There was a complaint my mother always had when I’d come home from school and tell her about my day. She always said I spoke too much about my friends and not enough about me.
I thought the stories about my friends were interesting. I didn’t contribute too much to any situation I was in — or so I felt — so the main characters always should be my friends.
I understand now, too many years after her death, that she was trying to help me find my voice. As someone who could be so boisterous at times, but only by sharing the stories of others with my energy, I often felt like a spectator in life.
I’ve somewhat done the same thing when it comes to the medium of podcasting.
Podcasting, on its face, is a very intimate platform. Episodes of most of the shows I subscribe to have a conversational quality that leads to a sense of misplaced connection to the hosts as my friends.
I realized what I was doing to myself now is what I did when I was in high school. I tell stories about the experiences of people I look up to, but I rarely speak about myself. I don’t know if the source of this behavior is abject discomfort with who I am or misplaced feelings of sentimentality I have towards podcast creators I feel some rapport with.
Regardless of where the feelings start, I do need to be honest for a moment. I have always looked up to anyone I’ve considered my friend. This is magnified by the people I know who use podcasting as a platform to educate and entertain. It’s why I invited one of the delightful hosts of Do By Friday to an interview on my own podcast.
That act of idiocy, honestly, to try to get in touch with an idol of mine; that act served me poorly, at least in my mind.
I keep running back the tape in my head about how I handled the situation and how I wish I would have dealt with said situation. Then I run over the compulsion I had to shoot a message to this very calm and considerate person who opened a slot in their incredibly busy schedule to talk to me.
How did I repay them for their generosity? I emailed the person a drunk request for mentorship at 3:00ish in the morning. I disrespected their time and the importance of that resource in the guise of convincing myself that I had friends. Because, God knows I wanted them, and I was willing to post whatever might make other people happy on my behalf.
