Not The Whole World... Just Mine

I see it again. It feels like another life. When I was some young twenty-something looking for love in the passenger seat of my car. I was lost and curious and I really miss that time. Back when I was willing to spend the time and take a risk to my pride.

I remember my first night out with Estella. I spent so much time chasing her that when I finally had the chance I was... unprepared.

This road is going to be a long one. My mind wants to flash forward to where this all ends up. A cold parking lot, steam coming out of a tailpipe, a frosty sky. A day far from the trials I am standing at the mouth of. - 8/25/2020

One stumbled step forward at a time. These days have a tendency to bleed together. Honestly most of my time is spent trying to define them. I don’t have a fight ahead of me, nothing that I need to be stronger than. This is a test of patience. My body just needs time. I think I expected the world to slow down around me. It didn’t. This is an interesting perspective honestly. That hospital bed seems far away, I think that parking lot is much closer now. - 9/18/2020

The fatal flaw. That’s my biggest fear. It’s like driving around on a tire with a loose lug or leaving a faucet running while you’re on vacation. Walking around thinking everything is fine when it’s not. Like the ice is cracking under your feet. I think the part that really scares me is the idea that if I just knew what to look for, if I paid more attention, disaster could have been averted.

This thought process has made me a nervous reck for a large part of my life. The old me would have spent most of the last few months thinking about how if I just knew a couple years ago I could have gone to the hospital before things got bad. Maybe I wouldn’t have needed to have surgery. If I had known last year in Florida, this would all be behind me by now. If I had gone in two weeks earlier than I did, maybe it wouldn’t have taken me so long to get better...

But honestly none of that matters, none of that gets any more than a second in my head. I can’t go through life worrying about the unknown. I refuse to pay interest on bad days.

So while I’m making my way down this road, all I can do is take good care of myself and maybe, just maybe, I can steal a good day or two. - 10/09/2020 9:31 PM

I’m too young to feel this old. I used to always joke about becoming a rockstar and dying at 27 like all the greats. Living life hard and fast. I’m about a week from my 27th birthday and I’m realizing how much I haven’t done yet. My health has been trouble for me and I’m honestly physically exhausted beyond my years. I’m not where I wanted to be and it feels like a weight is pulling me down.

I’ve managed to fill my time and not think about it too much, but there is a reality in the back of my mind that is standing just out of frame. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of good in my life. I am surrounded by people that I love more than I thought I had the capacity too. It’s like being at home during a storm. On the inside everything is fine, but everything outside is frightening. I miss looking out the window and seeing adventure and stories on the horizon.

I feel like I’m stuck in the last pretty picture I managed to create. I just don’t wanna be forced to be done yet. I’m not done yet.

Through the storm I get little glimmers of light. Hope like a fire in my chest. Like a part of me is screaming out, begging to take charge.

I have a feeling I’m going to need that fire. I have a feeling this road will be a long one. But that’s all too much to think about right now.

♪  Drake - Too Much  ♪

Do you ever wake up feeling powerful? Today dare the world to take its shots because you’re untouchable. I don’t know where that feeling comes from but it reminds me of my favorite TV show “How I Met Your Mother”. I remember the episode where Ted talked about finally meeting that person who hits the reset button on the world. Suddenly everything is new, a familiar new. Battle tested ground with a new sheen. The sun after the storm. Suddenly everything falls into place.

Sometimes I wish I could fast forward to season 10. Skip all of the fighting and get to the part where I look back at the trials and tribulations as fond memories. That’s my problem, I can focus so hard on the end that I forget to enjoy the middle.

Looking back the show starts to make more sense. Ted spent most of the show trying to skip forward to the end. But once he finally gets there he spends a lot of his time telling Tracy stories and taking her back to old stomping grounds. It wasn’t until he finally learned to enjoy the middle that he got the end. It was the trials and tribulations that got him where he needed to be. He had to get through the storm, he had to get through his rain dance. Those are the days that made him invincible!

I know somewhere out there is a storm and I know I should be looking for my yellow umbrella, but Today I’m wearing my red cowboy boots, today I am invincible and today is going to be...

♪ Kids - One Republic ♪

Forever is a complicated notion. We were friends forever. We were friends until those people didn’t exist anymore. We got each other through that time and place and fulfilled our purpose.

