Don’t look back with regret; live your life appreciating what’s around you here and now.
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Waco is not a tourist town. Unless you are a fan of Dr. Pepper (home to the original factory) or Baylor University, odds are low that you’ve planned a trip to David Koresh’s old stomping grounds. Though I graduated from Baylor, I would never qualify as a Waco enthusiast. The year I spent earning my Master’s degree marked a personal all-time low on various charts. Income. Relationships. Health, of both the physical and mental varieties.
Much of that experience had to do with my impression of Texas as a whole, and Waco in particular. I hated it. The mammoth insects, the crushing humidity, the flat dirt surroundings: these were all just a start. I hated the highway, I35, filled with semi-trucks wavering unsteady against the wind, its on and off ramps that allowed no more than 1.5 seconds to merge before the threat of being compressed into the side rails took on a terrifying immediacy.
Then there was Waco’s overwhelming apathy towards aesthetics. Old buildings sank, rotting, while new construction went up around them. The terrible concrete of strip malls lined every major street, like so many shrines to monotony and design dis-integrity. It was as if someone with a killer instinct on how to manufacture depression had designed the whole place.
Between a full load of coarse-work and a full-time teaching job that required various, unrelated coaching responsibilities, I had limited down time. But I decided, early on, that I would stick to Starbucks. A place like Waco was lucky to have the coffee conglomerate, one small symbol of civilization in the otherwise desolate wilderness. For the better part of twelve months, I camped out on their patio and dreamed of better days ahead.
And every chance I got, I escaped. I spent money I most definitely did not have, to travel home to Denver, or drive down and spend a night or two in Austin, or Dallas, or fly to Orlando to visit my best friend. Anytime I had the opportunity to go anywhere, I took it. Because I knew – knew – that real life, the good life, was happening elsewhere. And I had to get out of my situation, and into better happenings, whenever I possibly could.
The acronym didn’t yet exist, but I hauled around a load of FOMO, 24/7 back then.
♦◊♦
It’s been nine years since, and I traveled back to Waco this past weekend for a wedding. A dear friend of mine, and fellow Baylor alum, came along for the trip, and the two of us trotted around campus, to reminisce on the bad old days of our former lives.
The Armstrong Browning Library sits on the southern end of campus, a magnificent limestone structure dedicated to the love and writings of 19th century poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. It is a marble vault of rare book-lined wonder, designed in part by the same architect who worked on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. An Italian-Renaissance culmination of founder Dr. A.J. Armstrong’s goal, to create the “most beautiful building in Texas.”
And until two days ago, I had never set foot inside.
People had told me, of course, when I first began school at Baylor, that this was a “cool” library. That it was “really beautiful.” That I should check it out, because I “would like it.”
But I dismissed all their earnest admiration. This library resided on Baylor’s campus, in Waco, Texas. How cool, or beautiful, could it possibly be? We were talking about an institution birthed in Southern Baptist, Texan soil. Surely no match for the great and renowned museums and libraries I had already seen, many times, in multiple American and European metropolis.
This Armstrong place could be missed, I felt sure.
And now I know, I was wrong. Now I know that there existed a gorgeous, wood-paneled room surrounded by sixty-two secular stained-glass windows, all in-lit by Hogwarts-style candle chandeliers. That this room was walking distance from my apartment, and that I could have studied, or read, or written, or really just sat quietly, in a space that seems quite ideal for the nerdy, Anglophile book-lover that I happen to be.
There were similar moments throughout the trip. It turns out, the small town I taught in is not so isolated and rundown as I remember. In fact, the bungalow homes and main street are quite charming. How did I miss that before?
I missed it because I had set my daydreams only in skyscrapers.
I’m not saying I would advocate moving to Waco, or that I would ever want to live there again. But what I realized this weekend was that my mindset held me back. I expected to find nothing worthwhile in that place, and so I missed out. So convinced that other people, in other places, were living the life I wanted, that I gipped myself from a more livable twelve months in Waco.
Technology has only made FOMO stronger. There’s always another Facebook post about this or that party, this or that event. There’s always another text, or ding, or ping, or pin that reminds you of all the cool, beautiful people you aren’t with right now. There’s always another smiling face for a right swipe.
May I simply suggest that you consider putting all that away and looking at what you actually have, and where you actually are.
You never know. There might be an Armstrong Browning treasure trove sitting right in front of you.
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Photo: Getty Images
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