Just Do It
There is scarcely a day that passes that I don’t write something. Many of you, I’m sure, are wondering about the larger project I embarked upon a little over a year ago. Truthfully, I’m wondering about it as well. Rest easy my friends. “Of Emerald Eyes and Happenstance” is still alive. It is “percolating,” you might say, with paragraph after paragraph of late, ending up in the “slush pile.” A lot of it has been good, but overall, it hasn’t held up to the standards of my greatest critic; me.
While we all await the conclusion of that story, to anyone who is actually interested, I will work to publish a stream of offerings like this one, just to tide us over.
Some who know me personally, know that I’ve been wanting to go to Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, for several years. Back in 2019, I planned a trip for the spring of 2020. I welcomed 2020 with the hope and anticipation that I face each New Year. January was barely halfway through when life began to reveal her hand for the year. Spade after spade turned up against me personally, and we were hearing rumblings of something bigger yet to come. When the time came for me to finalize my trip itinerary, the Queen, King, and Ace of spades was revealed in the form of a global pandemic. As if the personal bad juju I weathered wasn’t enough, Covid-19 began to appear, kicking off a season characterized by fear, reaction, and revealing glimpses of the character of Mankind. It was not, by a long shot, our best days.
Consequently, as the world came to a grinding halt, Billy Bob’s of Texas was closed and along with it, my hope that I’d ever make the trip. A couple of weeks ago, two and a half years later, I was able to make the trip. Armed with a ticket to see Midland perform at Billy Bob’s, two of my “Bucket List” items were about to be scratched from my list. Below is an excerpt from a journal entry I wrote about my trip. It was a BLAST!
Conclusion: Man, Midland LIVE, YEAH BABY! (I could easily substitute Midland in that sentence with others like Gary Allan, Jon Pardi, Nathaniel Rateliff, Luke Combs, The Avett Brothers, and on and on and on) My point is, find something you are passionate about, don’t worry about the judgment of others, just find a way to do it. It is also okay to have more than one passion in a lifetime. Whatever you have to do, whatever you have to sell, whatever sacrifices you have to make, DO IT! The phrase, “I’ve been there, done that, and bought the Tee Shirt,” carries with it the connotation that something is not all that it is hyped to be. The statement may often be true, but not necessarily, and furthermore, what if it wasn’t “just that?” What if “it” turned out to be “THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE?” Either way, how would you know? The bottom line is this: spend your money at Disney, Spend your money in the mountains, Snow skiing, the Bahamas, Hawaii, a cruise, you name it. If you want to do it, find a way. Take up hunting, take up fishing, create something, or travel to interesting places that are “off the beaten track.” Check it off the list. Life is very short and very fleeting. DO IT!!
I will not tally the amount of money spent on my recent trip, because it doesn’t matter. The cost was almost nothing when compared to the cost of dying without the experience. To quote Solomon in the Bible, It is all just “chasing after the wind.” I cannot agree more, yet, all the while, it’s Midland, Live. It is Midland Live. Chasing after the wind, maybe, but I can assure you, it beats getting to the end and finding nothing but regret. Don’t allow your last words to be, “I thought I’d have more time.