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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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:
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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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