Compliments

Daily writing prompt

What was the best compliment you’ve received?

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There are two answers to this question. One is serious and professional and I will not give any details about it. The other is a goofy thing from when I was a teenager.

There are actually two professional things that I could use here. Two people who reported to me both said things that affected me in very positive ways. I will not share either thing because I don’t care to break confidence. I’m like a priest hearing confession and I ain’t given anything up. Well… like a priest without all of the child rape and atrociously evil cover ups. So really nothing like a priest, but you get the idea. Okay, enough about this one.

The compliment I’ll share is silly. I think I was a sophomore in high school. My friend Mike and I were trying to learn new musical instruments. Guitar for me and bass for him. We had a friend who could play the drums. We got together and had a jam. The drummer had an older brother who played guitar. He was in the room with us, just hanging out and listening. I was pretty new at guitar, but I had been playing music for years (on the saxophone and briefly on the trumpet) so musically speaking I kinda knew what I was doing and as a result I was picking things up on guitar pretty quickly. While we were jamming away I did… something. I am not sure what, but I think I was probably improvising something. The drummer’s guitar playing brother stood up and said, “I gotta take a walk” and left the room. I guess I impressed him a little.

That’s it. That’s the compliment. I never forgot that. My ego swelled four sizes that day. I was so pleased with myself that I may have actually started to glow. The post script on this was that the drummer’s guitar playing brother should not have been disturbed by anything I did because he was good. He was way better than me. I’m guessing he still is.

There is a third potential answer to this question as well. It’s actually a series of things. They aren’t compliments per se, but they affected me in similar Earth rocking ways. First, there was this woman who agreed to go on a date with me. Nice! Second, about a year later I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said yes. Nice! About a year later we stood in front of our families and we both said, “I do” to each other. Nice! Like I said, they aren’t compliments in the strictest sense of the word, but they have a similar affect. They are each like a huge compliment on steroids and multiplied by about 10 zillion.

And there you have it, folks. My compliment history in a nutshell. Happy Monday, everyone.