Kris Colvin

Nobody’s Perfect

When I was young my parents must have made me want to feel better about something I had done or messed up, because they taught me the phrase “nobody’s perfect.” That wound up biting them in the behind, as I then used it from then on, whenever I committed a major or minor infraction. “Nobody’s perfect!” I’d proclaim with a shrug of my shoulders and a barely concealed, dimpled smile.

I have been thinking about that a lot this week. It has been one week since my friend Trey committed suicide amidst questions and finger-pointing and on this particular day, 10 years since 9/11.

Much hullabaloo has been made over the fact that Trey had thousands of online friends and yet seemingly no help. He had lots of people trying to help him, and who loved him, but he shared some dark secrets with my father, who committed suicide when I was 21, and his childhood baggage I am quite certain contributed to his ultimate, fatal choice. But that doesn’t erase so much he did that was good, or diminish friendships he valued, or mean he didn’t love his children and family passionately. People who seem so good and kind and are respected by large numbers of people are usually held to nearly impossible standards and measured harshly when their reality does not meet mass expectations.

But truly, no one is perfect. We all have things we’ve done that we are ashamed of or embarrassed by; baggage that we didn’t ask for; horrors that affected us in ways we don’t always realize. Trey, my Daddy or anyone else who has thought about or committed suicide is no different… they just could not find a way to cope with their own imperfections. Sometimes we are our harshest judge and jury.

And sometimes, like in the case of 9/11 terrorists, we judge others harshly. It is nearly impossible, given the gravity of the situation that happened on that day 10 years ago, to think of the people who caused the incident as humans with any value. “Kill them all!” has been a rallying cry from Americans for so long as we seek retribution for our pain. The pain of those left behind and impacted by loss is really who the justice is for, as the departed souls impacted the most are probably at more peace than we are. But those terrorists, hard to imagine, have children of their own who love them, and spouses and siblings and parents and even friends - though perhaps their friends are all wrong-headed too. Nobody is perfect - people commit heinous crimes that once were children and could not envision they’d grow up to be influenced by someone or something and turn out this way.

My 9/11 experience was completely skewed by a terrible personal experience. Terribly unhappy in my second marriage and dimly aware my husband was up to no good, I had to spend that day alone, as he had left me to be with (literally) a crackwhore he was seeing. He said he had to go see his friend (a guy) but we got into a screaming fight over his insensitivity when he came home that night as I knew something was horribly askew. While people were losing loved ones and the country was in horrible crisis and children were realized they were orphaned, I was trying to cope with this giant noose around my own neck of a terribly dysfunctional relationship and failed choice of a husband and weight gain due to misery, all while working a serious job with lots of responsibility. All the many things I had not been perfect at for the previous 8-10 years that led me to that spot, consumed my thoughts while the country fell apart around me.

By April I’d be divorced, able to change my life’s course. It’s been a decade for the 9/11 families and friends most impacted - and the extended group of military family and friends impacted and I am sure some have rebuilt their lives and found peace and some have not. Woven into the fabric of the last decade are suicides - many from military personnel and I don’t know how many related directly to 9/11.

Nobody is perfect - it’s not an excuse, it’s our simple reality. Be kind to each other. Jump to less conclusions. Assume there is part of the story you might not know. And try to appreciate the days shared with people you like and love. They are precious and few.

Today, my little world changed.

I have a lot of friends in the social media “industry” for want of a better word. Guru’s, experts, speakers, creators, leaders… some better friends than others. Some I have met, many I have not yet met in person, given they are not near Kansas City and life has conspired to mainly keep me here the last few years.

I was about to go to a family lunch when I saw one of my Greenville friends, Tink… or as local people know her, Christa Hanson, say something about bad news about a dear friend having an awful year. I read the comments, then scrolled down Facebook to see what I was beginning to fear was the worst, which was a note from another Greenville friend, Jay Handler:

This is the second, and final scare we would all have with Trey, a man known on multiple continents by people who considered him a friend, a mentor, an advisor, a pal. A couple of months ago, Trey attempted suicide and was stopped in time, after announcing to us all on Facebook that he was hurting and going through a terrible divorce. Being church-goers and with 6 children, though people around them in person may have known something was amiss, I was surprised to hear he was struggling and in fact divorcing. His many, many social media and personal friends came to his aid - or tried to - and offered support, phone numbers, a friendly ear, a sounding board… whatever he needed to get through a rough time nearly anyone can empathize with. Olivier Blanchard wrote him a blog post, called Being Human as a reminder we all “get it” - we know what it’s like to have ups and downs and tragedies and deal with them well or even badly for a spell.

And after a few weeks of being in some sort of care which I have no details about, Trey resurfaced, and quickly became his jovial persona again, with perhaps a touch more melancholy and introspection than usual. But that was not surprising given what he is dealing with in his family. Everyone understood. Everyone he knew as far as the limited landscape I could see, supported him. But there was an undercurrent, certainly, in hindsight… things he said online, the fact that he repeatedly took pictures of the bridge where I thought he had intended to jump - everytime I saw one on Facebook I cringed. I just didn’t like it, and didn’t know exactly why. I guess because the reminder of suicide is not pleasant when you hope and pray someone has gotten away from that desire to end their life permanently. (I have edited this post mildly as I found out he did NOT jump from the bridge but had attempted suicide another way, back in June. It was initially believed the bridge was involved but that was not the case.)

