So you're dating a musician...

[passionlesspenny-blog]

In the Moments We Find Ourselves

My sister always says that change happens in the moments we are challenged. Every moment in which we choose something different - something other than the unhealthy autopilot humans are conditioned to form when going through a struggle. Humans are so good at creating coping mechanisms that we sometimes forget to actually feel and process our emotions; and, ironically, it is only through true feeling and processing that we can understand our emotions.

Creating this blog is an attempt to change my own unhealthy autopilot thoughts. However, I had a friend point out to me that in order for this change to actually occur, I’m going to have to be vulnerable. So I’m writing this post in an actual moment of a feeling in an attempt to do so.

My boyfriend left for tour on Thursday. Originally, it was supposed to be Wednesday, then a show got cancelled and they wouldn’t need to leave until Friday. Then on Thursday, the majority of the nine people that would be going on said tour decided that it’d be fun to go to Kansas and see a show on Thursday night, so they decided to leave that day. 

I’m not in the business of changing other humans - but what the fuck. There are nine people in two different bands choosing to spend the next 11 days of their life in a van with each other, and none of them seem to care that they don’t have a plan. Maybe there’s a pamphlet about “rolling with the road punches” that every person in a band receives upon membership and then negates any adult sensibility that would’ve occurred otherwise. Maybe. Maybe I’m a control freak because I want to know if I get to fall asleep next to my boyfriend that night. I don’t know who’s at fault, most likely because no one is.

What I do know is that rolling with the road is a part of being in a band on tour. I know that, for Jake, being on tour is the most exciting part of being a musician, but that what actually happens on tour is the result of four peoples’ opinions meeting in the middle. In reality, Jake has as much control over his situation as I do - none. 

Yet, when I have been out of town and away from Jake in the time we’ve known each other, I have made an effort to hear his voice everyday. I don’t this is out of a sense of obligation or fear of what it’ll mean if we don’t talk every day; I do this because I miss his voice. I miss his body embracing mine when I enter our home. I do this because I miss his voice and I want to hear about his day. I do this because, even when he’s not in my present moment, he is my pastpresentfuture all rolled up into one tangible body. He is this to me when he’s gone just as much as he is when he’s here.

But when Jake is out of town, I don’t feel this effort. I don’t know if this lack is a result of intention or coincidence on his part, but it is the reality. 

Condor and Jaybird went on tour in March, about two months after Jake and I moved in together. It was the first time I fully experienced a lack of Jake - he had a place to be, and a place to go home to eventually, and the details of the moments in between seemed lost on him. When he got home, I told him how hurt I had been that he didn’t seem to want to send “good morning” or “good night” texts; that he could tell me about hour long conversations with strangers but in the same breath not have enough time to hear about my day; how I felt incredibly distanced from him while he’d been away.

Now, he’s away for the second time since we’ve lived together. I receive “good morning” and “good night” texts. He has called me two times in five days to tell me “he doesn’t have time to talk, he just wanted to say hi”. 

I do not know what tour is like. I don’t know what his day-to-day involves. I don’t know what it’s like to be Jake right now. I’m not trying to claim that he’s doing anything wrong.

In this moment, however, I feel scared to text him. I feel scared because I want more from him, I’ve communicated that, and it’s still not enough. I feel scared because, in all reality, I want him to WANT to say good morning, good night, I love you, I miss you - not to just do so because it makes me feel good.

I guess distance is just a little scary because it allows you to tangibly see what life without that person is like. In this moment, I see it.

[passionlesspenny-blog]

Boy Meets Girl --> Boy Joins Band --> Girl ______________

The genesis of this blog is quite bleak - I have anxiety (like many do) and I often feel alone (like many do), and somehow my boyfriend’s passion for music increases both of these characteristics tenfold. Especially when he’s on tour, which he currently is...but we’ll get to that.

