Makers Magazine - Spring 2024 - Flipbook - Page 16
best
WHAT WAS YOUR
MOMENT OF THIS YEAR?
AND WHAT WAS YOUR
MOMENT OF THE
YEAR?
worst
Every January since graduating from
the university I attended, I and my
old college housemates and our
spouses rent a cabin on the Olympic
Peninsula of Washington State,
where the Twilight series was filmed,
and we spend a weekend together.
Saturday night dinner has become
a bit of a tradition. We all plate
our food and sit at the long table
together. Between bites, each
of us shares our best and worst
moments of the last year. This gives
us a chance to be as honest and
vulnerable as we want to be with
our greatest triumphs and our most
painful disappointments. We’ve
learned to create an honest space to
talk about how we really are.
LET’S DO THAT HERE...
I’ll go first.
I want to tell you about my worst
moment of the year a few years ago
that eventually led to the writing
my book, Say Yes, but to stay true to
the tradition of the Saturday night
dinner, I’ll start with the opposite.
14
That particular year, my best
moment was taking our young
children to Disneyland for the
first time . . . which sounds
completely cliché, I know.
But have you ever been to
Disneyland with little kids?
When you go with little kids,
the experience truly is magical.
Now . . . what was my worst
moment of the year?
Well, that particular year, my
worst moment took place on a
toilet. Now, it did not involve
my bowels. But it did happen
on a toilet.
At that time my wife and I were
renting a quirky little house just
outside of Portland, Oregon.
One night, I put my kids to
sleep in their bunk beds and
closed the door to their room,
and I noticed I was crying.
Now me crying isn’t especially
troublesome. I’m completely
comfortable being the bearded
middle-aged man silently
weeping in the theater during
the Pixar film that suspiciously
seems not to be written for
children. I own being a crier.
But I wasn’t crying because
my kids and I had just read a
magical bedtime story.
THIS WAS SOMETHING
different.