Well, it has been quite some time, hasn’t it? So much has changed! So much is still the same! Where to begin? I’ve once again written this post in my head so many times that I don’t know where to start. How about the first thing that jumps to mind?
Okay, the first thing that jumps to mind is that I just found a card in my backpack yesterday. It was given to me on new years in Portland, the night of my last show with RRE. I don’t remember who gave it to me, which was probably their plan (or maybe I was just so out of it that I really don’t remember). Anyway, later that night I was sitting in Mark-a-rita’s hotel room and realized that I’d been carrying this card around in my pocket all night and maybe I should open it and see what it was. It was from everyone in the room, which was basically a great number of my really close friends from the RRE experience. As soon as I a saw all the signatures on it and a couple of the things that people had written I shoved it back in the envelope. I heard somebody behind me say “Oh, did he just open it?”
I couldn’t read it then because I was totally overwhelmed. From the time that I announced that I was leaving the band to that night at the Aladdin I was completely flooded with so much emotion from so many people with whom I’d shared most of my adult life that I myself was emotionally paralyzed. It was amazing, and amazingly difficult. Most Sundays after gig weekends during that period I would spend at least a little while crying and not knowing why. I was leaving of my own free will and for reasons that were plenty good enough for me. What was this all about?
By the time I got to Portland I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d had enough of people being so nice to me. I didn’t deserve it. People gave me cards with hundreds of signatures on them telling me that I’d be missed. Someone organized a can drive in my name at our Thanksgiving show, for Pete’s sake. What did I do? I just played the bass! I’d have been doing it anyway, hopefully, and instead I got to make friends and play shows and get good at the bass and be a rockstar for years. I didn’t deserve this outpouring.
So, to anyone reading this who was around in that period, this one’s for you.
I know I’ll see some of you again, but I’ll never see all of you again. My life has been a blessing, a dream. When I can transcend my neurosis and the chaos of my life currently for a few brief moments and really just take a breath, I feel so profoundly grateful for being a part of it. You and I made it together, and it was so. much. FUN! I kind of get it now, some of what there was to be sad about. Change is usually a wonderful thing, a necessary thing, but in a sense I feel like I’ve quit my family. Like I’ve spit in the face of the thing that we built. For that I’m both sorry and thankful for having had the experience in the first place.
I guess that’ll do for now. Hopefully this gets the writer’s clog out. I love you guys.