Become Legendary

"Hey kid, you getting on or not?" the bus driver said to me with a tone of impatience. I looked around myself and found that I was the only passenger left to board the large charter bus. The last of the suitcases were being packed tightly into the luggage bins. Some of the passengers looked out the windows of the bus at me curiously, but most of them were prepping for the long ride, oblivious to my indecision. All I had was $50 in my pocket, a pencil, a journal and a backpack carrying a half-eaten tuna sandwich. I took one last look at the station and wondered how I became so comfortable in such a run down place.

"Well?" the bus driver called out to me.

"Yeah...yeah I'm coming," I replied as I stepped up steep stairs of the bus. The double doors closed behind me with the hiss of hydraulics.

"So where you going kid?"

I smiled at the busdriver and looked out the window as the bus started to pull away from the station. "Forward," I said. "I'm going forward." The bus driver smiled back and tipped his hat to me as he directed the bus onto the open highway.

I wrote that on Sunday, May 7th 2006 and posted it on an old blog of mine. The original post was about my life and the direction it was going in. That was right around the time that I went back into school and made the decision to pursue writing seriously. I was reflecting on all the wasted time and if I could turn things around for myself. Well, almost two years later I'm living in a different city with one of my newest and also closest friends and we have two projects seeing print in the summer.

I got on this topic after watching a Nike commercial. Here's the monologue:

Look me in the eye, its ok if you’re scared. So am I. But we’re scared for different reasons. I’m scared of what I won’t become and you’re scared of what I could become. Look at me. I won’t let myself end where I started. I wont let myself finish where I began. I know what is within me even if you can’t see it yet. Look me in the eyes. I have something more important than courage. I have patience. I will become what I know I am.

I don't have much else to say really. Michael Jordan has already said it for me. I will become what I know I am. The only person who can stop me is myself and I'm done standing in my own way.