I’d like to introduce this blog by telling you a bit about how my boyfriend came to love music and how we came to love each other - and from here on out, I’m just going to call him Jake. I asked him to tell me about how his passion for music formed, and this is what he said:

“Well there were always guitars in the house and my mom had us singing in church from the time I was two or three, so I didn’t really have a choice of like being around it or not. Then, when I was 11, I discovered punk rock music because my cousin Daniel gave me a cassette tape that had a bunch of MXPX songs on it. One day, in sixth grade, my homie Garret Traylor had an MXPX shirt on at school and I was like “Whaaaat you know about that band?! How’d you get their t-shirt?”. So he invited me over to hangout and listen to music and stuff. When I got there, his older brother happened to be gaming in a band and all of their gear was in the basement - that was the first time I held a bass. I immediately had to get one. My grandpa bought me my first bass when I turned 12. In the seventh grade, my friend asked me to come play in the Junior High worship band at Heritage Church and I suppose *the rest is history*.”

For the record, he doesn’t know why I asked, or even that I’m writing a blog. Generally, while I will shamelessly promote the band that he currently participates in because they are G R E A T, I don’t plan on Jake having a huge role in my writing.

Rather, I would like to focus on how it feels to love someone that loves music more than anything. You can substitute the noun “music” for literally any other noun in the English language, and the sentiment would still burn like citrus in a wound. Some may read about this sentiment and think it’s ridiculous - that no one should love anything in the world more than the person they choose to love...not only do I not agree with such a hyperbolic statement, but I think it is THE best way to love another human. Because in order for a human to love a thing more than another human, they have to (1) want to search for that thing (2) actually search for it (3) open their mind and heart to letting that thing change them (4) and then let it change them. Often, I think that it’s so difficult to even perceive Step 1, let alone the ripple effect that Step 4 has one the people in our immediate lives.

American culture tends to perpetuate the idea that this Four Step process is most gratifying when applied to the pursuit of love with another human. I’d say that John Cusack is about 95% responsible for my own misgivings about the emphasis romance needs to have in my daily life - with movies like “High Fidelity” and “Say Anything”, what hope does a girl have?

It doesn’t help that from the moment I met Jake, our relationship has been filled with cinematic-style drama. We have been dating on and off for the past six years, but it wasn’t until November of last year that we truly decided on each other; we moved in together in January of 2017. I naively believed that we would be immune to the struggles common to couples that live together - concerns about money, what amount of cats we can have in our home without the label “crazy”, relationships with each others’ parents. Turns out we’re not - and we’re learning every day how to communicate about such struggles better.

The thing I can’t get past, is coming second. Always. The thing is, although music has played an immense role in Jake’s life since before we met, we met at a time when he was focused on other things. I had just moved home from my freshman year of college - the first year I’d indulged in the party lifestyle (if this term holds any illusion of glamour, it shouldn’t - picture coffee mugs of whiskey and nameless sex). Jake was 23, had met his girlfriend at the time at a gas station, and also had a love affair with whiskey. That summer, Jake and I spent every day hanging out with a group of four hilarious, kind, and eternally stoned boys doing absolutely nothing of substance; it’s the best summer I’ve ever had. I didn’t even realize that I was in love with Jake until I was on the road for my sophomore year away at school (luckily, he felt the same).

The first four years of our relationship were spent in a threesome with Black Velvet whiskey, even though it gave Jake a booming, angry outlook on life and gave me loose morals in bed and the trigger finger in ending our relationship. My trigger finger was both a blessing and a curse - time apart always gave us clarity to grow and learn from our past selves, but we never really learned how to grow together. About two years into dating, Jake’s brother started a band called Condor and Jaybird with his friend Jeramie. They asked Jake to be the bassist in their band, and he let his passion for music grow and fill more space in his heart.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for Condor and Jaybird every damn day; their songs are full of energy, love, light and humility. I have seen their music illuminate the hearts of every audience they’ve played to, and I wish them nothing more than night after night of that experience. I am just learning how to accept and love that Jake loves his band more than anything. More than me. And now, finally, I’m ready to accept and love myself by searching for the thing that I love more than anything - more than anyone. This is my journey, and I hope you’ll be there with me.