I was meant for someone.

I feel like I should write one more blog post on the Denver concert. 

I've had pit tickets for festival shows before, but never a full tour show. Ashley from Church (read previous blog post) told me I was in for a treat when I told her this.

Usually, during his concerts, Eric gives fans a break between sets. We get a 20-minute intermission to use the restroom, buy a drink, or take a seat (if you have seat tickets).

In Denver, he did not give us an intermission. At one point, he told the crowd that they blew right through intermission and decided to keep playing.

I heard a guy in the pit behind me yell: "Oh my God, he's not going to give us a break, is he? He's going to kill us!"

I've said this several times, but that day was probably the best day of my life.

It's incredible to see a concert that close. I have no idea how many people that place holds, but a quick Google search suggestions it can hold up to 20,000 people for concerts.

Bring front row with 20,000 people around you is not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

I'm going to phrase the next sentence very carefully, and I'm going to apply it to all members of the band, including men and women. Here's the sentence: It's incredible to see how music impacts their entire body.

Head to toe, from the main singer to the back up singer to all of the guitar players, they all drip music from head to toe. And the thing is, it's obvious when you're that close to them.

Some people play music. Some people are music. 

These people are music. 

---

I don't know what else to say, other than it was perfection from start to finish.

My favorite moment, other than holding hands and crying with a total stranger, came when EC started playing a song called Mistress Named Music right in front of us.

The Mistress moment is my favorite part of every concert (doesn't happen at every show, so it's a treat when it does happen). During that song, he goes off and chases different songs, meaning he plays a few cover songs, and then goes back to Mistress Named Music at the end.

In Denver, he did a Brooks and Dunn song, the Luckenbach, Texas song, some Travis Tritt, I Feel Like Makin' Love, Stand By Me, and my personal favorite, a Jason Isbell song called Cover Me Up (Morgan Wallen also did a damn good job on that song).

Um, that's one of my favorite Jason Isbell songs. And my favorite artist sang it right in front of me, probably like seven feet away from me? 

It was perfect. 

The lyrics that choked me up during that song live: I was meant for someone.

I needed that moment in my life, at that specific moment in my life.

It was perfect.

---

A heart on the run keeps a hand on the gun you can't trust anyone

I was so sure what I needed was more tried to shoot out the sun

Days when we raged, we flew off the page such damage was done

But I made it through, cause somebody knew I was meant for someone

So girl, leave your boots by the bed we ain't leaving this room

Till someone needs medical help or the magnolias bloom

It's cold in this house and I ain't going out to chop wood

So cover me up and know you're enough to use me for good

 

Top 10 List

I am getting dangerously close to 50,000 blog views on thishereblog.

I'm pretty excited about that. I remember when I was excited to hit 6,000 views. Also, most of them are probably my parents (hi Mom and Dad!). 

I thought I'd walk you through a little history of thishereblog first, before we delve into what really matters here, which is music.

First off: My most read blog post ever, of all time, is a story about how Eric Church stole my sharpie. 

That makes me laugh so hard, you have no idea. :) 

I have blog views from 29 states and 11 countries. I don't know anyone from out of the country, but if you're reading, this, hi! Welcome to my little piece of Kansas.

---

I started this blog when I switched from working in journalism to working in marketing and public relations. As a newspaper reporter, you write all day, every day. 

In marketing and public relations, you don't write as much. Maybe you write something twice a week, or twice a month. 

The idea behind starting my blog was to keep up writing personally, that way I would never lose it professionally. But the thing is, guys, I will never lose it professionally (or personally). It's something I've always done and will continue to do for the rest of my days.

---

This is a post I've been pretty excited to write about. 

My Dad and I talk about this pretty often. We throw around songs and try to name our top five favorite songs of all time, from any artist, ever.

I'm going to name my top 10 songs for this blog post, and then go into other people's Top 10 list in another blog post. 

