Knock on wood

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way.  Like, a REALLY.  Long.  Time.  I had a great and long conversation with a friend yesterday after eating a ton of crawfish with another good buddy of mine and his 3 kids.  And now I’m listening to Kyle Hutton’s weekly radio series on KOKE-FM, Real Life, Real Music while I’m writing this and about to get ready to go play some golf shortly.  Kyle’s guest this week is Paul Overstreet, who has written a ton of memorable and well-known songs for himself and plenty of other acts.  I love listening to, talking about, talking with other creative folks about what drives us, especially when it comes to singing, writing, and playing music. 

But, yesterday, my energy level and excitement could not be contained.  I’m very transparent when it comes to all of that.  So when I’m connecting and get the ability to dream about the possibilities that, at this exact point in time last year, I thought were gone forever it’s hard for me to not finally feel that it might actually happen soon.  My lifelong dream of playing inside the sacred circle at the Grand Ole Opry stage inched just a little bit closer yesterday and I’ll make the official announcement about it tomorrow, so stay tuned because, to quote Deryl Dodd, “Things Are Fixin To Get Real Good”. 

I titled this entry, knock on wood, because there's still a small part of me that's waiting for the floor to drop out beneath me because every time I've gotten my hopes up about my musical dreams, something always happened that altered, dissipated or changed my trajectory permanently and sometimes left me worse off than I was before.  When I was talking to my friend yesterday and the subject of my time at NGL came up, it was a sore spot and not for the time I spent there but for the things I thought I had to give up in order to live what most people consider a "normal" life.  I had steady income, stability and although it was going to end abruptly, I considered it a long term career in which I'd finally be able to settle down, find a wife, have some kids and raise a family out in Colorado.  Obviously, a little over a year later now, that wasn't meant to be the case and I'm finally coming to terms with that after years of trying to push it away.

I came to the realization in the last couple of weeks that no matter how hard I try to push it out of my life, music is and always will be a part of me.  My energy changes when I talk about it, my mood changes and I talk about it like I'm a kid in a candy store.  It recharges me, fills my spirit and every time I get a chance to feel the passion that resides within me, I love daydreaming about the possibilities that are waiting ahead of me on the road that I've strayed on a thousand times, but never left.  My destiny was always there waiting for me to embrace it, no matter how hard I tried to ignore, dismiss or sacrifice it for a life of convenience and keeping up with my bills at a job I was never going to be as passionate about as I ever have been with music.  That, and I've got plenty of great stories to fill up a whole bunch of new songs and another chapter in my musical backstory that I know folks will enjoy hearing more about soon.

Anyway, I’m going to head up to the driving range soon to see if I can improve my skills before we tee off in a couple of hours.  I’ve only played twice in as many months, so my game is completely off.  When we played last Saturday my buddy and I lost at least a dozen golf balls between us and then when we played on Super Bowl Sunday, it wasn’t much better and injured my elbow.  I’m probably not the only shitty golfer out there who can get hurt while playing golf, but hey - what else is there to do on a Sunday Funday?  It’s going to be a good one, so if I see you out there later, I only have one word for you: 

Fore! 

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