I woke up at 4 am in an existential quandary.
It probably doesn't help that I've spent the last four days in a stupor of valium, percocet, and ibuprofen. I just got me some o' that newfangled laser eye surgery last week and only just now able to look at a computer screen for more than 30 seconds without my corneas erupting in a revolution of Guevaran proportions. So yeah, let's chalk it up to the drugs.
I was bolt awake at 4 am, unable to go back to sleep or even pretend to try. The kind of stare-at-your-clock, look-at-the-annoying-light-outside-your-window, envy-the-sleeping-cat-at-the-foot-of-the-bed sleeplessness. The kind where you can either lay there play the alarm countdown game, or get up and try to do something productive. And by productive, I mean something that starts out with good intentions but quickly devolves into an easy distraction. That's why I'm typing this at 4:27 am instead of sitting on the couch playing Borderlands. Although that does sound tempting… no, no, gotta focus.
Focus. *Sigh*
Where was I? Oh yeah, existential quandary. Right. Four days of inactivity is plenty of time to get distracted. But when your usual distractions (read: computer and Xbox) are unavailable to you, you're eventually forced to deal with reality. Reality bites. (Hey, that would make a catchy movie title.) There's also no more depressing time than 4 am, at least when you know you need to be asleep but you can't and your alarm goes off at 7 and you're not happy with your life to begin with.
It's never a good time of day to take stock of your life and ponder the future.
So here I am. I'm a 30-year-old (essentially) failed musician with a head full of knowledge, a heart still full of dreams, and nowhere closer to achieving them or putting that knowledge to use than I was ten years ago. I've got a lot more knowledge and a lot more experience now than I did then, but it hasn't done me much good. I rashly signed up for six years in the Army, which means that when I get out, I'll be 35 with no more prospects than I have now.
All I ever wanted to do was to make music.
I don't want to be a rock star, I don't want to be a celebrity, I just want to be a musician. I want to be somebody who makes good music. Is that so much to ask?
I have some regrets. I wish I had only signed up for three years instead of six. I wish I hadn't gone back to college after that semester I spent out on Martha's Vineyard and just gone straight to LA or Nashville. A degree means nothing in this business. Nothing. In fact, it's sometimes a hindrance more than a help because the people you end up playing for don't have degrees and they're often intimidated by it. They think you're some kind of highfalutin' snob who's secretly judging their music, and by extension, them. I wish I had started playing music - real music, not just high school band music - at an earlier age. I wish I had been aware of real music at an earlier age.
It's a little late for could've's, Marge.
When my enlistment is up, I'll be 35. What do I do then? If I get out, do I go back to Nashville and make another go at it? Who wants a 35-year-old on stage with them? Do I try to do the whole singer-songwriter thing? Again, age is definitely against me. I'd like to start a family. How am I supposed to support them? I can't wait too much longer to start. I'm already gonna be the creepy old guy at the park, where all the other parents are going, "Is he the dad? Is he the granddad? Is he the granddad's dad?" What if the only option I have is to stay in the Army for 20 years, get that pension, and then have some sort of steady income to "do what I want"? By that time, I'll definitely be too old to start. Like it or not, age is important in the music business. I can't bear the thought of staying in the Army one second longer than I have to.
A wise friend of mine once said, "If it were up to me, I'd issue a restraining order stating that business must keep at least 500 yards away from music at all times. But it isn't."
I recently started reading Brennan Manning's excellent book, "The Ragamuffin Gospel". I haven't finished it yet, but it's already challenged me and comforted me at the same time. I cannot say enough good things about this book. For anyone who has struggled to reconcile the God of the Bible with the hypocrisy and pain of a strict religious upbringing, this book is for you.
There's a line in there that hit me in a strange way. He mentioned "a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to fade". I had to stop and reread that line about 5 times. That's exactly where I'm at right now. Those of you who know me know that I'm nothing if not opinionated and passionate. But I've always tried to direct my passion into things that were worth being passionate about. Like music. I believe that music is a powerful thing that is worth more than we consciously know. I believe that it's useful for more that getting the party started or expressing admiration for a female's ample posterior, which is why those things bother me so easily.
Parenthetically, to all you Bono haters out there, this is why I'll take his inflated ego and political grandstanding over shlock like Lady Gaga any day of the week. At least he's trying to do something lasting and meaningful.
But I digress. I don't want to lose the "fire in my belly". I'm just trying to reconcile what I want to do with the options I have left at this point.
And then there's faith. Faith in a religious sense. 30 years into it, and I'm still trying to reconcile what I believe with what I was raised with. I know this is a struggle that everyone has to go through, but I think it would be easier in a way if I was raised in a completely different religious tradition. Actually, I think it would be easiest if I was raised in a home that was completely indifferent to faith and religion at all. But as it was, my upbringing was painfully strict. Fundamentalist strict. Baptist strict.
Being the pastor's kid, everything I did was put under the electron microscope of the scrutiny of the church. I was raised to believe that God loves good little boys who never do anything wrong and always reflect well upon their parents, because if the child does anything wrong, then the parents must be terrible people, godless heathens, and unfit to shepherd a flock.
I'm still learning that God is love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. I'm still trying to keep the good things I learned as a kid and get rid of all the extraneous junk that came along with it. I don't think I'll be done for a long time.
But where does that leave me now? A musician who's got 4 years, 9 months, and 9 days left in the most creatively stifling environment in the country. A believer in Christ who's in a place filled with churches that either want to put on a big, fluffy production like the fluffiest of megachurches or are still spewing the same hate-filled, hyper-fundamentalist garbage that gives all Christians a bad name. A guy who just wants to do what he's good at and live a simple life doing it.
Where does it end? When does it end? What's the goal? I don't know. I just don't know.
But hey, I've got 4 years, 9 months, and 9 days to figure it out.
Time to go play Borderlands.
