into a moving truck.

My contract at work had expired and my lease was up. So, I headed 300 miles east to another city I barely knew. One that offered a bevy of job opportunities and housing options.

For three months, my belongings sat in a storage unit. Meanwhile, I sat in an extended-stay hotel two miles down the highway, trying to earn a job offer in a new field.

Once I signed an acceptance letter, I knew things would fall into place. I’d be able to find a new home, establish myself, and rebuild my social circle.

But in the interim, I was running out of options. There was nothing to anchor me aside from my desire and what was left of my savings. And both were getting critically low.

Ultimately, I did earn that opportunity. And everything did fall into place as anticipated.

I found a place to live. I established myself in my career. I built a larger social circle than I’d ever had before.

I located the anchor, and I set it deep in the soil.

But I never forgot all that proceeded this triumph. The fear. The uncertainty. The doubt.

And I pledged never to return to those sensations again.

I’m writing this at the tail end of a rocky half-decade.

Our society has been turned upside down by a pandemic, economic turmoil, and partisan vitriol. Much of what was taken for granted has gone up in smoke.

I’m trying my best to stay the course. To keep where I am, what I do, and who I spend time with intact.

But this is proving immensely difficult.

For one thing, the financial system has provided little assistance. The cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, making it harder to stay where I am. The viability of what I do has been threatened by layoffs, offshoring, and corporate mergers. And these stressors have impacted my ability to maintain social connections.

On top of that, the nature of opportunities has shifted irrevocably. The most lucrative of doors have always opened to substantial risk, but Door #2, and Door #3 seem to open to profound change as well these days. Such is the reality in a world where offices have been replaced by remote work, the stock market has been usurped by cryptocurrency, and human capital has been supplanted by artificial intelligence.

With all this in mind, I might need to raise the anchor to get back to solid ground. Getting ahead might mean taking yet another quantum leap into the unknown.

But this time, I don’t know if I’m willing. It’s too unsettling. And the scars of my past travails run too deep.

And so, I will continue to resist wholesale change. To adapt one thing at a time instead — all while remaining anchored to what I know.

This will be a difficult approach to maintain. And I’m sure to suffer some more setbacks along the way.

But ultimately, I know in my heart that this journey will prove worthwhile.

I understand the cost of giving up the anchor. Of defying the rules of gravity.

And I have no designs on paying that price again.

Reckoning with the Wreckage

It was a great morning for a run.

The air was crisp. The stars in the sky were bright. The humidity was low.

And as I took my first few strides, my worries faded away.

I was in my element. I felt strong. I felt free.

But I knew it wouldn’t last.

I sensed the change around the two-mile mark. I ignored the beeping of my watch, telling me how far I’d come. But I couldn’t avoid the tightness in my calf muscles, telling me I didn’t have much more left to go.

It was the same tightness I’d felt at this point – or earlier – on every run I’d been on for the past eight months. If I didn’t stop and stretch soon, my stride would start to falter. My legs would lock up, leading my feet to feel like anvils. The discomfort would prove excruciating – and potentially damage-inducing.

I managed to make it another mile this time, stopping as my watch beeped its Mile 3 warning. As I stretched, I felt the chilly air hit my body. I was shivering and sweating at the same time.

I’d never contended with this dueling sensation before. Because in autumns past, I would never have broken stride this early. On crisp mornings like this, I’d have gone six or seven miles before I even considered stopping. And by then, even the coolest air would have felt balmy.

But those days were long gone. This was my reality now.

And it wasn’t likely to change.

A friend of mine once spoke of the significance of the age of 26.

There’s nothing given to us at that age. By the time we hit 26, we can already do everything from buying a lottery ticket to renting a car.

But 26, my friend posited, is when life starts to take for the first time.

Young adults might be able to party as voraciously as they did in college without consequence. But 26 hits different. Newly minted 26-year-olds need a minute, an hour, even a whole day to recover.

I can’t speak to this all that well. By the time I’d hit my mid-twenties, my wildest days were behind me. I was hitting the gym more. I was going to bed earlier. And I had given up fast food.

But now, more than a decade later, I feel the weight of my friend’s words.

For despite my best efforts, time has caught up with me. The force of its impact has sent me hurtling to the ground. And it’s taking me longer and longer to get back up.

I’m consistently exhausted now, often irritable, and immensely perplexed. How is everything that was once so easy now so difficult?

There are no easy answers. Only more unsettling questions.

As I stood there stretching my calves, I took a moment to consider what had been.

On those autumn mornings of yesteryear, the miles flew by because I was chasing something greater.

I was a competitive runner back then. I entered in several distance races a year. And I brought back hardware in most of them.

I had the talent and the willpower to deliver excellence. But I had no idea how quickly the sand would run out of the hourglass.

When my first injury hit, I moped about it for a week. But then I thrust myself into the rehab process, determined to come back stronger than before.

My zeal backfired. I picked up two new injuries in short order, one of which required surgery. Two months in a walking boot ensured, followed by four months of physical therapy.

By now, my fiery defiance had been doused. Just getting back to running regularly would be a victory, considering how far I’d fallen.

Amazingly, I achieved that victory, and even began a race training block. But I sustained two more injuries in the ensuing months, forcing me to shelve my plans once again.

I was now in the valley of that prolonged disaster. I was a shell of my former self. And I was growing more and more certain that I’d remain in that state.

But instead of wallowing in self-pity for my present, I was full of indignation for my past.

Sure, my exploits back then had put plenty of silverware on the wall. Medals for podium finishes and age group wins. A plaque for breaking the tape in a backwoods 5K.

But those mementos represented only a fraction of my potential.

I could have done better, I told myself. I could have dreamed bigger, tried harder, achieved more.

If I had gone all-in during those peak years, maybe I wouldn’t feel so hollow. There would be no unfinished business festering as Father Time stripped my speed and stamina away.

But I hadn’t.

And now, I was out in the cold. Literally.

I was left reckoning with the wreckage of it all.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The words of The Serenity Prayer are omnipresent in my mind. I’ve leaned on their wisdom countless times throughout the years.

Much is made of the middle and the end of the prayer. After all, courage and wisdom are desirable traits in our society.

But it all starts with acceptance. Which – according to the Kubler-Ross Model – is where the grieving process ends.

I don’t think this is a coincidence.

Grief is the one of the most powerful emotions we experience in life. It’s visceral, multifaceted, and inevitable. It washes over us, regardless of whether we’re ready for the force of its mighty wave.

It’s only when the tide has gone back out that we can see what’s left behind. And that we can use those odds and ends to build back up anew.

This is the evident when we lose loved ones. While we miss them dearly, we must find some way to propel ourselves forward.

Yet, it’s just as applicable when the loss is less existential — such as our youth, our ability, or our potential.

I am finding that out firsthand.

I was once a great runner. Just as I was once an emerging marketer. Just as I was once a young man.

I am none of those things anymore. Time and its companions have taken much of the shine off me.

I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I’ve grieved it.

But now is the time to get off the mat.

Now is the time for me to accept it all. What I was. What I am. What I can still become.

And now is the time to follow that revised path.

Reckoning with the wreckage might be a solemn obligation. But it’s an obligation, nonetheless.

Mile by mile, I’m honored to take the mantle of its responsibility.