Snellie

The best guitar solo of all time was played in 1993 by Nikoleta, the 18 year old lead guitarist of short lived Serbian rock band Tigrica. Over the course of roughly 45 second solo she brought everyone in earshot to tears, and changed the course of multiple lives. No record exists of the event and it was the only time she ever played in public.

YouTubers have it wrong.

I don't think I'm doing great.

I have spent my life doing my damnedest to follow my own inner star, and not be bothered by what I'm socially expected to do with my life. Which went great, even into young adulthood. My mom showered me with just a little too much Youngest Child care-taking, and my dad was a slightly distant sweetheart. It's easy to get a bullshit liberal arts degree that way.

At thirty it's not going nearly so well. I've got multiple unemployable degrees, no job, and am limping through the summer as a musician and writer. Which sounds somewhat romantic until I need groceries or medication. Neither of which I can seem to live without.

My sister did things right. She got her business degree. And professional experience. And married a supergenius. And has a Big Girl job. And two small children (who I have never met, which kills me on a daily basis). They go to church on Sundays and take little trips into the countryside on weekends and holidays.

Her life is also completely alien to me.

I had to go full-on black sheep youngest sibling. Unemployed, transgendered homosexual musician-scholar, living in another country, muddling through chronic illness and an ongoing religious transformation on some hunk of rock in the ocean. Classic nonsense.

At the same time, I can't just suck it up and make a normal life for myself. I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. And in a sense I'm grateful for that. The more I've leaned into following my gut, the more rewarding life has been. But Jesus it's hard out here sometimes.

I wonder though, to what extent "black sheep" even applies to me. Maybe my sister is more of the odd one out in the context of my family.

My Dad's family is a bit of a mess. The children of an absent architect and a troubled woman, he and his siblings all took somewhat unusual routes. There's my aunt, a writer and textile artist who somehow married rich and therefore lives in a completely different universe. My uncle, a performing arts industry guy who has had incredible struggles throughout his life. And of course my dad, who went from "drugs and rock n roll teen rebel" to "eastern mysticism college guy" to "christian priest/theologian with a classic American nuclear family" to leaving my mom for an old flame from 40 years prior.

None of them seem to have simply gotten a normal job and lived out the classic American life, insofar as such a thing exists.

My mom's family is a bit more normal and stable, but only because the bar is low. I suppose "Normal" just isn't much of a thing in my family.

Am I really making foolish, impractical life-path choices? or is that just what my people do? Does that perspective even change anything?

And how does this affect the people who are close to me? These [redacted surname]-family patterns of chaos, heartache, pretension, desperation, and state of seeking; they can't be easy to be close to over a long period of time. I'm so grateful for the people who've seen it up close and stuck with me, and I dearly miss the people who have drifted away from the chaos.