Today I woke up like any other day. Get myself up, get my wife up, get the dog up, although he usually jumps in my bed and gives me a hug the moment I wake up as if he already knows that precise moment when I have my morning moment of clarity. I quite like this. It’s a good start to my day. I make a couple of cups of iced coffee for my wife and I, black for me, cream only for her. I don’t always have time to make breakfast but today I did, nothing much just a couple of sausage, egg and cheese on an English muffin.
Enough to hold us over to lunch, which for her today is last night’s leftovers of my homemade country fried steak, with homemade loaded mashed potatoes and “French Style” green beans. I do prefer the way they’re cut as opposed to a green round tubular thing on my plate that reminds me of a Mario transfer tunnel that got knocked over. God forbid you get them overcooked and under seasoned and there’s just this graveyard of tasteless Mario tunnels, it’s terrible.
Anyways, as I was driving home today from dropping my wife off at her college work study; I was listening to my Spotify playlist like any other day. I found out about halfway home while merging from I95 to 128 (To North!) that today would be no ordinary day.
Indeed, it is not. Seeing as the mere fact I’m writing this at this very moment. I started choking up a bit, thinking about my late father, RIP 2015, lost in music, lost in thought for a while. Then I thought about growing up all over the place and some of the time that was spent living in Cape Coral, Florida. Really, my last memories of my father. I remembered many things at that very moment. Music has such a profound effect on me because it’s always been sort of my go to, my backbone when I needed it.
My father’s lasting parting gift was buying me a guitar, teaching me the basics, where to get started and letting me be me, never being harsh on me for playing blackened death metal and being a vocalist who can’t really sing too well (Although, I have put in the time and effort to practice, so not as bad as I once was.) however; I can give any growler a run for their money.
Then I remembered what our old neighbor Bob said to me. He was also a guitarist and a cool older dude who’d occasionally play basketball with me on my side street. I was jamming one day in my garage like any other day in SWFL for me and later after it cooled off a bit, I hit to my side street to play basketball. Bob and I started talking and he told me, “It’s not always to hardest things to play that are always impressive. If you write something with feeling and emotion, it will be memorable forever.” Well, something along those lines, that was about 15 years ago. This is what I remembered.
Then, the next thought… I remembered what one of my favorite people in the world said to me.
“Once a musician, always a musician. You’ll one day find your way back to it if it’s that important to you.”
This is a musician that I got to first meet by some good ole dumb luck in 2017. I had been listening to his works for as long as I can remember. I was a little boy at the time living in New Jersey when I discovered his musical works via 56k dial up and “Kazaa.” This was after I first discovered metal on accident. That story is for another day.
My wife and I before marriage would drive all around SWFL listening to Tristania, beautiful, yet raw music you can feel. Morten Veland left Tristania and created Sirenia while my wife and I were serving in the US Army as medics. My wife and I continued to follow Sirenia even while deployed and continue to listen to them even long after the Army. By that dumb luck and a promoting website, we got an opportunity to do a dinner with the band meet and greet. Incredible.
I finally get home… Try to get back on track with my day, I start up my computer, get to Spotify on the PC and have a look at my playlist that is “Liked from Radio”. Thank you, Rach, this playlist is so much better than the daily mixes, you were so right!
We’re going away for the weekend to an anime convention and I’m a bit out of shape and self-conscious, so I decided today that, ya know what… I’m going to layout my workout mat and “every hour on the hour” (shout out to Roy) going to just do some push-ups and sit-ups. I figure, why not do this as much as I can for the next couple of days, try and lose a few pounds, so I feel better about myself.
I’m dressing up as Soldier 76 from Overwatch because I figure, why the hell not? Luckily, we had a Spirit Halloween open early and they had the Soldier 76 jacket! Fun!
I texted a few friends, my brother while I was preparing myself for the day ahead. As I get about to get to gettin’. Ya know, turn on my Fox News, make sure the TV volume is low enough to hear during transitions of songs but not so loud as to cut into the music.
So, I find myself in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner last night. I started choking up again. I’m at first thought, like, “Okay, what the f*** is going on now!?” I’m sort of mind blown at my answer. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because for the first time in the last 5 years, I believe in me.
I, for whatever reason took steps today that by some good ole dumb luck sparked a change in my thought pattern. I was quite literally in the middle of loading the dishwasher and had to stop because I was crying and felt compelled to write my thoughts, these thoughts… Then this happened.
Thank you everyone in my life, I love you all, you all make a positive difference. Good day to you! I feel incredible!