The Goodbye Letter.

          We met one another my freshman year of college.  In the naiveté of youth, I thought that you were everything I had been looking for.  You made me feel like no one had before; more mature, a little dangerous, independent, yet still warm and comforted.  I was vulnerable and innocent, and you knew that, you saw that in me somehow and purposefully led me astray, making me believe all the lies you told me night after night.

          Every time I caught a glimpse of your true self, I would pull away, crushed by my own insecurities.  When I would finally move beyond your pull, you would return like a lover in the night, as though somehow, this one time, things would be different.  You would make me fall all over again, head over heels, for that sweet thing I first met under a July moon, with the small of summer heavy on the night air. 

          It makes me sad even now, how much love I have wasted on you and the memories we once shared, or more accurately I guess, the lack of memories.  I could say I wished I’d never met you, but it would taste like a lie.  The truth is, I’m glad we had our time together.  I think sometimes we need to go through hell, in order to appreciate heaven.  You taught me about pain, hurt, loneliness, and betrayal.  Because of those hard lessons, I now truly understand what it means to hope, to have faith, and to love.

          Please make no mistake, my gratitude ends abruptly there.  You are a temptress and a Jessabelle, and I have no time, energy, or patience left to pursue you further.

          This goodbye is not an exercise in simply delaying the inevitable.  It is a declaration of a new found will to live.  You are not welcome in this life I am building for myself and for my family.  You are not welcome in my thoughts, or in what I hold to be my fondest of memories.  You are not welcome as a guest in my dreams.

          If my experience has taught me anything over our years together, it’s that you will not take this well.  You never did like to be told no.  Inevitably, at some point sooner or later, you will extend an olive branch,, in hopes of once again being friendly, if only casually or for old times’ sake.  I accept this as it is your nature, and you have always held some power over me, that even now I do not fully understand.  You must realize my dear that this is a battle you will not win.  I am no longer that insecure boy who ran too you time and again, in hopes of finding comfort in your deceptive warm embrace.  I have been without you long enough that I no longer taste your harsh kiss or your sweet perfume.  If for whatever reason I should begin to remember, know that I am no longer alone.  I have friends, family and fellowship, more than ready to put you and your whispers back in the ground where they belong, dead to us. 

          And so, I leave you with words from that first dance years ago, “while the last goodbye is the hardest one to say, this IS where the cowboy rides away.”

      

Goodbye,

                   -J

Enjoy the Ride...

I don’t really expect anyone to read this post, but I feel like it is one that I needed to write, if only for myself.  Sometimes I need a reminder to live like I ain’t afraid to die.  To not be scared.  And most of all, to just enjoy this ride...

 

Maybe the greatest summer of my life, I was 17 years old.  Back then I had three good friends, Greg, Daniel, and Phil.  The four of us were inseparable, and had more fun those three months than anybody rightly should be able too.  It’s been nearly 20 years, and although the four of us all now live in different states across the country, they are still my only three friends, and I can’t tell you how much I miss them.  

There is a soundtrack to that summer that often plays through my mind; Garth is in there, and George Strait of course, but more than anything, Chris Ledoux plays on a loop through my memories.  For those who are not familiar, Chris was a Cowboy.  I don’t mean the one of the cowboys we have now that wear designer jeans and singing club songs with too much bass.  I mean he was a real cowboy.  In 1976 Chris was a World Champion Bareback Rider.  He got his music start selling tapes out the back of a car, songs he had written about his life on the rodeo circuit.  Although Chris has been gone now for a number of years, his music often feels new as I rediscover a lifetime worth of memories in those old songs.

Looking back, I attribute the fond memories of that summer to many thing; not least among these was the genuineness of it all.  We four were simply who we were and never tried to be anything else.  We worked our summer jobs hard.  We played our music through the night.  We had each other's backs.  And we chased our dreams without hesitation or confusion.  There was a simplicity to that summer that I miss now.

I am by no means complaining, but my life now is far more complicated than I could have imagined it being back then.  Aside from the continuing life lessons learned from being a husband and a father, by professional life is filled with decisions and responsibilities I cannot begin to describe.  Most people do not understand what it is I do for a living, and frankly, for that I am grateful.  Without going into detail, I will just say that my work carries a weight that can be difficult to bare.  

I was driving home from work last week, after a particularly hard day, when low and behold, old Chris came on the radio and sang me a song that in that moment I needed to hear.  The song starts with a young boy going to a county fair and riding a pony for the first time.  The old man with the ponies, gives the boy a rhyme when he sees that he is scared.  This rhyme is carried through life until the boy becomes an old man.  The song ends like this:

Well, I know someday, farther down the road, I'll come to the edge of the great unknown

There'll stand a black horse riderless, And I wonder if I'm ready for this?

So I'll saddle him up and he'll switch his tail, And I'll tip my hat and bid farewell

And lift my song into the air, That I learned at that dusty fair...

“Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high

Keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky

And live like you ain't afraid to die

And don't be scared, just enjoy your ride.”

 

    It is difficult at times, most times if I’m being honest, to remember to enjoy this ride that I am on.  I look back on my 17 year old self, and find that I am jealous of the good times that seemed to come so effortlessly for him.  I find that I am jealous that he gets to spend his days and nights with his best friends, his only friends, when it is has been a couple of years since I have seen mine.

Greg lives out in L.A. and I see him occasionally, but it's usually on television, on some random show that he had been cast in.  Phil lives in Nashville, and if you haven’t been fortunate enough to hear his music, I guarantee you will.   Do yourself a favor and give this a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NPBVnHB_LE.  And then there is Daniel.  He works a ranch back home in Prescott, and is the only other in our group who has had the good sense to find a woman who can keep him in line, and has settled down.

I am going to go home tonight, kiss my wife, hug my son, give my friends a call, and maybe go for a ride.  Thank you Chris for the reminder.