I also enjoy getting to know everyone's pissed off song. (Mine is Misery by Soul Asylum. My brother's is Leave me Alone by Hopsin.) So feel free to throw me your favorite pissed off song my way if you read this.

---

Here are my top 10 favorite songs, in order. I'll include a brief explanation of why each song is on the list. 

1. Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith

The year was 1998, and the Armageddon movie, and its soundtrack, came out. My middle school friends and I loved the movie, and we bought the soundtrack on CD. I remember who was there that day, where we were, and the color of the walls when I first heard this song on that soundtrack.

The moment I heard this song is the moment I fell in love with music. My Dad has a really funny and embarrassing story about how I came home from that friend's house and told him about this new band I just heard. 

That new band? 

"It's this new band, Dad, called Aerosmith!"

I was 12, guys. I didn't know any better. 

My life hasn't been the same since. 

---

2. Love Without End, Amen

I don't know about the whole marriage thing, but if I ever find someone willing to put up with me forever, this would be my Dad-daughter dance song. 

It will likely never happen, but I still hold a little bit of hope that it might.

A tiny bit of hope. It's microscopic, but it's there. And it's my favorite George Strait song ever.

Daddies don't just love their children every now and then. It's a love without end, Amen.

---

3. Record Year - Eric Church

This is the song that first got me hooked on Eric Church's music. I've written about it plenty before, but when I figured out that this song is a break up song, it changed my life. 

It saved my life. 

As with a lot of his music, this song found me after a break up. I could give you the details, but in the end, how and why the relationship ended doesn't really matter. (For the record, he married the girl he cheated on me with.)

She got a husband who will probably cheat again. 

I got Eric Church.

I win. 

Front row in Denver. My heart is full.

---

4. Carry On My Wayward Son

My nickname in college was Kansas for a summer. Every time I hear this song, I'm 22 years old again. I'm singing this song at a karaoke bar, I'm drunk, I'm not sure where my cell phone or purse is, but I'm singing this song surrounded by my buddies and I really don't care about anything else in life.

Because the Kansas girl is singing Kansas. 

Don't you cry no more.

---

5. Along Came You - John McCutcheon

I went to college in a little town in Kansas called Winfield, which has a pretty big bluegrass festival. I'd never listened to bluegrass music before, but my Dad came to town and took a friend and I to this festival while I lived there.

Along Came You has been my favorite love song since. 

Along came you, just when I thought my whole life was through. Never believed there was more than I knew, then along came you. 

---

6. Some of It - Eric Church

This shouldn't surprise anyone, but I have another break up story involving Eric Church's music. Shocking, right?

The guy I was dating had been talking to his ex-girlfriend from years earlier, and was planning to meet up with her. I begged him not to and to stop talking to her. (It turns out that if you have to beg your boyfriend not to cheat on you, he's probably not marriage material.)

"She just wants a shoulder to cry on," he told me.

Yeah, buddy, that's not what she wants to cry on.

I got pissed off one night and left his place, for the last time. Before I left, I stood in his living room for a few minutes to see if he would get up and try to stop me from leaving.

He didn't.

There's a feeling you have when you leave someone for the final time. I looked around his place, at his very nice things, thought of his very nice and new truck, and I thought to myself: I can't believe I will never see any of this again.

I went out to my car and turned the ignition on.

Eric Church's beautiful voice sang to me: "What really makes you a man, is being true to her 'til your glass runs out of sand."

It's funny how music finds you when you need it most. 

---

7. Mississippi Queen - Mountain

I found this song because it's one of my Dad's favorite songs. I don't think I need to explain it, but everything about this song is perfect and beautiful.

---

8. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

I don't think I need to explain this one to anyone. My favorite text message to send to people when we're talking about stormy weather: Thunder bolts and lightning, very very frightening.

:)

---

9. Where the Green Grass Grows - Tim McGraw

I always played this song in my car when I came home from college. When I hit my home county, when I saw that Ford County sign, I always played this song.

For a while, I lived in a concrete jungle. I hated it and was always excited to come home, where the green grass grows.

