{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Talent Was Never The Issue","description":"This week on Keepin It Real Cam Marston has noticed a trend amongst his empty nester friends and what their hobbies become once the kids are gone. The predictability of it gives him comfort. ----- In my part of the world, the female empty nester is an interior designer or painter who has been caged by her responsibilities as a mother and once the kids are gone, they finally step into their lifelong artistic fulfillment. It\u2019s a distinct pattern around here. The number of friends my wife and I have who start throwing paint on a canvas or buying furniture at market after the kids are gone is phenomenal. From what I can tell, they subscribe to Architectural Digest or Southern Living magazines and recreate what they see when they decorate their friend\u2019s houses. Or they have an untapped and remarkable talent for tossing a menagerie of paint colors onto a broad canvas and selling it as a home accent piece at their kid\u2019s school fundraiser or in a corner at their friend\u2019s gallery. It\u2019s not a painting of anything, it\u2019s just colors. They\u2019re going to be rich and famous from their innate ability to create color combinations differently than anyone ever before them, certainly different from anyone around here. Their friends, standing leaning on one hip and holding their stemless wine goblet, ooooh and ahhhh at these masterpieces and offer compliments more effusive than anything Michaelangelo ever got. These same friends unwittingly compare their friends interior design projects with what they just saw in Architectural Digest or Southern Living while they were waiting at the orthodontist with their children. Some of these empty nested women become jewelers. Some become elite, specialized travel agents. Eventually they all sadly back away from their remarkable, God-given talent, find pickleball and only take on special projects for insistent friends. The cost to establish themselves full time in the business was simply too high to continue. Talent was never the issue. I suspect something similar can be said for the men around here. Once the kids are gone they seem to grow. Eating takes priority when the kids have left the house. They become very interested in the preparing and then doting on brisket or boston butt as it slowly gets to the golden zone, all having powerful theories about getting the meat through what they call \u201cthe stall\u201d when the temperature stops rising. Lots of time spent talking in a group standing next to an elaborate cooking device, beer in a koozie held waist high by the top of the can - each complaining that they have more koozies than they know what to do with - and discussing the stall and other brisket or Boston butt mysteries. Then they touch on college football. Then golf. Then hunting or fishing. And then they eat. I suppose I should welcome this predictability in my world. If any one of these empty nesters suddenly declared they were meant to be a puppeteer or a mime or a treasure hunter I\u2019d worry about them. So long as they\u2019re meant to be a painter, an interior designer, or talk a lot about meat, I know my world is in order. All is right and well and good. Like it or not, I\u2019m home amongst my people. I\u2019m Cam Marston and I\u2019m just trying to Keep it Real. ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"