THIS is my life

There are moments in life where you just stop and wonder “Is this my life?”

You drop your cell phone in water. You spill your drink/food all over yourself. You tripped into a snow bank. Your car won’t start.

All these moment make you stop, frown, and depressing think, Yup … this … is my life … Go figure, right?

A few days ago my friends and I traveled down to Omaha for a show. (Read upcoming blog for review.) As we were standing there, one of my friends, who has only been to a few shows in his life (whaaat?) turns to me and says, “So this is what you do? This is your life?”

I glanced around the room to what he was seeing for one of the first times. The venue was like a basement at a frat house … cement floors, brick walls, dirty bathrooms. The dark room was slightly lit by a few filtered lights pointing towards the small stage. There was no barrier … just a group of music lovers such as myself scrunched to the front. The kids were generally younger than me (a concept I’m familiar with at the ripe age of 21), but shared the same interest I did.

In fact, all the kids shared the same interest. The drunken girl in the slutty dress … the bigger guy with the Mohawk … the little boys and girls in skinny jeans. For this night, nobody cared what anybody else was wearing or what they were saying … we were there for the music and the chance to forget everything.

This was my passion sprouting out of all these kids’ eyes as they stared at the bands and shouted the lyrics of their lives. This was my love sweating out of every pore as we all jumped to the chorus and danced to the verse. This was every piece of anger, hurt, depression, sadness, guilt … all wrapped into one and exerted into the crowd through every beat of the drum and ever strum of the guitar. This was everything being let loose and turning into the magical feeling of relief as you focus on the music, and those feeling float to the back of the room.

I was completely lost in the moment. When I came back to my thoughts, I realized I was grinning from ear to ear.

“Yup,” I said, eyes still glazing over the the crowd. My smile widened. “THIS … is my life.”