It’s Like You Were There

I just posted a bunch of new band photos. I’m working on reviews of the Sigur Rós show on the 27th, as well as the Burning Airlines show earlier this week. Hopefully, I’ll have those up in the coming days.

Congratulations to Chester and Amy. May God richly bless your marriage.

This weekend has been nothing like I expected, and in nearly every good way imaginable. I’m what you’d call a “glass half empty” kind of guy, which means that anxieties that normal people would brush aside become life-threatening crises for me. And this week had more than it’s fair share of crises.

It was one of those weeks where you just find yourself sitting on your bedroom floor, staring at the Good Word, and hoping that, now, in your time of need, it’ll be relevant. You suddenly realize that 15 or 20 minutes has passed, and you’ve done nothing but imagine all of your friendships failing miserably. You ponder what it would take to leave everything behind and start all over again, if a fugue really could happen.

I had intended to write a long diatribe about the evils of this past summer. It was, without a doubt, one of the worst times of my life. All around me, it seemed like my closest friends were ruining their lives and the lives of each other. Relationships felt like they were being stolen out from underneath me. And artistically, it seemed either hit or miss. In the middle of all that chaos, I felt a curious sensation that I’ve never really experienced before: self-righteousness.

I looked around and saw all of the shit going on around me, and I would get pissed. But not pissed in a way that made me want to really change the situation. It felt like so many attempts to rectify situations actually thinly veiled attempts to assert my own indignation. And it sucks making yourself a martyr, especially a martyr without any cause. It sickened me and it still does. And it colored everything I looked at, like this weekend.

I told people this weekend would be either really, really good or really, really bad. But I was convinced it would be absolutely horrible. It wasn’t perfect… but it was far better than I could’ve hoped for. I once heard a wise saying; “Never doubt in the dark what you know to be true in the light.” Right now, things look pretty bright, but I know there’s darkness ahead. But I also know a few more truths now, and maybe that means there will be a few less doubts.