If you don’t take chances, you might as well not be alive. If you don’t take chances, you might as well not be alive. If you don’t take chances...

My uncle’s words spiraled around in my head, echoes of a voice that I hadn’t heard in years. I could still see him, towering over me in that darkened hallway in his blue striped pajamas. I was three years old then, staying at his house while my parents vacationed in Florida. The house and its unique night-shadows were foreign to me, and I feared what might hide behind the unfamiliar darkness. Thus, when I woke in the night and found that I had to use the toilet, I much preferred to take my chances holding it than to take them walking to the bathroom alone. Eventually, of course, I couldn’t wait any longer. No one can hold it forever. I called for my uncle and, a paladin in pajamas, he came to my rescue. He walked with me through the fearful darkness so I could relieve myself, and then made of my experience a metaphor about life, in general. He was the sort of man that liked to make broad statements about Life and the Universe and Thought. He knelt by my side and, still a foot taller than me, looked into my eyes and told me, “Janet, this bathroom incident is a metaphor for Life. Think about what might have happened if I wasn’t still awake. You are really too old to be wetting the bed. Look at me, Janet. You know the Dark is nothing to be afraid of. Someday you’ll have to face that Fear. You have to face every fear, eventually. If you don’t take chances, you might as well not be Alive.”

And he went back to his bedroom, leaving me alone in the hallway to work it out for Myself.
Now that’s all long past, and now my uncle is too. But his ideas, if a bit presumptuous at times, applied as much today as they ever had. I was sitting in the airport, waiting for my plane to arrive. It had been scheduled to depart for New York City at three o’clock, but it was two hours late. I supposed I should be used to planes being late by now, since I had never been on one that wasn’t, but I always seem to forget and show up early. All this waiting gave me even more chances to back out of what could be one of the best or worse choice I had ever made.

I had my loving family here in Kansas City, a house, and even a job. But I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life living out my mother’s dreams, and there were bands that were hiring in New York. For the past six years, I had diligently practiced on the crackly set of drums in the basement, sitting next to the furnace from three to four in the afternoon pounding away. For the past six years, I had listened dutifully to my mother and auditioned for the classical orchestras that were the “only acceptable outlet for percussion,” as she liked to say. But I loved it. I loved the deep rhythms that pulsed through air that I could mold and shape into my own heartbeat. I loved the way the cacophony of noise could shake through the house, and after it all, still remain music. And that is the only reason why I continued the drum lessons with the old Chinese man who lived down the street. He played the snare drum, the timpani, and occasionally the triangle. Nothing too rebellious. But still, it left me wanting more. I thirsted for the emotional creation of beats woven with melodies that I obsessively listened to on Youtube. Two years ago, I realized that I thirsted to create rock music.

And thus, I’d decided to fly to New York and audition for any band that would take me. That might not sound like much, but it was the best I could do. But all of a sudden, I remembered the pain I felt, dissembling my drum set quickly and silently at the dead of night, the worry that crashed through me, as I pictured my family’s faces when they read the note I left on the kitchen table. I knew and they knew I would be back, but it was the betrayal that would hurt. It was the betrayal that hurt me too. For my entire life, I had been dutiful, honest, at the very least to my family. But my uncle’s words floated up to me again: If you don’t take chances, you might as well not be alive. His death left me only this, only the idea that maybe, there is something much better, something much bigger than what I had, that in the shadows of Life, there is nothing to Fear, just opportunities that I need.

I felt the ticket in my pocket for the thousandth time. I pictured the words: Departure: KCI. Arrival: JFK. I held my gigantic case on my lap and imagined all the separate drums inside, waiting, just waiting for me to pick up the sticks and bring them to life. Of course I would go. My uncle would want me to. I had a chance, finally, and I was not going to pass it up.