I've kind of made a career going to little towns instead of big, sexy cities. That's not surprising, given my love for this song. 

Watch my corn pop up in rows

Spend every night tucked in close to you

---

10. This Cowboy's Hat - Chris LeDoux

I loved Chris LeDoux when I was little. In 1991, when Western Underground came out, I had the cassette tape of it. I played it over and over in my little tape recorder (it was brown and tan, and had a handle on it. It looked like a purse). 

The thing is, though, I was six years old. I didn't know how to flip the tape over to listen to the other side. I asked my older brother to do it, and he never helped me flip the tape over.

He didn't do it one single time. Jerk.

I couldn't figure out how to flip the tape over (I was six!), so I just pressed the rewind button and listened to the same five songs over and over. 

To this day, I still don't listen to the last five songs on Western Underground, because those songs don't mean anything to me.

The first five songs, though? Those songs are my entire childhood. 

Now if your leather jacket means to you what this hat means to me

Then I guess we understand each other, and we'll just let it be

But if you still think it's funny, man you got my back up against the wall

And if you touch my hat, you're gonna have to fight us all.

Monica from Kansas

I cried several times during the concert in Denver last weekend, out of happiness. 

The thing about the last two or three years of my life is that there's been a lot of pain in it. Life is not always pretty. 

I made it a point to look at everyone around me during the show last weekend. I watched people's faces when Eric Church, or one of his guitar players, came near us. The look on everyone's faces was a look of pure love.

I looked around this big, dark room full of lovely people, and I thought that it's nice to know that a beautiful moment can come from such a painful time in my life.

If you don't know this about me, here's a little synopsis of my life: I should have someone to share my life with, but I don't. Until the day that day happens, I do things alone. I'm not a person who will stay home just because I have no one to go to a concert with. 

Every single person in Denver told me I was amazing for going to concerts alone. I was amazed at how well I was treated.

That's the cool thing about this particular fanbase...we're all a bunch of weirdos who love each other.

To make a long story short, I had a pit ticket for the show, and I got in line early to get a good seat. This introvert had no intention of being outgoing that day, and I just wanted to keep to myself until the show started.

That plan lasted about two seconds with the crowd in front of me.

"Short girl. Hey, short girl. Why are you not talking? Come over here and talk to us."

I heard them talking about a few things, so I brought those things up. It turns out, this crowd was kind of cool. They figured out that although I'm not from Colorado, I can speak Colorado pretty well.

My best friend lived in Denver for a while. I've been to Nugget and Broncos games. I have family in the mountains. I grew up camping in Colorado.

I impressed the group of people around me. I can talk the Colorado talk and walk the Colorado walk.

We moved on to talking about other topics. They wanted to know how long I'd been a fan and how many shows I've been to. 

I am not an OG fan (original fan). I came around in 2015. I'm a late bloomer. I fessed up to how many concerts I've been to (11 in four years), and I heard a guy talk towards the front of the line.

"Guys, she's been to 11 concerts in four years?" he said. "She's doing pretty good."

He continued: "I think she might be one of us. I think we should adopt her."

It turns out that the people who were waiting outside in the pit line, hours before the show started, are the fans that have been there since the beginning of Eric Church's career. 

Before each of his concerts in Denver, they have a tradition. They get together, drink a bunch of beer, listen to music outside the venue, and enjoy each other before each Eric Church concert in their city. 

I got to hear stories from way back in the beginning, which is pretty cool. I heard stories from the Grizzly Rose days, a bar he used to play before he had a wild amount of success.

Those original fans are the coolest people I've ever met.

---

For reasons I won't get into, I got separated from my friend group as we got inside the arena. I was maybe 30 people behind my people in line, as we waited for the doors to the stage area to be opened. 

I was kind of mad about being so far back in line, but figured I could still get a good spot by the stage. I was playing on my phone, not paying attention to anything.

