I have decided that I want my life to revolve around two things.  The first and most important would be friendships.  I want everything I do to involve making my friends my priority.  Just recently stepping out of a 5 year dating relationship has shown me how important my friends really are, and how I have ALWAYS taken that for granted.  I watched them rally around me, build me up, encourage and listen to me and it was amazing.  I have always been kind of selfish with my friends, dropping on them or bailing whenever something else comes up (girls mostly) figuring that if they are really my friends they will understand.  What a jerk I have been.

I was able to put my new found appreciation for friendships right into practice when another really close friend went through a tough break up and I was able to watch his/our friends rally, and then be a part of supporting him.  This kind of stuff lasts forever, you know? Its funny really.  A lot of my friends I have known for a long time, longer than 5 years.  When you are with a girl for 5 years, and that person knows you better than anyone else, you feel so permanent.  But in the blink of an eye, it is over and what is left? Your friendships. You had them before, you will have them after.  Sure sometimes you drift apart, but its not like breaking up with a girl. For me, when a relationship with a girl is over… it is over. Them, and everything they brought with them is gone forever.  Friends aren’t like that.

Some of you might also know about my effort and constant struggle to love everyone that I come in contact with.  That plays a large roll in this too. I used to be such a negative, impatient, not understanding, picky, intolerant person… and still can be at times. But I don’t want to be.  I want to look at every single person I know and see only the positives in them.  That plays a large part in my friendships.

The second thing I want my life to revolve around is music. I am a music guy.  I can have conversations with people about religion or politics, and even if we differ 100% on our views, I can leave the conversation being okay with those differences and not get mad or upset or frustrated at all.  I just look at it like, “that’s what you believe, and that’s okay. I just don’t believe the same.”  But when I have a conversation with someone about music and they disagree with me or me with them, I get really really upset.  I am trying not to, but I think it is because music is so deeply rooted in who I am.

One of the most meaningful moments in my life was with my Dad.  I was in high school, and into music and guitars and working at the radio station and I felt like he didn’t get any of that.  One afternoon I played a Janis Joplin song on the radio and he heard it, and that night asked me if he had ever showed me his mint condition, still in the wrapper, Janis Joplin album he bought when he was in the army.  Something about that moment made me feel like I could relate to my Dad in a way I never thought I would be able to.  Not that Janis Joplin is one of my favorite artists, she was long before my time and my Dad understood her better than I ever will– but it was through music that I connected with him, and realized that he does “get it” and got it before I was ever even a thought.  He told me stories of him and his army buddies listening to Joplin and singing and drinking and remembering when she died.  The next day I made him a CD at the station of her greatest hits and gave it to him.  It was pretty special to me.

I am writing songs more again, which has been really fun.  I have been playing the guitar for over 10 years now, and the past few years I have written hardly any songs. I used to write a couple songs a week, and I am back to that.  I am also playing more drums, and it is fun to look back on the past decade and see how I have progressed, not only in my songwriting but it my life.  Listening to an old song brings me right back to where I was in that moment of my life.  I like to say I write feelings, not songs. Sometimes I will leave the microphone on the other side of the room and play as loud as I can, and leave the buzzing noises or doors closing in the recording, and sing whatever comes out. Sometimes it will be 3:00 in the morning and I will be as close to the mic as possible and playing as softly as I can and almost whispering when I sing.  I always try to capture what I am feeling. I’m not trying to write hit songs.  It is kind of like my journal or diary, if you will.

Then there is driving in your car, after a long day at work, listening to something that just hits you right.  You know what I mean, the kind of song that makes everything you are seeing feel like a movie.  When you turn it up just loud enough to feel the deep rich tones of the song massage your ears, but not loud enough to hurt them.  Music can turn me into a sap, ready to ball my eyes out, or turn a bad day into an amazing one.  I am a terribly nostalgic person, and in turn listen to a lot of nostalgic music. Listen to the Afghan Whigs “Crazy” and you will know what I mean.

Everything else in my life comes in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth.  But I am okay with that.  Life is about stages.  Someday my wife and children will be what my life revolves around. A few years ago God might have been what I wanted my life to revolve around.  My family is spread all over the world, brother is in Alaska and my parents are in Africa so it is hard for my life to revolve around them.  Girls are taking a spot in third right now, but life is about stages… life is about stages.