Gasparilla

In about a week I'm taking a day or so off of work to head down to Tampa to catch one of my favorite bands. They're always fun live, the Orpheum is a fantastic place to catch a concert and a mosh pit at, and I love partying in Ybor City.

To be honest. this trip is sort of an xmas present to myself.  Periphery is just on the verge of dropping a new album, so they're sure to toss a few of the new tunes into their set. Plus I have the vacation hours to burn, so why the hell not?

Maybe this isn't everybody -- I know my life looks weird when you put it down on paper, but every now and then when you look at all the trappings of being all grown up and adult with jobs and kids and bills to be paid and money you probably shouldn't spend where doing something monumentally reckless and incongruent to everything else in your well balanced patterns feels like a moral imperative.

Yeah, I'm not as young as I used to be. I have responsibilities and obligations and all that crap. And it's not like going to a concert on a Tuesday is some sort of revolution, even if it's in another city. Twenty year old me would surely scoff at the whole concept and immediately get to work on some overlong blog post about it complete with movie-reference pictures and video links.

But not going would sorta feel like a surrender.

What's the point of being an adult if you can't do what you want? If you can't make the choice to do something you want to do?

The worst kick in the gut about growing up is realizing that the most responsible thing you can do with all your maturity sometimes is to decide not to have fun. To defer the raw excitement of reckless and irresponsible abandon in favor of staying the course. To pay the bills, stay in on the weekends, and let the young bucks do all the dumb shit.

Besides, been there, done that, right?

WRONG

I wonder sometimes why I don't feel that more. Because I still want to get out. I want to get in the middle of it. I want my ears to ring. I want my muscles to ache. I want the miles on my odometer to have stories attached to them that don't begin and end with grocery store and parking lot at work.

I don't know, I feel like I could spend a lot of words here thinking about how it all got here -- but haven't I done that enough on this blog? Haven't I spent enough lonely nights lamenting the reasons instead of getting out there and doing something about it?

I'll be honest -- there are times when going to all these open mics, scanning the musicians ads on Craigslist, restarting this friggin' blog every year or so -- it all starts to feel.. futile. Like there's only so much window available and despite all the effort I might not have enough of an opening to get through anymore. Like there was a time when all these things were possible, and that time is all but past.

It's a shadow that hangs over, a chill in the air -- like there's a constant battle going on between the frustration I feel over not being able to be the version of myself that I want versus the idea that settling in to the things I have around me and being really good at my job or saving money or whatever is where my focus should turn to, since that's actually who I actually ended up being.

Like I already lost and I just don't want to admit it yet.

I'm a parent with a corporate job. Health insurance and homework -- that's what it's supposed to be all about anymore. Anything beyond that should be able to be handled by of Netflix, Spotify, or Pornhub, right?

But I don't feel that way. I never feel that way.

This is a big part of the reason I dedicated myself to my music over the past year of so in a way I hadn't before. I saw a lot of people who believed in me and wanted me to do well start to lose that faith. It's like a mirror was placed in front of me, and the reflection was starting to turn away.

There's nothing worse than feeling like a part of yourself is being locked away. Like you're not being allowed to shine. Even worse if you're the one holding the key to your own deadbolt.

I did that for enough years. I don't want to do that anymore.

So I'm going to a jam Friday night. Then I'll wake up the next morning and hit a Saturday morning session.

But I'm gonna miss the one next Tuesday.
Because I'll be at the show.



[Now Playing:  D'Angelo - "Betray My Heart" ]

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