Sunday Night With John: Heavy Shadows
/
Heavy Shadows
John Paul Derryberry
I promise the next two paragraphs are related. It will just take me a minute to get there.
Want to freak me out? Have me watch a movie where the director amps up scary scenes with ominous heavy shadows following the characters around with creepy music in the background. I will walk around the house the next week with every light on, scared to round every corner. Anytime the light plays funny with shadows, my life flashes before my eyes. I cannot imagine living in a constant state of fear like this on a daily basis. Spending every moment as if there is some looming heavy shadow hanging over me.
Now, go back to being between the ages of 16-23 and think of the worst thing you did for which you did not get caught. Maybe it was driving drunk in college. Maybe it was cheating on your significant other. Maybe it was stealing something. Maybe something much worse or just an underage drinking ticket. But, somehow, you managed to escape the consequences. Your mistake has not followed you around for the past 15 years-- to every first date, every job interview, and every loan application.
Now, combine those two experiences and you might begin to understand the feeling of having to have a conversation, time after time, about your stupid, young mistakes. There is not a part of me that wants to explain the stupid stuff I did at age 20. Imagine sitting down for a first date and the other person holding a file of every nasty thing you have done in your youth. They look at you and ask, it says here that in 2002 you skipped your girlfriend’s birthday party to hang with the cute new co-worker when your shift ended. Nowhere does that file state that, the night before, your girlfriend had told you, “You’ll amount to nothing, you loser”.
Or, even after you have graduated college with a masters' degree and you nail every interview question for your dream job, they ask: is there anything else we should know about. And even though you do not want to do it, you know you have to bring up your arrest record from when you were 19. It was just a dumb fight with another 19-year-old, but it happened in a gas station parking lot. So you tell them about it, and you have to watch their face turn from, "I think I just found my next great hire," to "We’ll just hire the boss's son and call it a day". The funny thing is, the boss’s son had the same thing happen to him but his dad knew a guy that could make that record squeaky clean again.
I get the privilege of glossing over my wild days with, I was young and dumb, but not everyone is afforded that luxury. Worse yet, it hangs around like a heavy shadow ruining the potential of every subsequent opportunity. Youthful mistakes can close doors, slam windows shut, and pull the rug out from under you everywhere you turn. Most of the time this heavy shadow stalks you till the only option you have is to be the person that stupid file says you are. So you give up, you stop fighting, stop trying, and become what everyone thinks you are, the person they fear.
This happens, not because you want it to, or because you willingly went down that road. It happens because it was the only path left open to walk upon. We are not a collection of our best moments, nor are we a collection of our darkest moments. We all live somewhere in the middle, and we should all find a way to shine a light on the heavy shadows others have been made to carry around with them.
It's been a while since I have said thank you to my readers and those who have supported me along my public speaking and story telling journey. Lately the years of hard work have been paying off with new and exciting opportunities to spread "Chase the Invisible" to new audiences. I cannot say it loud enough, THANK-YOU and please continue to share, Sunday Night John with others and keeping telling people to have me into speak. I'm having so much fun!