When I made it my goal to become a graphic designer, I had a couple types of dream projects.
The first was to do design work for musicians and record labels: websites, tour merchandise, posters, and most of all, album covers.
And the second was work for writers and publishing houses—and very specifically, to design book covers.
I was eventually able to do the prior, but never really the latter.
Still, each week, my kids and I go to our local bookstore, and still, each time, I spend five or ten minutes of the visit standing in the light of the New Arrivals section. I tell the boys to find me there, examining the cover designs of the latest novels, the newest non-fiction, the collections of stories and poems.
Certain covers call to me.
When a book calls, I reach out and hold it in my hands, run my fingers along its jacket’s emboss, admire its texture and varnish; most times, I slowly flip through a book’s pages to see what typeface the words are set in, before deeply nuzzling my nose into its gutter and breathing in the scent of its paper stock and print production.
If I’m on the fence about a book, teetering between passing it over and reading it, a great cover will often make the difference: I’ll go for it.
The beauty of it, too, is that here in the ol’ U S of A, once we reach a certain age, we get to choose what we read. We’re in control. We get to control this thing that that can have such a profound and enduring impact on us.
In some sense, that book cover turns a “maybe, but probably not” into “yeah, my life is never going to be the same again.”
Because a great book…I mean, a great book can change your life.
That’s a fact.
It’s happened to me, time and time again.
•
Of course, the impact that book cover design has on me is quite contrary to this oft-quoted aphorism: “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
Which, really, is a very true statement: we can’t judge a book—its content, its quality, its voice, its soul—simply by its cover.
Even though we do it all the time, in about a million metaphorical ways.
In my K-12 years, I was a pretty good student, and I think an amiable, reasonably fun kid.
Thanks to my parents’ guidance, I even won the citizenship award in fifth grade.
I had good, close friends.
With each transition, from elementary to middle school, from middle to high school, that close friend group got a little smaller, a little tighter.
And with each transition, I became a little more shy, a little less confident.
As our class size grew, I was uncomfortable around the students from wealthier homes. I was anxious around the students who were more traveled, or more experienced than me. I worried, feeling that they had something I didn’t. I felt inferior.
There was an “elite” crowd, and I wasn’t in it.
Plus, I had zero confidence with girls.
I graduated from Northrop High School in the academic top 25% or so of students, and I won a couple art awards, but overall, there wasn’t much of a reason for anyone to take any notice of or see me. If asked, I think most of my classmates would have found me to be unremarkable, and I wouldn’t and didn’t do anything that might have changed that opinion.
I graduated as part of the class of 1992 with exactly two close friends in my class.
Over the next decade, I could count the number of people I saw from my high school on one hand.
In that time, I changed. I timidly came out of my burrow and into the light.
I changed, because that’s what you do at that time in your life. (Or at least, hopefully you do.)
A few notable things happened to me in those years:
After college, I got a job as a graphic designer—at a company that didn’t work on album (or book) covers.
Four and a half years later, I left that job and started working for myself—and I actually got to design album covers. And eventually, I got to design album covers for musicians I never dreamt I’d meet, much less create artwork for.
A girl I’d been pursuing for several years agreed to go on a date with me. And soon enough, we were engaged to be married.
I picked up a $90 guitar (“The Gremlin”) at a pawn shop the week after graduating college, and over time, the ramshackle band my new friends and I had started—Go Dog Go—became one of the most popular acts in the city, playing a monthly gig at Fort Wayne’s best live music venue, and even getting out of town for shows.
In 2000, I bought another guitar, and this one proved to be lucky, as I followed its glimmering strings down to Nashville, Tennessee, and around the world.
A decade on, other than still exhibiting good citizenship and liking good music and art, I didn’t have all that much in common with the kid who’d graduated as a Northrop Bruin in 1992.
I’d started feeling comfortable in my own skin.
I’d started developing some confidence.
Come the summer of 2002, persuaded by one of those two close friends, I decided to attend the Class of 1992’s ten-year reunion.
The reunion was set to take place in an uninspired reception hall above one of the city’s least-inspiring bars.
My close friend, his date, my fiancée and I stuck close to each other in the back corner of the hall, sipping it’s-not-flat-yet-but-getting-there Miller Lite out of plastic cups.
About an hour into the event, I caught wind that, shortly, there would be a presentation on stage, recognizing the ‘Most-Changed Student of the Class of 1992.’
