I can't remember how I got here.
What day is this?
The back of my head hurt. A lot. I was lying flat, staring up at the gray, snowy sky, blinking against the flurries that continued to fall. The faces of my friends, my brother’s friends, and my dad peered down at me, checking to see if I was okay. The few inches of snow that blanketed the field didn’t seem so soft anymore, now that I was the victim of a pretty vicious tackle in a neighborhood game of “Snow Bowl” football.
Growing up in the South, you don’t see snow very often. So when my brother and I woke on that January morning and saw a few inches on the ground, we knew we had to take advantage of it. And what better way to do that than gathering a bunch of friends together for an impromptu tackle football game?
Except now, as I crawled off the soccer field toward the sideline, I wasn’t having a lot of fun. I told everyone to continue playing without me. I sat in the snow watching as my head pounded. Something wasn’t right. I felt terrible.
At some point I walked back over to my dad’s car. He saw me standing there and left the game to take me back to the house. As we rode I had this strange experience like I had just woken up from a dream and had no idea what was going on.
“What day is it?” I asked.
My dad shot me a look, half worried, half suspicious. I could tell he wasn’t quite sure if I was kidding or not.
As it turned out, I had a concussion and was taken to the emergency room. And not that there’s really any good time to have a concussion, but this wasn’t a good time for me to have a concussion. I was 23 years old. I had graduated college a month earlier. I had job interviews lined up. My wedding was only three weeks away.
And I had forgotten all of it.
All my scans were negative and the pains in both my head and my stomach gradually subsided after I came home and spent some time on the couch with a hand towel over my eyes. And thankfully, my memory returned.
And now, for me that memory is forever associated with two things that were happening around that same time: my wedding and my job interviews. And there’s only one item on that list that gives me pangs of regret today (hint, it’s not the wedding).
I had dreamed of working in the film and video production industry since I started making movies with my dad’s VHS camera at the age of nine. But at the moment when it was finally time for me to get out into the real world to make that dream a reality, I didn’t cast the net wide enough.
I made a choice that limited my opportunities. As I looked for work, I stayed within a very small geographical circle. At the time, I really didn’t want to move away from my hometown. I was close to my family. My fiancé (now wife) was close to hers. We knew we would one day have children and we wanted those kids to have relationships with their grandparents. And so we stayed.
The main lesson I learned from that experience is never limit yourself. You won’t get those chance in life unless you open yourself up to opportunities. Be a self-promoter. Send out your reel, portfolio, and resume whenever and wherever you can. Apply to that job. Any job. Anywhere. Don’t be hesitant. Don’t be afraid of making big changes in your life. If it seems like a good fit, go for it. You don’t have to take it if it doesn’t feel right later. It took me a while to learn that lesson, but I finally understood.
You might say that realization just sort of hit me, like a blow to the back of the head.
Happy New Year! May your January “Snow Bowl” games be concussion-free.