I believe that we never stop growing. I believe as people we are all the layers of time and experience that we have been through. I believe all of it stays with you and you decide how to deal with it. For me that 20 year old kid I used to be is still somewhere in here. That same kid who was experiencing the world for the first time. That same kid who’s friends meant everything to him. That same kid who loved his chosen family forever.

As human beings we have an expiration date. Our forever only lasts as long as our time does. Try as we might our forever doesn’t last forever. I choose to look at that fact with the romance it deserves. We only have so much time, so much forever to spend here.

So if forever isn’t forever, how do we know what it is? Well inquisitive voice in my head, that’s a good question. To me forever is made up of the moments that burn an image in your head, a feeling in your chest or skip in your heartbeat. It’s the stories you will tell your kids about. It’s the people in those stories.

To all of my favorite people that I don’t talk to as much as I would like. Thank you for being part of my forever. Thank you for being somebody to me.

I don’t know what these next few years will hold, but I have a feeling it will be worth it. After all, these last few years have seemed like forever.

Life is wired. You’re born, you find people you want to spend your time with and before you know it you grow up. You start to look at the future and imagine people in it. Some people go along with you on that ride and some take different roads. You realize how fragile life is and how even the absence of things can change everything left. You find a sanctuary in the chaos of life and it makes things easier. You grow more, you look at the people around you and remember when you were young and careless in the most carful way. You lose yourself to the rush of time and forget about the sanctuaries you once loved. You find yourself, you think you have things under control and begin to think about the future and who will be there with you. You find your sanctuary again and it seems familiar...

You know when you’re reading a book and suddenly you have to put it down to attend to other things? You come back realizing that you forgot to mark the page you were on so you open the book to where you think you should be. You read the words trying to find your place, but none of it seems familiar because it’s all out of context. So you flip the pages back and forth hoping something will jog your memory and you can just pick up where you left off. In the end the best thing to do is flip back the the last place you remember for sure you were. Reading through pages that you’ve already seen, trying to catch up to where you were and get back to the place where everything is new again. That’s what this feels like. Trying to find a path from the last safe place and the point things were lost. In moments when you’re retracing your steps maybe you’ll see things differently. But this isn’t a book and the ink isn’t dry on the page. So the question is… would you go back if you could? If you could have a do over and change things, would you? Better think fast, second chances go by in a Flash.

You know that song that plays in movie trailers? The one that goes “whoa oh oh oh whoa oh oh oh” it plays to let everyone know how crazy, fun and emotional that movie is going to be. I want to make music like that. Music that’s crazy, emotional, life. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never get to live all the stories I want in life. But if I can make music that touches all the people who live those lives, maybe I can feel them for a second. Don’t get me wrong I love this life I’m living, I just want to experience everything life can offer. I put my headphones in, look up at the stars at night and dream. Dream of all the things life has in store for me. I want to make music that sounds like those moments feel. Life has been amazing so far. I can’t wait to find the rest of it! I would normally say more, but let’s let the music tell the next part of this story!

When I was born God gave me a great deal of things. He gave me parents who loved me enough to push me to be my best, Parents that would never let me worry about the little things. He put me on a course that would lead me to the most beautiful people in the world. The people that would give me a reason to fight, smile and live! He also gave me a way to deal with all the pain and demons that would challenge me. Music. I remember one day while I was sitting in my car talking to a friend, she asked me if I ever had a dream come true. I said yes, this car. Out of everything I dreamed I’d have in my life this car was the first. It’s what set off this journey that led me to everything else I’ve seen in my dreams. The amazing friends, the memories, the girls that would teach me lessons I needed to learn. It all materialized to existence to a soundtrack played in the speakers of this car. It’s not anywhere near over yet. One day the girl I will spend the rest of my life loving will sit in the passenger seat and never leave. Until then I have the music and my friends to fill the space and make memories with. So much life left to live, this overwhelmingly is the beginning!

♪ Lifehouse - Blind ♪

It’s been a while since I last wrote. These last couple months have been incredible! Full of love and heartbreak, scars and stories. So let me get you caught up. I had no idea that when I was writing that last post, that it would be the last thing I wrote living my life, hoping to be alive. I was on the edge of that part of my life. I didn’t know that the whole time I was fighting, the moments were already on their way. 

Cars, friends, girls... The whole world opened up to us in the form of highways and late nights. 

