C’est la vie
The last series of posts have been dominated by the theme of grief. I had originally intended to continue the series for as many days as I continued to grieve – that turned out to be untenable. I began writing this series on August 30, 2019 – the day I lost my best friend. I realized after a few posts that things were never going to go back to the way they were before. Nobody but nobody is going to want to slog through all that. Honestly, I also kind of lost interest in everything (more on that in a minute) and stopped posting updates of any kind.
Today is November 1, 2020. In truth, yes, I’m still grieving. I have good days and bad, as you might expect. In some ways, the wind has just completely been knocked out of my sails. Maybe it’s just facing the start of another seemingly endless new england winter, maybe it’s the last several months of obsession and panic over COVID-19, maybe it’s something else or everything at once – I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.
Back to the subject at hand – the grieving process. Most days are okay. Not great, not terrible, just okay. Something I’ve read in many places is “you’ll be okay again, but you’ll never be the same.” and I’m finding that to be true. Probably the biggest change in me has been the end of my life as a musician. That was unexpected, but there you go. I’ve lived and breathed music for most of my life – starting when I was maybe ten or twelve and began dreaming of playing music. I picked up a guitar and started to learn and never looked back. Bands, trios, duos and solo. I played anywhere and everywhere I could. Music was as much a part of me as breathing. It’s cliche and corny, but I can’t think of any better way to say it.
After losing Jackson, I tried once more to find my solace in music, but it didn’t work anymore. I made a half-hearted effort to get involved in helping out with worship music at my church. We’re a small congregation and there really isn’t much going on for music, so to me it seemed like a no-brainer. Long story short, nobody there seemed to share my interest, and I found the thought of an uphill struggle to try to change that just wasn’t something I had the energy for anymore. About the same time, I also started experiencing chronic pain and stiffness in both my hands (arthritis). Not completely debilitating, but enough to make it unpleasant to play for more than a few minutes at a time. Between the lingering sadness from losing Jackson, the pain in my hands and the apparent disinterest in music at my church, I’d had enough. I haven’t picked up a guitar in over a year now and have been slowly selling off my collection of instruments and equipment. C’est la vie.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, other than to bring an official end to the grieving posts. I hope some of this has helped someone come to terms with their own loss.