Real Talk, Storytelling

What Brothers, Both Human And Furry, Do

In March of 2011, well before Jeff Goins ever told me I was a writer and a few months before The GBOAT existed, I sat down and wrote some thoughts about the passing of a dog. I’ve thought before about sharing it before but never have gotten around to it. So here you go. Enjoy.

I come from a family of brothers. I know that’s an obvious statement, but I feel like the brotherly bond is sometimes overlooked. It is an association that is always there. All my time in Clinton, I got comments like “Oh, you’re Anthony’s brother!” or “Hey, I have your brother Nathan for a class this semester” or “Yeah, you’re Adam’s older brother, right?”. In fact, just the other night I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. The first thing he said was “Are you kin to the sports radio guy Anthony Craven?” Anthony can live a few hours away, but I can’t escape his power.

Because that’s what brothers do: we have a constant association with each other. A constant bond. Age, location, and even species can’t get in the way. Continue reading “What Brothers, Both Human And Furry, Do”

Real Talk, Useless Observation

The Greatest Advice Of All Time, Pt. 2

I touched on it last week, but 2008 wasn’t a great year for me. It’s really strange to realize that 2008 was five years ago. Five whole years have passed, and so much has changed since then. Five years, but it seems like just yesterday. All still so fresh in my mind.

I was a fresh faced (read: my beard wasn’t all that great) 20 year old going into his final year of college. At the start of 2008, things were going pretty well for me. I had a cool girlfriend, was looking forward to a summer internship with some local radio stations, and was a fairly popular dude on campus. A foundation had been laid for 2008 to be a great year. It was a year full of promise. Full of opportunity.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing any of this, or probably have this blog at all, if 2008 had ended up like that. Instead, 2008 sucked. Hard. Continue reading “The Greatest Advice Of All Time, Pt. 2”

Sportz, Storytelling, Useless Observation

Coming Up Short

It still makes me physically ill to think about. Four years later, and really the moment took all of two seconds. But whenever I recall it, my stomach turns and knots up and I want to puke.

I’m of course talking about a football game. One game. One play, in fact. One second in the sixty minutes that make up a football game that four years later still hurts. Continue reading “Coming Up Short”

Real Talk, Useless Observation

The Greatest Advice Of All Time, Pt. 1

Okay, this post will be a little bit different. It’s not a story to tell or a confession to make. I don’t know what it is or why I’m writing it. Could be that I feel like it is important to know and that I could share. Or more likely, I’ve seen enough in my 25 years of life to make things seem more like a Tolstoy novel than the life of a community college employee. Either way, here goes nothing.

Somewhere circa 2008, I had a bit of a reawakening. I was scrambling around, trying to find my footing and worried that my entire future and everything I thought I knew about life had just been taken away from me. It was a time of my life that involved a lot of anger, bitterness, frustration, and more than one moment where weakness took me down to the fetal position on the ground with nobody around to pick me up.

Things kinda sucked. I guess that’s what I’m saying.

During that time, though, there were two particular phrases that I heard that hit me upside the head, along with one unique truth I learned, and those three things changed the way I look at the world. I figured since they hit me so hard back then, I should revisit them and share them with you. So here’s the first one:

Avoid Unnecessary Expectations Continue reading “The Greatest Advice Of All Time, Pt. 1”

Misplaced Mississippian, Real Talk, Storytelling

And No One Knows The Sensation

It’s hard to explain it
There’s only so much a man can do
You try your best and then you lose.

“What people do not realize is that ADHD plays a direct role in the emotional stability of a child. It causes the child to be naturally disposed towards feelings of worthlessness and the feeling of invisibility. Oddly enough, while the child with ADHD will struggle with keeping their attention, they will also struggle with trying to suck all the attention to themselves in an effort to get affirmation.”

That was part of the intro paragraph to my lengthy research paper: The Emotional Effects of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that I wrote as a senior in college. Heck, most of the papers I wrote in my psychology classes were somehow tied into ADHD, since I was selfish and found a way to turn every collegiate assignment into a chance to write about stuff I was interested in.

I was most interested in ADHD because I was trying to understand myself better. I had spent 20 years of my life getting frustrated with myself over the silly little misfirings in my brain, so why not take every opportunity I can to better understand it?

In order for me to tell you more about my life, I figure I’ll have to detour and tell you more about this whole mess first. Hey, if Introverted people can write 1,000,000 articles trying to turn their personalities into some sort of fatal disease, you can play along with me and ADHD for one post. After all, everyone is quick to diagnose themselves or somebody they know with ADHD and they don’t understand what it is. At least I can help. Continue reading “And No One Knows The Sensation”

Misplaced Mississippian, Real Talk, Storytelling

My River Soul

Every time I visit New Orleans, I take a moment to stare out over the Mississippi River.

I’ve never been sure why I do it. Perhaps it’s an act of sentimentality. Maybe there’s something soothing about it to me. Maybe I am jealous of Huck Finn and his ability to just follow the flow of the river and see where it takes him. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I know that I have to stare out over that muddy river.

Since my life has taken every sort of strange turn that it possibly could, I found myself in New Orleans twice already this week. Monday, I had been asked to tag along to a Mumford and Sons concert at the last minute. When I say last minute, I mean it. We basically drove three hours in order to miss most of it and only catch some 50 minutes of the show.

And it was totally worth it. Continue reading “My River Soul”