A few minutes later, I thought I heard my name. I looked up, away from my phone, and I heard my name over and over.

When I realized what was happening, my heart melted into a big pile of goo all over my adorable shoes.

My friend group at the front of the line realized I wasn't with them. They were looking for me. They told the people behind them to look for me, who told the people behind them, who told the people behind them.

I could hear what they were saying, too.

"Where's Monica from Kansas? She drove all the way here, from Kansas. She's alone. She doesn't have anyone, so we adopted her. She's one of us. She's our family. Someone find her. We lost Monica from Kansas."

And then: "Where is Monica from Kansas? Where did she go? Someone find Monica from Kansas. She's one of us. She's short! She's this tall."

Guys, I don't mean to brag, but for a few minutes in downtown Denver at the Pepsi Center*, I had a group of friends looking for me.

That is the weirdest feeling in the world. 

I almost cried.

The guy in front of me passed along the information, and when he got to the point of saying "she's short," he put his hand up, horizontal, as if taking someone's height, to my head. 

My friend group passed along my height to the people behind them, and the description of my height stayed surprisingly accurate as it traveled through the line of people.

"You're Monica from Kansas, aren't you?" the guy in front of me said.

Guilty, sir.

And then the most miraculous thing happened. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea, because the 30 people between myself and my friend group each moved over to the side.

I had a perfect line of sight between the rows of people, standing to either side, and what I saw at the end of the tunnel was the most beautiful thing ever.

There was my friend group, the ones I spent hours with outside, and they were looking for me.

"Monica from Kansas," they said. "Get up here."

I told them I couldn't cut. I had no intention of cutting in front of people. Everyone in line had a different opinion, though. 

They said: "Monica from Kansas, go be with your friends."

So Monica from Kansas bypassed about 30 people in line and got to go hang out with her friends.

It was the best day ever.

---

Because of reasons, most of my friend group had tickets to the other pit (there are two pit areas this tour). The ones who were in my pit went immediately went to the other side of the stage.

Here's the thing about Monica from Kansas: She's short. 

So short, in fact, that if anyone is standing in front of me, I can't see anything. 

My friend group from across the stage wanted me to come over. But they were already 3-4 people deep in front of the stage, and if I stood in back with them, the only thing I would have seen is someone's back.

No bueno, friend group.

I had the perfect spot in the front row on the other side of the stage. I kept my spot, and made friends with the group of people around me.

The friend group across the stage hollered at me until the concert started.

"Monica from Kansas!"

"Monica!"

"Kansas!"

"Monica from Kansas!"

We waved to each other. We even air high-fived each other.

I don't have a huge friend group. I've never gone to an Eric Church concert with friends. But for one night, in downtown Denver, I had a group of friends. 

That night was probably the best night of my life. 

It was the best day of my life.

I heard someone behind me ask: "Who the hell Monica from Kansas?" 

When I was standing in line outside the venue, someone answered that question to another person who asked.

"She's a big deal. She has Chris LeDoux's autograph."**

For that one night, and probably the one night only, Monica from Kansas was a pretty big deal. 

Also, I don't understand why being short*** is a personality trait, but apparently it is. 

Stay tuned for more posts about the actual concert. I just wanted to write this because Monica from Kansas is best thing that's ever happened to me. 

There's so much love and happiness in the room that it's unreal.

It's magical.

---

*I know it's not called the Pepsi Center anymore, but in my heart, that place will always be the Pepsi Center.

**While waiting for the show outside the venue, we started talking about who had the most famous person's autograph. Everyone said Eric Church. While I do have his autograph, I one-upped everyone. I have Chris LeDoux's autograph, and he wrote my name on it. I was six. That story impressed this group of people.  :) 

*** I'm 5'3

Ashley from Church

I had one of the best nights of my life tonight, and I don’t want to go to sleep until I write this down.

I do not want to forget about this. I never want to forget about this.

I want to remember this moment forever.