A small number of friendly acquaintances came up to me, and whispered, “You’re going to win this thing, Matt. You’re going to be called up there for being the most-changed…!”
I got goosebumps.
I thought about how I’d stretched myself and challenged myself over the last decade.
I thought about how some of the decisions I’d made were fairly courageous—and thus, fairly out of character.
I thought about the lucky guitar, and the wild and winding path it was beginning to lead me down.
I thought about finally having the guts to ask out the girl, and here she was with me as my date.
I thought about it all, and I thought, “Damn, I really have changed. And people took notice! They are seeing me—for who I am!” That was a pretty cool feeling.
But then—suddenly—I realized that that’s not what this was at all.
Because, over the last decade, in addition to the changes above, I’d also started losing my hair.
It started near the end of college.
After seeing a guy in the cafeteria with a bald spot forming, I vividly remember saying to one of my roommates, “Hey, if that happens to me, let me know, OK?” And he replied, “Oh, Kelley—are you kidding? You’ve already lost much more hair than that guy has.”
Soon after, I started getting bald comments. Nudges. Chuckles. It began happening pretty much everywhere I went, including at the ~50-person marketing firm I’d joined as my first professional job, where I was the youngest employee.
I’d meet someone new, and they’d say, “How old are you?” and I’d say, “I just turned 24,” and I’d follow that up with an incisive review of Dave Eggers’ debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or a declaration that Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind was, against all odds and thirty years into his career, his greatest record. And they’d say, “24, huh? And you’re already bald!”
Rapidly, my hair loss became the single greatest insecurity of my life.
—
Back at the Northrop High School Class of 1992 reunion, the sympathetic acquaintances could tell that I was excited about my imminent celebration.
Their whispers got louder: “No, no. Matt. This isn’t an honor. This is a clown award. You’re going to be recognized for being the most-changed…because you’re bald.”
My goosebumps turned into crawling skin.
“You’re not going to be celebrated, pal. You’re going to be laughed at.”
In a few minutes, Matt Kelley—once a nice and nondescript, sheepish and shy 18-year-old senior—would be brought on stage to, in effect, be roasted.
To be made fun of for a thing my body did, completely out of my control.
I was shocked. Embarrassed. Infuriated.
My heart racing, my ears hot to the touch, I started sweating.
Our class officers took the stage.
The presentation was beginning.
I grabbed my fiancée’s hand—she was so strongly in my corner as we locked eyes and said, “Let’s drop this crowd”—and we bolted toward the exit.
I’ll never forget, as we descended the stairs to leave the venue, the humiliating sound of the class president’s voice on the P/A speakers as she announced my name, the cruel sound of the laughter. Hearing her say, “Where is he? Come up here, Matt, it’s okay…,” as we burst through the exit doors and out into the summer night, the laughs, my heartbeat, her voice, “Does anyone see him…?”
I really never looked back.
That night, or ever.
Other than those two close friends—Rob and Rick—I’ve effectively never seen or talked to a member of my graduating class again.1
To this day, not a week goes by where I don’t get some kind of snarky bald comment.
Five years after that reunion, the boutique creative agency I founded began working with one of the region’s largest employers, an economic behemoth. In our pitch to win the work—a presentation in front of 30 or so leaders from across the organization—the CEO opened by chiding me with a bald joke. (That continued in every meeting we had for the duration of his tenure.)
I get made fun of for being bald while I’m doing my job. (Thankfully, never by my coworkers.)
As I’m performing with the band.
When I’m at the gym.
At cookouts, parties, restaurants, bars and parent-teacher conferences.
Made fun of for a thing my body did, completely out of my control.
A few months from 50, I generally try to roll easy with it.
Fact is, I rolled a little less easy with it in my early 40s.
And most certainly loathed it in an unhealthy way in my 30s.
A chip got placed on my shoulder the night of that reunion. And for 21 years, it hasn’t left.
•
But the thing is, I’ve never really been sure whether to hold that night in anger, or in gratitude.
Because for more than two decades, that chip has driven me.
If I was going to be judged by and made fun of for what I could not control, then I would devote all of my energy toward flourishing with what I could.
I was never the best designer or art director. But I could sure be the hardest-working and most responsible designer and art director. (The same held true with any other professional role I’ve played over the last two decades.) Almost all the time, that mattered more than anything else. Especially because I approached my work with the highest level of fairness and integrity.
