Memories like films play on the wall
“Memories like films play on the wall of another self, another life A story without end that still lives on So much that passed us by is forever gone.” — Wonder, VNV Nation
2018 threw me one hell of a curveball and taught me something I should have learned long ago. I should have let go of a grudge inside. This very grudge made me take someone for granted and I nearly lost her. Its time to leave nothing out. It’s time to share the good and the bad. The good has outweighed the bad. There were two singers that had music that got me through a time in my life when I needed it most. Music is like that. It’s the one thing that soothes you when you need it the most.
I need to go back to the beginning—where I thought this would be a year I wouldn’t have those bouts of depression and where I could have a smooth sailing year. It turned out to be far worse than I imagined.
In 2017 Keith Urban became my to go to when I had that month of just what seemed perpetual bouts of depression. In March of 2018 I took a drive to the Houston Rodeo to see him. I’ll never forget how damn excited I was before the show started. I got so excited that the next day I had completely exhausted myself and the next day I felt that concert hangover and I loved it. Cut to April 2018 when festival season was full upon New Orleans. Jazzfest. This would be my second year and I admit that the food is generally the main thing I go for, but there is so much more there than that. Music of course. That being a big thing. This year Beck, LL COOL J, Aerosmith, and Jimmy Buffett to name a few were there. Having to pick one day I chose the day Beck and LL COOL J were playing. LL COOL J—some of you might be asking. Yes. You see I have quite the fangirl crush on his NCIS:LA character Sam Hanna and he was a popular rapper back in my childhood days.
Just two weeks after Jazzfest that’s when my life took a turn for the worst. That’s when the lesson I would be learning took effect. May 14 my mom got hit by a car and was critically injured when she was hit by a car and I nearly lost her in. While she’s pulled through it’s been tremendously hard for me to see her this way and the traveling to see her. At first there would be times where I held so much in and held my tears at bay and then losing all self-control and ended up crying. There was a time we weren’t sure she was going to make it. Right now, she is in Katy, Texas where she is in a facility. She recently got off the ventilator that she had been on since the beginning of the time she was struck. She’s now just on a trachea. Of course, since the accident she isn’t exactly the same. I expected that and she has one hell of a journey ahead of her in terms of getting better still.
The all of this has really opened my eyes in terms of how much my mom means to me and how much I miss the things I can’t do right now. I can’t just pick up the phone and give her a call. I can’t have her text me or her text back. She doesn’t update her Facebook anymore and I miss the all of that. What I wouldn’t give to have that again. I have a voicemail from her on my phone before she was struck by the truck in May that I will never delete. The thing was there was a time when she and I and my brother James lived together —and without getting into a really long-winded story— she had he both added insult to injury in my already depressive state by treating me like shit and making me feel terrible. I was pretty much emotionally and mentally abused so a part of me never really let that go on either person.
For the longest of times I distanced myself from my mother and brother and never let myself get too close. What I was doing was taking them for granted. I always thought that one day I’ll get over this but deep down I knew I may never. Some scars never heal. This year I nearly lost my mother and took her for granted and all the things I didn’t do and wish I should have done—like talking to her on the phone and having her text me. I should have texted her more and talked to her more. The all of this has brought me much closer to family and I have seen more of them than I ever have in a while. I now enjoy family time. I take the time to see and be in the moment. I spend as much time as I can with them. I’ve learned to let go of that grudge and be thankful for what I have and that took a while to learn and figure out.
Two weeks after the accident I went to the free show at Bayou Country MusicFest and saw another singer—that being Michael Ray—who’s music also was my light in a dark time in my life. He and Keith Urban were my to go to everyday just about. Their music got me through. The day I saw Michael Ray for the first time was something I needed. He will never know how much that bit of time spent singing every one of his songs and seeing him first row meant to me. It was exactly what I needed after nearly two weeks of depression and darkness. There would be another time I got to see him again and that would be at Gretna Heritage Festival. I was once more first row and singing every song in the rain. I really don’t know what I would have done without those happy moments. I can’t begin express how grateful I am.
November 2. Can we just get to the best moment of 2018? Keith Urban. The one person who I adore and who’s music was also the light in my darkness. I never mentioned I learned ten years of his songs in a year but I did. On November 2nd I got to meet him. I got to be first row for the New Orleans night of his Graffiti U tour.
I never wrote here about, and I’ve really not expressed how amazing it was to meet him. It was one of those feelings you just wish you could feel all over again. I was so nervous about meeting him and the very second, I walked in this little room Keith greeted me with a smile and asked me how I was and my name and gave me a hug. He also inquired about my shirt which struck up a small conversation about David Bowie. I felt this amazing sense of calm and every ounce of my nervous feeling went away the second I saw him. I felt this energy surrounding him. A centered, down to earth sort of thing. He felt so good and so lovely. Keith is truly a remarkable person. I got another hug from him after the picture and walked out. It sort of hit me after. There was a breath taken and I was in awe that I got to meet this beautiful man. He’s in fact to date one of the most beautiful people I’ve come in contact with. And I’m not saying looks either. Him as a person and his down to earth personality and love for his fans. He had that amazing feeling that I wish I could bottle up and hold on forever.
I know that I will never come across that feeling again. Being an empath I pick up on the feelings of others and during the time when I needed to feel grief and sadness I was sadly sabotaged into feeling everyone else around me and I couldn’t be around anyone. It was too hard to feel, but this moment with Keith Urban was a feeling I’ve never felt. This sort of energy. He was the most beautiful feeling person I have ever met, and I’ve met many people in my life and none of them felt the way he did. I don’t think he knows how good he feels.
2018 you were an asshole, but you had some good moments. You gave me insight, lessons learned. You gave me things I had only wished. You gave me hope, and I found my spirit animal. The phoenix. There were new music discoveries, and lots of amazing family moments, but I’m glad you’re over. Here’s to 2019 and its my year to rise once more from the ashes.