Golf Ball
I've posted this everywhere except Substack. Sorry.
And now it’s here.
The golf ball incident happened over three years ago, but only recently declared its impact on my life. Writing this told me more about myself. The present, past, and future are starting to appreciate each other more, which is nice. It can be hard to get three fiercely competitive street-singers to harmonize. There’s only so much change floating around.
Writing helps.
Exploring my personal story has been a Planet Fitness locker room steroid jab for my fiction. You know, the exciting stuff. It’s coming very soon.
I’m collaborating with a talented friend on an audio body horror. It’s a short story that I’ve been thinking about for a few years. It’s finally written and almost ready for your ears (and eye and hand).
Stay tuned, and thanks for stopping by.
Golf Ball
The scorching steel of stubborn mailboxes bites extra hard when you remind yourself, “You didn’t need a Master’s degree from the best film school in the country to deliver mail.”
And then, somehow, a golf ball saves your life.
September 4th, 2021 didn’t start out well. Beyond the battle against heat stroke that comes with slinging mail in Texas during the summer, the air-conditioned supervisor had assigned me to a route in an unfamiliar neighborhood. On a Monday.
For any non-mail heads, that basically meant it was going to be a very long day, and the mail was going to be very late.
Cool. You get used to high stress at the post office:
Landscapers laughing at you because a wasp flew into your shirt and now you look like you’re being burned alive by an invisible fire.
Screaming while being chased by a pit bull and failing to make the short leap onto the hood of your mail truck (the dog’s name was Cupcake, and, thankfully, she was just excited to see me).
Diabolically plotting and executing drive-by shootings on hornet nests like some kind of anti-insect psycho (you’ll have to pry my HotShot Wasp & Hornet Killer 3 from my cold, dead hands).
You get the picture. The job was stressful. But 9/4/2021 was somehow worse.
The route I got stuck on was in a nice neighborhood, complete with a pool and golf course. I still don’t know what set me off exactly. The heat? The golf course? The fact that it was Monday and A/C Johnny stuck me on a new route? I didn’t know what was wasp territory and what wasn’t!
Whatever it was, I started spiraling, sipping the poison of some good ol' self-loathing right there on that serene sidewalk. You know, the “Why did you ever think you could make a living as a writer? You borrowed an absurd amount of money and moved your family to Hollywood for film school, and for what? For nothing!” kind.
I served myself a third-degree burn like that invisible fire the landscapers had died laughing at.
I was angry at myself. Angry that I hadn’t sold a script. Angry that I hadn’t left school with a manager. Angry that the pandemic happened. Angry that I didn’t have as much time to write because I was delivering mail six days a week.
I was fucking angry that I had failed.
As I pitched pizzeria coupons and fumed at the hopelessness squeezing my neck, I remembered a piece of advice that the great Stephen Mazur (The Little Rascals, Liar Liar) often repeated to us at school:
“Trust the process. Slow and steady wins the race.”
I had always appreciated that advice on a shallow level, but that day it clamped down on me like a 70-pound pit bull. Sure, I hadn’t sold a million-dollar script right out of film school and bought a house in a nice neighborhood with a pool and golf course. But I had a job that provided for my family and smacked me over the head with the value of hard work.
“You didn’t fail,” I told myself. “You’re in the process of succeeding. Trust the process.”
Just then, a rogue golf ball plopped directly into my mail bin.
A wink from the Universe. A nod from God.
I couldn’t believe it. Unlike the wasp attack, I had some time to pull out my phone and record (see video).
Fast-forward three years, and I’m closer than ever to writing for a living. Thanks to some amazing people who took a chance on me, I have a copywriting portfolio I’m proud of. And, as always, I’m still hammering away at new scripts.
Trust the process. Slow and steady wins the race.
You’re damn right I kept the golf ball.