As I’ve done in the past, I’m going to start this story with the ending. Because as my favorite author says in my favorite book: “It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. You just don’t know it at the time.”

—

I go to a lot of concerts alone. Specifically, I go to a lot of Eric Church concerts alone.

When I tell EC fans this, as I did tonight, I was met with so much love and respect that I really wasn’t expecting it.

Tonight was just one big pile of love.

This blog post is going to be about one specific moment. It was probably one of the most beautiful moments in my life.

—

When you ask Eric Church fans how and when they became a fan, you get pretty much the same version of the story.

They found his music during a really tough time in their life. One woman tonight told me that her friend was dying, and someone handed her The Outsiders album.

It changed her life.

I have a moment that changed my life forever. As I’ve written about here before, the song that got me hooked on Eric Church’s music was the song Record Year.

I was in a relationship that ended back when Mr. Misunderstood came out. When I figured out that Record Year was a break up song, my life changed forever.

That song saved my life.

—

I met the most amazing people at the concert tonight. I have no idea how long I’m going to stay up tonight, because I want to write this all down so I never, ever forget it. 

I had a ticket for the Soul pit. For those of you who don’t speak Eric Church, he plays in the round and there are two pits on either side of the stage. 

I was in the Soul pit. Most of my buddies from waiting in line outside were in the Heart pit, and I was a little sad that I wasn’t going to be near them.

Dude, I finally made friends at a concert, and they all went away. What the hell.

When I did finally get to the stage floor and picked my spot, none of my buddies were anywhere near me. The ones who were near(ish) to me in line hollered my name from across the stage before the show, and that was also one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. 

I met the most incredible group of people I’ve ever met.

The girl beside me, Ashley, told me that their concert friend group started when one person took another person who wasn’t a fan to the show. Pretty soon the third person took a person, and so on, and it grew into this wonderfully large group of friends that go to all the Denver concerts together.

Ashley and I talked a lot. During the song Record Year, I thought about not telling her this. I could have kept my mouth shut.

We talked the entire night how this whole concert thing turned into one big family. We look out for each other. We love each other.

We’re a family. 

You don’t find that at a lot of concerts or with a lot of performers. This is something special that we all share with each other. 

I nudged Ashley in the arm and whispered into her ear during the song Record Year: “This song saved my life.”

Ashley took my hand, and for the entire song, we sang Record Year together. I squeezed her hand as tight as I could and she rubbed my hand with her fingers.

Everyone has a song that either changed their life or saved their life. And for a few minutes in Denver, when all I really wanted was my friends, my family or a significant other beside me, I had a friend so caring that we held hands and swayed together. 

I wish my words could capture the magic of the moment. There is no way they can. In that moment, my world stopped and I took a minute to feel all of the feels that I could. 

Ashley put her number in my phone as “Ashley from Church,” hence the title of this post.

Ashley from Church, that was one of the best moments of my life. At one point, towards the end of the show, she nudged me. 

She said: “I am so glad I met you.”

Me too, Ashley from Church. Me too. 

I want to go home

Today, I want to write about the feeling of being home.

Home could mean a lot of things to different people. For some, home might be a significant other or a spouse. I’ve gone through that phase of life before, the one where home is wherever that person is with you.

 

That could mean western Kansas, Wichita, Oklahoma City or Kansas City. Or wherever you travel to with your person.

 

To some people, home is a person.

 

I am currently not in that phase of life.

 

For others, home could also mean the house that you grew up. For me, that place doesn’t feel like home anymore. Yes, it’s where I grew up, but I know that I’m not ever going to live in that house again. Every time I go there, it’s for a day or two, until I pack my bag and leave.

 

Right now, the idea of home for me is my hometown. Home, for me, is a few square miles, the roads that I used to drive as a teenager. The same roads that I drive now were the roads that I wished and prayed, hoped and wished to just leave behind one day forever.

 

When I go home now, I drive past the same things. I take a little drive and go past my childhood house, the grade school that’s no longer there, the old folks home I used to walk past on the way to school, my other grade school and middle school, my old house that I sold, my church and high school (along with other things in town).

