I sat in the back of the room as the keynote speaker talked about his glory days as a war veteran. It was a good story for the first five minutes—close calls, bonding with peers, learning about the outside world as a young man deployed to Southeast Asia.
Then he kept going. He talked for 10, 15, nearly 20 minutes about the war before moving on to the subject he was actually scheduled to speak about. The war took place more than 30 years ago. Yet to hear him talk, it was as if he had just returned.
I looked around the room. There were always going to be a few people who loved everything he said. Aside from this small group, I saw all the other people checking their phones, whispering to their neighbors, reading through unrelated literature.
While our speaker was reliving a war from his youth, we had moved on to the concerns of the present day.
Glory days are dangerous, and while I wish I was immune, I know I’m not. When I came back from Africa in 2006, I made sure everyone knew where I’d been. Yes, I knew the president of Liberia, and did I mention that Desmond Tutu and I had coffee together one afternoon in Cape Town? I felt deeply proud of those times.
But I gradually came to realize: in a lot of ways, I’d have to leave that time behind and go on to something else.