Her name was Rio

July 16, 2017.

I got a journal for my birthday. I have never really done this but it seems cool. I guess I will wanna look back years from now, when I am old and grey, and reread the trevails of my youth. This weekend was awesome too. Sunday River Club had the most fun show yet, I feel like we are really coming together as a band. Here’s to the night we felt alive, and to the tears we never knew we would cry. Also, Haleigh got into town today. School is about to start. I never thought I would get my masters, but here we are, doing something I love with someone I love. Ha! Ask me fifteen years ago I never woulda guessed. I will never forget seeing her today, she had short jean-shorts and sandals and a teal t-shirt. Her hair was cut short and her smile was wide. By the Light I swear, she is radiant.

July 25, 2017.

I FREAKIN LOVE JAMMING OUT! We were rockin’ so hard, I swear I never saw such a big crowd at a bloody farmers market. Our folksy renditions of various pop songs are a major hit. I was just rippin progressions on the harp while John belted out “I got issues and one of em is how bad I need you.” I swear, it gets my heart pounding every time. Speaking of my heart pounding, Haleigh and her family came to see us play. Haha I swear her mom was judging me so hard! I mean I am jamming with a street band at a farmers market, it's hot as blazes and I was barefoot, in peach capris with a dark shirt unbuttoned nearly to my navel, aviators and a baseball cap. Ha I think I look like the coolest guy in the world, but I probably just look like a harp-playing street urchin!

August...?

It’s August now… I think. It may actually be late July. It’s bloody hot, this I know, as made obvious by the massive sunburn on like eighty percent of my body, but especially my chest and stomach. It is Sunday. I can tell you that much, it was a Sunday, bloody Sunday. The southern sun was brutal today as it baked the banks of the desert river. I spent the day in the cool waters, sliding on the clay made mud by fragments of an inch of flowing water, and with her. We lunched at The Eagle. Margaritas and burgers. I knew her mom would hate me. But today felt like we had a good day. I guess I was wrong. Her name was Rio and I thought the day was grand.

August… later.

How long can one bloody sweltering summer month possibly last? The days have dragged from one to the other, my music is hollow and my heart is empty. The haunting tones of my harp sing to the silence around me. Stillness broken only by the beat of my feet upon the cold tile floor. My living room no longer feels like it deserves that name, it’s just an existing room. School was supposed to start this week, but I dropped out of the program. I can’t show up and see her. Not there. Not now. I need something else. I just don’t know what.

August 29 or 30 or 31.

I am sure it’s almost September. Are there 31 days in August? I never bloody remember. This whole past month has been one long hell anyway. The days are scorching and the night brings no reprieve from the heat. My house feels empty, no longer a home, just a shell in which I currently occupy the space. My house has become my bastille. I am owned by my possessions as much as I own them. My chest has finally healed, but the scars that wound me run deeper than the skin, much deeper. At least I guess it can’t get much worse, it’s always darkest before the dawn right?

September 17.

I am in the hospital. I only brought my notebook. It’s just a small simple black affair. I hope this teaches me a lesson. At least I get a break from work for a time. I hate it but I can’t leave. I hate it here but I can’t leave. The world has a weight upon my soul and I feel wrung out, flattened, done. I am done. I’ve got the whole wide world upon my shoulders, just call me Atlas and let me shrug it off. Years of making the wrong choices. Selfishness. Manipulation. Lies. Outright lies. These are the things that brought me low, and low I am. Always. I hope. For new beginnings.

September 29, 2017.

I put in my 2 weeks today. I am leaving soon, for a new home, an old home. I guess I don’t really even know what home is, but I think I will find it. If not there, somewhere, but an old home is a good place to find a new home and start again. I can be what I could have been, should have been, but sometimes the winds of fate deal you a bad hand. But like I always say, pongo mi vida en los manos de destino. I have had faith in fate before, and as they say, it’s easy to have faith in the good times, but the bad times are what test your conviction. I will again let the hands of fate carry me where they will. Either way, I am leaving, and I hope my company deals me the hand fate held back all those years ago.

October 9, 2017.

I am leaving. Now. Today. I shook Dad’s hand one last time, and gave Mom a hug. My faithful pups and I loaded up in my Nissan Rogue and left for one last stop before the new horizon. 3 bedroom house, garage, back yard, all my life I had saved… or hoarded… who can tell the difference? It has all been condensed into a single vehicle, with myself and a hundred and eighty pounds of dog. A clean slate. Nothing but the clothes in the back… of my car. I have a sleeping bag too. I'm scared and broke and unsure, but I am leaving anyway. Faith in fate.

… Bloody Hell! Sometimes people are good, fate is kind, whatever it is, thank the Light! I got my final check, plus it included a kindly bonus for a job well done. Twenty-bloody-thousand dollar “back commission pay” as a send off for new horizons. I didn’t even open the check until I was crossing the mountains and I had to fill up. I was looking out at a sun setting perfectly in the saddle of purple mountains, snow capped already in this early season, on the edge of what is old and what is new. I thought to myself, this portents good things. I don’t even know if I bloody used that word right, but that sunset told me I was making the right decision. The Light shone down true this day.

October 10, 2017.

I am at my new place. It’s a bedroom. In the basement. Of some ladies’ house. I am excited, and scared. I have a tv, and a bed on the ground. Also a tiny minifridge. For a man brought low by hubris and pride, these humble trappings seem somehow elegant. And deserved. Last night I turned the wrong way onto a country highway. It is a new place, and I am unsure. A cop pulled me over. He let me go. The light shines in the most unlikely of places. I think I chose the right place. Faith in fate.

November 1, 2017.

My new job started today. I have much to learn, about myself, about the world, and the more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know. Ignorance is human, none of us can know all things. But I have come a long way, both emotionally and physically since that day this summer. It is snowing outside my window, the first of the season and it is already piling up. Like a mirrored world of my old life, similar but totally different, this new home is a place I can learn to love. At least learn to love myself again. I am… if not happy, content to be away, and eager for what is to come. Faith in fate rewarded.

December, 2017.

I haven’t found closure, it may take years, but I have hope. I am getting better. The frozen north has helped me heal, the mountains are my refuge. No matter where I go I will never forget peeling the burn of that hot southern sun thinking to myself, I won’t cry about you again after the pain of the burn subsides. Like a snake shedding it’s skin to emerge into a hostile word, new. Ha it seems silly now, but it felt deep then. I never cried again though. I don’t think I ever will either. Thank you little black notebook. Thanks for listening, when no one else was there. This will be my last entry, a new year needs a knew start, but I will put you away for remembrance another day. I don’t think I want to forget either, even though it hurts, at one time it was so good. And it can be good again. Her name was Rio and that day was grand.