You are the Story I Tell: ZB

I truly believe that the greatest gift that you can give to another person is to genuinely let them know that who they are and what they do matters. It has been my goal in 2014 to become a more thoughtful person. A string of deaths to some individuals who positively affected my life led me to conceive this series. As the words to my favorite song go, “And for those who have stood by my side, you are the story I tell.” You are the words and pages to my story.

Over the course of the next several months, I will be writing open letters to those who have positively impacted my story. I’m not going to lie. It is my goal to make you cry, not out of grief or pain but out of the realization that you do truly matter. I am not doing this in order of how important you are to me. For the most part (other than birthdays or other important events), the letters will be done in a random order. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you come away from this with the realization that you are extremely important to me.

Dear Zach,

I’d like to think that I’ve grown a lot over the past five years, but if you compared my growth as a person to yours, it would look like Hornswoggle (me) standing next to The Great Khali (you). That might be the only analogy in my life where I compare myself to Hornswoggle.

We’ve gotten to know each other fairly well since late 2008. I’ll be honest… when you IMed me for the first time, I thought “Who is this kid and why is he messaging me?” After we talked for a couple weeks, I saw the potential for a diamond to get pulled out of the rough.

We became friends at a pretty good time. As my long time friends and I grew apart due to distance and life responsibilities, I needed some good dudes in my life to step in and fill the void. No matter what, you were always a good dude. I don’t think we’ve gotten into a fight once in the past five years. That’s saying something. Whether it was our long Skype message conversations or messages where you tried to set records for one word answers or “You got it ;)” or “I am not a gentleman…”, you made me feel a little less lonely in a time when loneliness was a major struggle on a daily basis. Even our dorky times commentating a Royal Rumble on SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 was a load of fun. After all, you were one of the lucky few I allowed into my faction.

For the first couple years that we knew each other, I felt like I needed to mentor you into becoming another version of me. That was stupid of me. For all the talk of #GMTELigence, I am the last person who needs to mold people into their image. I am proud of the fact that you finally came to the realization that you didn’t have to impress or please anyone other than yourself, and the person you have become is far greater than any version of me you could have aspired to be.

My Seattle trip did not go anything like I had planned. From the lost luggage to the constant rain to the cancellation of the Idaho portion of the trip, the vacation was one misstep after another. That is, until Thursday. That day we hung out was ridiculously fun. We somehow made walking around a rose garden in Portland a good time. We ate doughnuts in the creepiest neighborhood this side of Twilight. I even almost got us killed on the way to dinner with Jon! I’ll never forget that day, and it will never cease to make me smile.

Our conversations have diminished over time, but I am at peace with that. You, my friend, are on track to attain your Personal Legend. You have the woman of your dreams and are working to do something you love. I could not be any prouder of you for realizing who you were and who you wanted to be and taking the steps to become that person you want to be. You’ve come a long way, my friend, and I hope I never held you back during that journey. I am excited to see where your journey continues to take you. Hopefully it takes you out this way sometime. Thank you for always believing in me.

Once an Angry Young Man, Always an Angry Young Man,
Jakob