The car.  That Mustang means so much to me. It reminds me of all the things that were important to me, it reminds of the person I wish I got to spend these years with. That car is the one thing on my list that actually happened on time. And it's the reason I have everything else on that list..."The girl, the friends, the world." When I'm in that car I feel like the version of myself I've been trying to be. And what's really great, is finally I feel that way even when I'm not in my car. I feel like me!

♪ Paramore - Last Hope ♪

The friends. After all these years the friends that have gotten me through everything are still here. I remember being kids walking to the park  playing basketball and smiling at cute girls with these guys. Now we're driving around in our cars giving those cute girls rides. Yeah, things aren't as simple as they were then and we may all have our own groups of friends, but we're still brothers. And we always make it back to our old stomping grounds, to make new memories. We won't lose each other.

 I also have this new group of friends, my crew. It may not have the bros I grew up with but I have some new great friends that I want to hold on to. Let me share a memory...

Me and my bro in our cars, my sisters, ten at night. We call up our friend and head to town for a late night McDonald's run. We stopped by the lake windows down music blasting. We watched our headlights reflect off of the water. Eventually we made our way to the park that we grew up playing in. Under the mist and the full moon the five of us swung on the swings like we were kids. Laughing, talking, smiling while the rest of the world fell away. It was a scene in a movie. We must have driven around for hours. This night and all the others I've spent with them like it... was perfect. This is the moment I'm living in now. Beautiful.

♪ The Dangerous Summer - Catholic Girls  ♪

The girl. The girl that made my head spin. I got to give her a  couple rides in my car. Her hopping in and telling me to take the long way home, taking her out for ice cream, it was finally happening. I can't believe I could be so sure about her, so sure I was in love... and those feelings just go away. It just all fell apart.  I don't know what will happen in future with her, but right now my head isn't spinning... The rest of the world is and I love the feeling! I'm taking more chances at love and it seems all I'm left with is chongos and glitter on my back seat.

"When he walks you home he better damn know, you deserve everything... Guess I'm happy for you."

I'll keep looking for love, maybe I'll find her in my back seat amongst all the chongos and glitter. Who knows maybe she's already been there!

Everything is so beautiful, like a movie, cinematic & dramatic. It all feels like me... Finally.

There's so many great moments ahead of me. I can't wait until they're all memories. But right now I'm having a great time making them reality. I have a feeling i'll have a few more stories to tell you! Here we go!

The day burns down, batteries start to die and dreams begin to imagine. As every problem and moment stops for a short time. The stars gather above us like guardian angels. They are always there, like memories.

People ask why our generation is so obsessed with letting people know what we are doing every second of every day. I don’t think that is what we are doing. One day when our time has gone and we begin to fade, we will still have our lives etched in time for those who will care to see it. I think we all just want to be remembered, but more importantly we just don’t want to be forgotten.

We want to live forever. We want to love forever. We want to live for the first time everyday and die every night. So we know how important every breath and every step is.

I take pictures to preserve the memories. I write songs to make them last an eternity. One day everything I’m fighting for will be a memory. And the generation we create will be the ones lost in the world.

If all we leave when we go is pictures and words, I hope it’s the important ones.

But I think I’m getting ahead of myself lately… Let’s get back to the kid who is still trying to make things happen. The kid who is trying to build a world for himself and his friends.

The girl, the friends, the world. Those things are just starting to happen. But for the first time, I can dream with my eyes open.

I want my life to be like matter. All the memories and feelings I will ever have, were there my whole life. Dreams are just memories I haven’t gotten to yet, like matter in another form. And all the feelings were always there too, I just needed to meet the people that would awaken them.

Somewhere out there in the world those people are wondering around not knowing that our lives are leading us to each other. Like soul mates.

I want to find my soul mate and spend an eternity in love. With her. No beginning, no end. A love so powerful that I felt it even when I was waiting for her, because It was always there.

A love that transcends everything. Logic, life and even time. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic. Hopelessly in love, with the theatric.

"I have died everyday waiting for you. Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years and I will love you for a thousand more."

I don’t know what side of the love story I’m on, but I’m excited to see it happen. One breath, one fight, one daylight closer. This puzzle is hard at times, but the picture is more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

I had a great thought tonight. An image. Fast forward to my sister’s wedding day… Watching her in love ready to start her life. Behind her among the bridesmaids is one of her best friends. The one I’ve always loved. During the celebration seeing her taking in the night. I walk up next to her “I guess we’re next!” I said. “I guess so” she laughs. I pause and look at her “No, I’m serious. Marry me.” I smile. She looks up at me…