Limbo
I’d been dithering all day as to whether to go to open mic last night. I’d been absent for weeks, but just hadn’t been up to it. It takes a certain amount of energy to get up and play in front of people, and I haven’t had it when the hour drew nigh. I could’ve gone either way Friday night. Staying home, working on a song, and relaxing sounded good; going didn’t sound bad, so I went.
I should’ve stayed home. My performance was, in a word, crap. I got distracted, once by I don’t know what, and again by the substitute host futzing with my sound once I started, turning it all the way down at one point so I couldn’t hear myself; I forgot what I was doing, and had to start 2 of 3 songs over. I knew all the songs cold, and yet my fingers tripped. I just wasn’t there. I felt like I was starting all over.
Once the performance fiasco was over (I was first), I had a good time. My friend P was there and made me laugh a lot. He’s a benign trouble-maker of the first order, and I like that. So I wasn’t sorry I went out, just sorry I thought I was ready to play out. I guess I’m not.
Although as I drove home, I mused that the performance was symbolic of my life of late. I’ve been living for almost 35 years and should have this down, and yet everyday activities seem foreign and wrong some how. I’m often distracted to the point where I forget what I was saying half-way through a sentence. I’m here but I’m not.
I miss him. Constantly. And I don’t know how to stop wanting what I cannot have.