The Game Changers

It would be nice, if the Universe gave you a road map to help navigate us through our life's choices and circumstances, but it doesn't, at least not a hard copy one that is easy to read and understand.

I have found, however, that the Universe does present people and situations that are able to provide us with a great deal of insight and clarity if we are willing to take notice.

Maybe its because I am fortunate that I have a big pool from which to draw, or maybe I am just lucky to be open enough in my heart and mind to recognize it when it happens, but I have had a few game changers in my life.

Game changers, for me, are people who come along at just the right time, with just the right prospective and tone to enable me to learn something new about myself or grow in a way I never thought I could - like my English professor who suggested that I become a writer.

Never before, had I thought of myself as a writer, but ever since then, I can't think of myself as any thing else - it is who I am, who I was meant to be and something that I probably would have missed out on if not for the Universe's direction and timing.

But just because I heard and heeded my calling, doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of growth and progress to be made.

Everyday beings about its own set of challenges and lessons, with the people and situations to teach them.

Sometimes I still feel lost and unsure - somethings don't change easily. But just when I think I have drifted so far off course that I might never feel sure of myself, someone comes along to set me right again.

Such was the case with Don Keller and Betsy Keyes.

Summer time in the community sports news business can mean slow to no work, thankfully my boss likes feature articles and had faith in me to deliver interesting, creative, quality topics from which we build feature articles out of.

Sometimes I talk my boss into letting me do something fun like take a snowboard lesson through a terrain park, or learn to paddleboard. But most of the time he either assigns me games to cover or I come up with sport/ recreation topics and events that are relevant to our coverage area.

Because our papers are distributed throughout the foothills of Colorado, outdoor activities and events, such as marathons and cycling competitions, are summertime feature article staples.

In the beginning of 2012, my boss asked me to come up with a list of feature ideas so that he could build a budget and editorial calendar. I happily obliged concocting a mix of staple ideas (namely bike races and recreation ideas) peppered with create-an-adventure-for-Chelsy ideas (paddleboarding was at the top of that list).

By late June, I had covered so much summer baseball league that I was ready for my adventures to begin. My work life was in full swing - I had lots of work that I was (mostly) happy to do. But my personal life was a complete mess - I was in the middle of a amicable, but no less painful divorce; I was living with my parents and trying to help my school aged child adjust to our new life.

Lost might be the understatement of the year when describing my personal life. I knew that I was on the right track by leaving my marriage, but after nearly 16 years of a relationship that started very early in my life, I felt like I was having to start completely over.

My accomplishments  felt like they meant nothing. I was having trouble reconciling myself with the new context with which I had to see myself . It was a terrible feeling, but life doesn't stop for self-pity, so I threw myself into my work even more, savoring the opportunity to experience other people's lives, instead of my own.

The Deer Creek Challenge was a century ride (a 100-mile distance cycling competition) that I was looking forward to covering. It met all of the requirements for our papers - it was interesting, it involved our community and the timing was perfect.

My challenge, for covering this event, was to find a "face to put with the story," which is the journalism way of saying, it needed a human appeal, so I turned to the event's head of media relations for a suggestion. My requirements were fairly open, since I could tie the story to our community just with the course route.

PR Lady said she had the perfect subject for my article - "Don Keller, a burn survivor who's ultimate recovery goal was to complete the Challenge for the second time."

(Insert eye roll here)

I was a little peeved with PR Lady. Did she have no shame? I thought, 'Way to over-sensationalize the news Lady!' This was supposed to be a sports feature on a cycling race, not an over-sensationalize tearjerker, but something inside me heard the story's potential (and truthfully, I was a bit over-wrought with work and wanted an easy pick), so I took down Don's name and contact information.

It took me four or five days to finally call him. I was definitely procrastinating, something I don't normally do, although I couldn't really put my finger on why.

I called Don in the afternoon, assuming that he would be like many of my other phone interviews - a quick 20-30 minute run down that concisely draws out the who, what, where, when, how and why. It took all of about 3 seconds for me to realize that Don was not going to be like my average interviewee.

First, the obvious question - "Don, tell me about the fire that you survived..."

Don went on to tell me his amazing story (which you can read in the article attached), stretching our conversation out to well over an hour, which would have been longer if not for the appointment that I had to get to, all while I was crying and nearly silent.

I didn't fire question after question at him, like I usually do when conducting an interview.

Instead I shut my mouth and listened intently to what he was saying, feeling the weight of his words and the energy of his emotions as he said them seep into every fiber of my brain.

With my appointment time looming, I told Don that I had to let him go, although I wish I could speak with him more and I did something so completely unlike me and perhaps even a bit weird and unprofessional that I look back and wonder how he didn't think I was a complete nutcase.

I explained that I lived near he and his wife and asked if I could come over after my appointment so that I could hug the both of them.

To my shock, he didn't think I was a total nutcase, he totally understood, in fact, what I was asking. I needed to connect with he and his wife in a way that conveyed my utter amazement at their story, my gratitude to them for sharing their story with me and my splendor at feeling my faith in life be reaffirmed.

Something about how Don relayed his story to me uplifted my spirit and made me feel alive and awake again. One could argue that it was his story itself, which is quiet remarkable, but honestly I don't think that was it.

Not to sound diminutive to Don's story (it is genuinely remarkable), but I hear a lot of remarkable stories - its part and parcel for the whole journalism gig. It was his perspective, outlook and energy that spoke most clearly to me.

When I arrived at their house, about an hour after I got off the phone with him, Don and Betsy welcomed me with giant hugs and warm smiles. Their love was evident and it didn't matter that I was, by all accounts, a stranger.

I spent the next three hours talking with them, listening to their stories of life and love, struggle and perseverance and they listened to mine.

I found myself shocked that I was being so open with these two people who I had only just met, when I am typically a very reserved person (outgoing, but reserved), but then I remembered that they 'get it.' That's what they said, 'I get it...'

Three words - that's all I needed to hear in that moment. I needed to be gotten, to be understood in order to continue getting and understanding others. It was a completely revolutionary concept to me, one that has irrevocably changed who I am and how I look at things now.


Their story has changed my story; no longer am I willing to have a 'less-than' life. No longer am I willing to forgo my 'happily ever after,' because I feel lost or scared - I know, with unwavering certainty, that the Universe is looking out for me, I just have to be willing to listen when it calls.