I can’t remember the last time that I made a New Year’s resolution, but I imagine that it had to do with something trivial. Maybe I resolved to lose a few pounds, to spend more time reading or to save more money. The bar is usually set pretty low for me when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. But other kinds of resolutions – the promises that you make to yourself in the middle of the night, the real, quiet struggles that few others know about – those are the tough ones.
John Durbin’s story, “From the Ground Up,” involves the highest of stakes. John is an animator at Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, La. He makes a passing reference to “holding an Oscar” in this story – that is a reference to the fact that the studio’s first short film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, won the Academy Award in 2012.
John’s story was recorded at our September 2014 live storytelling event, “All Y’all: Under the Influence.” His tale is one of overcoming not only drug addiction but also the cumulative weight of one’s mistake-ridden past. It is a funny, heartbreaking and inspiring story of one young man pulling his life out of a complete downward spiral.
Sara and I would also like to take this opportunity to say thanks to John and Nicole Durbin. John has volunteered his time as a sound engineer at All Y’all events and Nicole has helped with everything up to and including tearing tickets. We couldn’t have done “All Y’all: Under the Influence” – which was an extremely challenging event, for many reasons – without them.
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