I was never the best guitarist, or really even a good guitarist. But I could surround myself with bandmates who were better friends, and we too could be the best at working hard, and write better songs, and have better taste, and be more fun.
I was tempted by a less purposeful, higher-paying career path, but it sure felt better to spend my time with my sleeves rolled-up alongside people who wanted to build, create and support meaningful things. And along the way, start music festivals and clothing companies.
I was born into a family with a propensity for early-onset heart disease—a hereditary condition less easy to make fun of than hair loss, as it happens—but I could fight that off by making better choices with what I ate, by kicking cigarettes (and eventually, kicking the bottle), and by making sure I exercised.
And speaking of—nothing has ever motivated me more, exercise-wise, than a bald joke. I will never and have never lost a running race to an individual who has lobbed a bald comment my way. (This commitment reached an all-time high (low?) at a half-marathon in Kosciusko County when I tanked my time just to let a baldist runner stay in front of me until the race’s final stretch, where there’s one long, steep incline—at which point I increased my pace as he slowed to a near walk, and I passed him while scratching an itch on the back of my head with my middle finger. Choogle choogle.)
I suppose this goes without saying, but bald guys often get made fun of for somehow being considered less attractive or less manly—in person or online, in pop culture or even in art. But I could be sweeter, smarter, more thoughtful and more generous. (And, to be clear, sometimes more furious and more petty, too.)
I could choose better books to read and better music to listen to, and let it all wash over and influence and inspire me.
On and on and on.
All of this focus on what I could control made me better.
All of this focus on what I could control made me more interesting. It elevated my standards. Made me more curious and more vulnerable and more likable and more approachable and more trustworthy.
It made me a better person.
And by being a better person, my life became filled with better people than ever before.
And that became the great gift in my life.
These days, I understand that the best way to climb life’s ladder is on rungs made up of the things we can control.
I now understand that we survive through the things we can control.
Listen: I’ve probably got some good years left, and I’d still like to design a book cover. I think I could do a pretty good job at it.
But metaphorically speaking, I also understand that a book cover is a tremendously superficial way to judge what’s to be found in that book’s pages—its content, its quality, its voice, its soul.
Most people have their own version of losing their hair early.
We judge each other for all kinds of dumb shit that’s out of our control—sometimes frivolously, and oftentimes cruelly, and worst times systemically.
I’m trying my best to rise above that, and I’m trying my best to help my kids do the same.
Because I’ve come to believe—and indeed covet—that in life and in love, it’s the things that we can control that move us from a “maybe, but probably not” into, “yeah, my life is never going to be the same again.”
Postscript
I wrote this essay in stops and starts over several weeks.
I initially thought it would be a fun story to tell, but as it turned out, I really didn’t enjoy it. It’s been my least-favorite writing experience with this whole Substack thing.
I realized how much resentment and negativity I still feel about it all, and the unhealthy ways in which I’ve dealt with this enduring insecurity in my life. Or rather, the ways I’ve avoided dealing with it.
Those avoidant walls that I’d built up began crumbling, for the first time in years.
I actually started losing some sleep, and even had a couple nightmares surrounding it.
My old friend, existential dread, came knocking.
I found myself worrying that, as Paul Westerberg sang, “I’m past my prime—or was that just a pose? It’s a wonderful lie, I still get by on those.”
Then, last weekend and on a whim, I ran a half-marathon in Wells County.
I love this particular race—the Parlor City Trot. (In my opinion, it’s the best halfie in all the land, and I’ve run it most years since 2014.)
But I’d been traveling, and I hadn’t trained for it, and my run-club friends weren’t running it, and I felt like I was in a rut—“comparison is the thief of joy.”
So I didn’t sign up this year.
But in the days before the race, I just couldn’t resist.
Up at 5AM on Saturday morning, I read a book for an hour and then drove to Bluffton, where I registered in-person at 7:21AM.
The race started at 7:30AM.
At 9:11AM, I crossed the finish line, that same damn chip still right there on my shoulder.
It was my fastest half-marathon since 2018.
I felt invigorated.
Youthful.
Confident.
And happy.
Thanks to this essay.
Although, KZS, I know you’re out there reading, and I love you!
Lots of thoughts and follow up questions for this one, but mostly just want to say how much I appreciate your vulnerability in this piece.