But it was not enough, and so today he took his life - apparently outside of the church either before or after the service, which I assumed may have contained some of his family members also but don’t know. I hope not but am waiting to hear the final, gory details of what went on. I do want to know. I guess I don’t want to wonder about it, so the truth would be better than imagining what happened.

Trey posted pictures of his family this morning, many of them with comments about his wife and kids and better times, and how she was the love of his life nearly 28 years. This is his reality, which his social media friends could not make up for. He lost the love of his life. I don’t know why - I don’t what their relationship was like or anything about her, but as one who has lost many people I have loved or been in love with, a loss of a 28 year companion is devastating, and maybe Trey just couldn’t get over it, no matter how good he looked (he was losing weight and physically looked healthier than ever) or how many speaking gigs he lined up (he loved to travel and just booked many of them for the rest of this year internationally.)

This is not anyone’s fault. No one knows what really goes on in the mind of a person thinking about suicide. My Daddy committed suicide when I was 21 years old. Since Trey’s first attempt I have been thinking about his children, as I know firsthand some of what they will feel and think and wonder about. I am now 45 - you never really have answers. You just accept reality and move along in life, fatherless now. At least that’s the way it is for me.

These are some of my favorite pictures of Trey, with people also beloved to me. He and I had several plans of bringing this idea or that idea to Kansas City, or me being able to be at LikeMinds with he, Scott and Olivier someday (where this first picture was taken.) But that’s not going to happen now. I will always regret not meeting him. I know I would have found him as delightful in person as I found him online and in watching videos of him speaking, because he was already my friend.

Losing a family - or your perception of that in a divorce CAN be devastating. But it doesn’t have to mean life is over. Maybe just that part is… maybe there are adventures yet to have and meaningful memories with another group of people that lie ahead. I really believed that would be the case for Trey. But he didn’t share this same vision, or he would still be here, giving life, and serendipity, a chance to work its magic.

Ironically, one of the MANY good things Trey founded was a conference called Social Story, which he was passionate about partaking in with people around the world. I wanted to bring it - and him - to Kansas City but hadn’t made it happen yet. Today, and for a little while to come, Trey IS the social story. People - some who only knew him online, some who knew him in person - some who never even heard of him until today, are reaching out to hold each others hands and share their thoughts about Trey and the tragedy that is impacting so many of us. That would make Trey smile, I know. Aside from a marriage, 6 beautiful children and grandchildren, parents and siblings, that is Trey’s legacy to our social community. To my world. I’m very sad he’s gone.

Learn more about Trey via Twitter messages

Leave condolences on Trey’s Facebook wall

Dear Everyone: You Are Responsible for Your Own Job Solvency

I read an article this morning on Borders ex-employees engaging in a class action lawsuit based on not enough notice that they were holding mass layoffs. I guess the bankruptcy, the multiple, public attempts to salvage the company, and declining book sales and store traffic was NOT enough of an indication that bad times were ahead???

I don’t want to get into a debate about the law - there is a law on the books that is the basis of the complaint, which states 60 days notice is required before conducting mass layoffs of over 33% of the workforce. I have no idea if Borders acted fairly or not, or they cut loose some excess salary while they could to help them pay debts or whatever is involved with the bankruptcy situation. That’s not the point I want to make.

What I want EVERYONE to think about is this: we are responsible for our own job solvency. We cannot rely on a company to stay in business even if we think they are big, and have lots of money and customers, and nothing bad will ever happen as long as we show up for our 9-5 (or whatever hours.) If a company you work for begins to have lots of layoffs, and you are watching your friends get fired and struggle to find work and you stay around, just waiting for your number to be up or hoping they will deign to keep you employed, that is not taking responsibility for your own welfare. If a company is in the news all the time, and is declaring bankruptcy, and you just wait around to see what really happens, that is not taking responsibility for your own welfare.

When there are obvious signs of trouble with a business, you need to have your resume sharp and being job-hunting for a more stable position long before they lay you off. Why let them even get to that point? More than ONE layoff situation after a company is acquired is a sign of trouble. Bankruptcy is a sign of trouble. Not having payroll met and not getting your check on time is a sign of trouble. If your boss asks you to borrow cash, that’s not a great sign. It’s up to YOU, not your employer, to earn your living and watch out for your own well-being and job prospects. If you’re a hard worker and are passed over for promotion while watching a slacker get promoted, get out. Find a company who will appreciate you and allow you to grow with the company. Too many people let themselves feel stuck in dead-end jobs that would be more satisfied as employees for someone else who would be more respectful, or as a business owner finding their own customers or clients. So grab a snappy outfit, get a haircut, create a tight resume that explains the benefits of hiring you, and get out and meet some new people so you can exit that dead-end job and take better care of yourself. It really IS that easy, but takes effort. And I know sometimes it doesn’t happen quickly enough. But waiting around for the ax to drop is not a good use of your time to justify not trying to find a new job.

I am self-employed, I own a business with two partners. I live in the “we’re responsible for our own job solvency” reality everyday, and it can be scary as we’re very much on the ground floor of creating our company together. But if you work for someone else, this applies to you too - a lot of people just don’t look at it that way as we want to make someone else responsible for taking care of us.

I have no idea how this latest Borders tale of woe will end - but rather than focusing on a class action suit against a bankrupt, dying company, I’d be looking for MY next opportunity and place where I could do good work, advance my career and make good money.