I think I’ve reach an age (36) where home is no longer a physical place. The idea of home becomes this thing, this feeling, this emotion that you get when you visit it.

 

I lived in my hometown for 10 years, up until April 2021 when I moved to the other side of the state. When I lived and worked there, I went to a job fair at my old high school for the former company I worked for.

 

The high school made us little welcome bags and gifts, which at the time, I honestly thought was pretty stupid. I live here and work here, guys, and I’ve spent my entire life here. I don’t need a sticker with my high school logo on it, because I see that logo everywhere I go in this town.

 

Now that I moved, that stupid little sticker means the world to me.

 

The thing about my high school is this: We have the best mascot in the entire world. Dodge City High School is home of the Red Demons.

 

Not only are we Demons, we are Red Demons.

 

If you think about it, Demons could eat whatever high school mascot that we play. Buffaloes, Cardinals…those dumb birds and animals are all things that Demons could consume.

 

Guys, I loved high school. I loved elementary school and middle school. College really sucked, like a super hard kind of a suck, but up until that point, I loved everything about school.

 

I got to be in newspaper classes in high school. I got to take photos. I played in band. I wrote poetry for English classes. (Side story: Every time we got assigned to write a poem for class, I would just to back to my house, open up my notebook, and pick one out of the stash I’d already written. And I always got A’s for those. One time during high school, I dropped something off in my English teacher’s class during another class time. My English teacher made it a point to tell her AP English class that was full of seniors how good my poem was and how I nailed that assignment when I was a junior. I laughed to myself and thought, ‘Man, I wrote like that six months ago.’ Haha.)

 

The idea of home exists in my mind. It’s a few square miles where I grew up and learned about the hard things in life.

 

The hard thing about life is that just when you start to feel confident, life knocks you down and takes the wind out of you.

 

I lost my hometown when my job ended last year. I sold my house, the one where I could see my elementary school from my front porch. I lost the feeling of being in a safe place.

 

I lost the feeling of home.

 

And then the idea of home went away completely when I moved, well, tried to move to my new town. I tried to buy two houses that ended up falling through. If you read a bit into that, you’ll know that for five months, I did not have a permanent roof over my head.

 

I was homeless.

 

The person who owned her own home for six years in her hometown was, in fact, homeless.

 

That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

 

It turns out that the idea of ‘home’ has been more than challenged in the past six months of my life. All I wanted to do during those five months of homelessness was really to give up and go home. I injured myself pretty badly during that time, and then I got sick, and all I wanted to do after work was to just give up and go home.

 

But you can’t really go home when there is literally no home to go to.

 

What do you do when you want to give up and go home, but there’s nowhere to go?

 

You don’t go anywhere or change anything. You show up, go to work every day, and when you get up the next day, you do it all over again because that’s all you’ve got in life at the moment.

 

There have been times in my life where I didn’t even have that – a job in my profession – so throughout all of this, I was secretly just happy that I get to work in my professional and do creative things all day long.

 

---

 

I’m going home this weekend, and next weekend too, for a whopping night. I’ll stop in my hometown, hang out with friends, and probably stay up late drinking tea with my Mom (best nights ever).

 

I guess I’m going back to my hometown. But is that really home, now?

 

I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know if I ever will.

 

Is the place that I live in now, is that place actually my home? Not really. I sleep there, but I don’t own it and it doesn’t feel like mine.

 

Right now, I’m just stuck in this weird little world, the in-between, the purgatory, between once having felt at ‘home’ and now feeling like maybe I don’t know what ‘home’ is after all.

 

I wish this story had a happy ending, but right now, this is where it ends.

 

I live in a place that isn’t mine. And every once in a while, I do go home, a place where I feel like home, but a place that I’m not sure I’ll ever live in again.

 

And that’s a really weird feeling.

And what a wonderful, magical thing, that is.

