emmanation

So, there’s this little band – you guys might’ve heard of ‘em. They’re called One Republic.

(Don’t feel bad if you don’t really know who they are. I had to go look up their big hit before I figured it out – it’s called ‘Apologize’. As in, it’s too late to.)

Aren’t they purdy.

Ok, so, I’m going somewhere with this – I’m not just oogling men young enough to be my very-slightly-younger-brother.

See the one in the glasses? He’s the one named Drew Brown, if you’re a regular fan type person.

Yeah, I used to babysit that kid. He was a good friend of my brothers. We moved away when my brother was… 8, so I haven’t seen Drew since he was that age. Even so, I was at his house. His mom made a tray of brownies and told me to help myself, and I ate like half of them (I was 11). I supervised him and my brother while they grabbed at crawdads in the creek that was sort of by our house.

Don’t ask me what their plan for the crawdads was, I have no idea.

I didn’t know that lil Drew Brown had grown up into someone famous until Saturday night, when my dad sent this email to me and my brother.

Do either of you remember Drew Brown? Well I ran into his mom today and she told me he is in the band One Republic… which meant nothing to me but I guess they have had some international #1 hits.

National hits, too, yo. That song ‘Apologize’ was sort of a big deal.

Here’s the thing. I never saw it coming. I would love to say ‘yeah, I knew even then that he had talent’, but obviously I had no idea. He may have played guitar as an eight year old, but I have no recollection of such things. He was just a normal kid. He could have grown up to be anybody. He could easily have graduated from college, gotten married, and had a baby by now – but he didn’t. He went to LA and he joined a rock band and now he’s definitely the most famous person I’ve ever met. (Unless you count on twitter, which I totally do.)

I want to think that certain people are marked for greatness. I mostly want to think that because at this point I’ve accepted that while I may be great in my own life, the world will probably never know my name, and I want to think that’s because it just wasn’t my ‘destiny’.

Then I look at kids like Drew and I wonder what the fuck I’m talking about. There is no destiny. There’s luck, sure, and perseverance, obviously, and talent and hard ass work. Little boys who aren’t really anybody grow up to be somebody all the time. It’s not written on their foreheads from the age of eight.

Perhaps there’s still hope for me.

Or? I could just go to LA and stand outside Drew’s house yelling ‘hey! Remember me?’ until he comes outside and gives me money to go away.