I've been trying to write something since my last blog post, but I don't have a whole lot in me at the moment. Talking about emotional potatoes wiped me out, guys.

I'm beat right now.

I do have Church coming up next weekend, though, which makes me happy.

Music is back!

I've been thinking a lot about what I've been through over the past six or seven years, and how far I've come. 

I wrote this blog post in September 2016, and it's called Damn it baby, damn it:  https://kansasmusings.blogspot.com/2016/09/damn-it-baby-damn-it.html

(If there's any question as to what Church I'm talking about, I'm talking about the one that drinks Jack Daniel's. Church is Eric Church, just so we're clear.)

--

If I had to go back to the moment that started everything for me, musically, it was the 'Damn it baby, damn it' blog post. When I wrote that, I was at a conference in Wichita, it was about midnight, it was dark and storming outside, and I was crying my eyes out.

I was in the same city as a former boyfriend, and I had been thinking about the guy for a year. After I wrote that blog post, I sent my Mom a text message and asked her to go to a concert with me.

She said yes.

But before I explain that concert, I think I need to go back to the beginning to explain everything.

--

My relationship that I was in ended shortly before my 30th birthday, in April 2015. The guy didn't even dump me. He ghosted me. 

What is ghosting, you might ask? 

The last thing that guy ever said to me: "I'll see you this weekend."

I never heard from him after that. I decided to give him a deadline of my birthday to contact me. And if he didn't, I was going to block his phone number from my phone forever. 

My birthday came and went, and that was that. There was a fun game of Cards Against Humanity that night, when my best friend let it slip that I was no longer dating that guy.

I didn't have the heart to tell my parents that my relationship failed, and instead, they found out in a drunken game of cards. (Best memory ever, haha.)

A week after my birthday, I bought a house. It was the house that he helped me pick out. He saw the photos and told me that I needed extra space for him. 

I hated that house when I moved in, and I hated it for a couple of years after I lived there. It reminded me of him, and I couldn't believe that I was stupid enough to believe him and all of the lies he told me.

From that moment, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I was no longer traveling to see him, and he wasn't coming to see me anymore. I sat in my house and I listened to music to get over it.

In 2015, my favorite artist (my favorite artist now, anyway) made headlines when he dropped an entire album without anyone knowing about it beforehand. Eric Church's Mr. Misunderstood came out in November 2015. 

The headline from that time was that he pulled a Beyonce.

Up until then, I didn't know much about Eric Church. I knew that he was the dude in shades, and that's about it. And, I was kind of irritated that my radio station kept playing the new song by the dude in shades.

Until then, he had never really been played on my radio station.

And then the song Record Year came out. At first, I thought the dude in shades was singing about how popular he was.

But then one night, for whatever reason, while I was heartsick and probably crying, I decided to listen to Record Year again. I listened to the lyrics as they blared through my speaker.

Since you had to walk out of here

I've been having a record year

It turns out that Record Year is a break up song. When a girl leaves him, the guy goes through his stack of records for an entire year. At the end of the year, he thanks for the girl for his record year.

Quarter notes and Hank's half time

Are poundin on this heart of mine

Song to song I pass my time

With these speakers on 10

Your good and gone keeps me up all night

Along with songs in the Key of Life

I'm either gonna get over you or I'm gonna blow out my ears

Yeah, you're out there now

Doin' God knows how

But I'm stuck here

Having a Record Year

That song was my jam from then on. I listened to it over and over and over, until I learned every single word. From there, I went back and listened to Mr. Misunderstood, which is the Eric Church album that song is on. And then I started listening to his older stuff.

It turns out that I had heard a few of his singles before, but I never really took the chance to hear the music he was making before that moment.

And my life hasn't really been the same since.

The song Record Year saved my life.

--

When I wrote that blog post that I linked to above, that night, I sent my Mom a text message, asking her to go to an Eric Church concert in Wichita with me.

I was sick of being heart broken, and I wanted something positive to look forward to.

That concert was in April 2017, and since then, I've been absolutely hooked on his music. That was the best concert I had ever been to, and from there, we went to his show in St. Louis in May 2017. 

Wichita, April 2017.

St. Louis, May 2017

St. Louis. Happy Mother's Day!

--

It's funny that I found Eric Church's music through heart break, because almost seven years later, I'm going through the same feelings, only with a different guy.

Take these lines that I wrote in my 'Damn it, baby, damn it' blog post:

I’m getting to the age where a successful relationship means marriage and children. For a moment, however brief it may have been, I had that hope.

It wasn’t my choice. I didn’t even have a say in it.

And that’s probably the worst feeling in the world.

And: I’m better now, but there’s always going to be a little part of me that’s a little broken.

Relationships hurt when they end, yes, but I'm of the belief that the pain amplifies by 1,000 as you age. The idea of marriage and kids goes out the window when each guy tells me goodbye. 

I will say, though, that the guy in that 2016 blog post now doesn't mean shit to me.

I never think about him, and I honestly don't care about him anymore. If you're wondering, he married the girl he cheated on me with.

I am honest to God thankful that our relationship did not end in marriage, because I can't imagine marrying someone who spent the first six months of our relationship cheating on me.

That poor girl probably thought she married a dream. The nightmare part will come out, eventually, for her, just like it did for me. 

Durant, Oklahoma, 2018.

My autograph from Durant.  :)

 --

This much I know is true: If and when I do get married, I only want to do it once.

I don't want to marry someone who cheats on me. I don't want to marry someone who has cheated on me. I don't want to marry someone who tries to cheat on me. 

I don't want to marry someone who answers the phone when his ex-girlfriend has a bad day and wants to talk.

Well, I mean, "talk."

Because the thing is, that guy taught that girl that he'll be there for her for the rest of her life. And I promise you, she'll call him again, and when she does, he will absolutely answer that call. 

He'll make up some bullshit excuse for the new girl, just like he did for me. 

His phone somehow magically and mysteriously malfunctioned, just that one time, and he got that phone call from a blocked number, so of course he had to answer it. 

Divine intervention from the cell phone Gods, I guess? 

I don't want that.

I deserve better than that.

As someone wise once told me, just because someone gets married doesn't mean they grew as a person, and it doesn't mean that they improved their life.

The only thing it means is that they found someone who is willing to put up with their bullshit. 

I'm not willing to put up with it.

When it comes down to it, his best wasn't good enough. If it's good enough for someone else, that's fine. 

But I need more than that. 

--

So that's the story about how I found Eric Church's music. 

I found it through heart break.

Seven years later, I'm about to go to my 11th concert. I just bought and framed a concert poster from that Wichita show in 2017, because that show means that much to me. (EC has posters for every concert that he does. I did not know that back then, but I found the concert poster off Ebay a few weeks ago.)

She's pretty. Red is my favorite color. :)

--

After that gut-wrenching blog post I wrote about emotional potatoes, this is all I could come up with.

Like every other break up I've gone through, the only thing that gets me through the pain is music. 

Men come and go, but Eric Church and music are both forever.

I was thinking about this over the weekend: The guy from 2015 broke my heart, but he gave me a beautiful gift when he left.

He gave me the gift of music. And what a wonderful, magical thing, that is.

--

Next Friday night, I will sing my heart out. 

I will probably cry. I will sing, I will dance, and I might even drink.

Because I survived two years of hell, and this year, I'm having a Record Year.

--

I was at work last week, listening to my bad ass new headphones, when my co-worker came up to me.

Apparently, I was smiling, alone in my office.

"What's his name?" My co-worker asked me. Apparently everyone thinks I'm in a relationship because I smile a lot now.

Guys, it turns out that his name is Eric. I have a hot date with him next weekend, along with probably 20,000 other people, in Denver.

I think this relationship is the one that's going to stay in my life forever. 

And I'm all right with that. 

--