PopcornJackTerry

Out of 100+ blogs, most of which have a soundtrack attached to them (some more than one song) rarely is the post and the song super tied together. Sometimes I have a song in mind that is connected and the synergy (to use a word I learned 17 years ago when I worked in a cubicle farm) is perfect. More often I may have one song in mind, but by the time I’ve gotten to the end of the blog, I’m so far from where I thought I might be that another song is far more appropriate. And that happens a lot. My non-fiction writing isn’t much different than my fiction. I may have something in mind and think I know where the conclusion is going to be, but once I start seeing the words in front of me, I zig when I thought I was going to zag, I never take that left turn at Albuquerque, and next thing you know I’m at Pismo Beach with Daffy Duck. Finally, there are times when the song has absolutely no connection to what I’m writing, but I’ve been singing it all morning and feel the need to share. Today’s blog is definitely from category A. I’ve been thinking about this song a lot over the last many days, and almost used it earlier, but the timing and the theme made more sense to wait. Besides, as you’ll read, and I hadn’t fully been aware of everything yet.

It’s been a tough week for me, and I’ve only been making it tougher on myself. This is the first time in eight or nine years that I haven’t been in Key West during this time of year, and the first time in five that I wasn’t living there. Those last four years were all the more special because, while I knew a few people who were visiting the same time I was making my annual pilgrimage, as much for Jimmy Buffett as I was to renew my car’s registration, by the time I moved there and shortly there after I knew many more people from across the country. Every year was like a huge family reunion that I was slightly disappointed in myself with because I simply couldn’t get to see everyone that I wanted to. This year, on the outside looking in, I became one of those people sending out messages “hey wave, I see you on the camera!” stalking my friends and trying to have a good time vicariously through them. Let me tell you something: it sucks.

I have a hard time asking for or accepting sympathy for where I’m at in this stage of my life. Some of that is the recognition that I put myself here. Regardless of what you believe, or more importantly since it’s happening to me what I believe, when it comes to what we inherit and how we’re raised when it comes to the paths our lives lead, ultimately they are our decisions to make. I made my choices, they weren’t good ones, and now I’m fixing that as best I can. Another reason I’m not good with the sympathy is my own ego. Having been far more in the center in years past, my pride can’t help but feel dinged. Yet it’s conceited of me to expect people who are on their hard earned vacations to stop what they’re doing and pay attention to me, especially considering the number of people who have already told me that they miss me and wish that I was there. Apparently that isn’t enough for my fragile ego.

Needless to say this all came up when I met with my therapist on Thursday, and she asked me what was it that I missed. Was it my friends, the music, the ambiance? I had to think through them all to find the answer.

Certainly I miss my friends. I have wonderful memories from hundreds of (mis)adventures with dozens of different people, both the ones on vacation and the ones who call it home. But I also have great memories with all of those people in other places. Certainly the confluence of everyone at once raises the stakes, but while I recognized how much I missed them, I knew that there was some other emotion kicking around. The music I love and enjoy listening to and supporting my friends and musicians who have created the soundtrack to my life, but I’ve probably been able to hear more music than I normally would this year by switching from one webcam to the next. It is definitely a pale substitution to being there live obviously, but for several hours a day my room has been full of the music being made. As for the ambiance? Well, I’m not going to lie: I miss my friends and the music, but I don’t miss a lot of other people that are down there right now. I’m sorry if that makes anyone think I’m a snob, but it is what it is. Besides, as a friend of mine pointed out, even without sunglasses on…

As I sat in her office, verbalizing all of this is my pursuit to find out what the root of my emotions were, I thought of a picture that same friend’s girlfriend posted on her FB page the day of her birthday earlier in the week. It was another gorgeous Key West sunset. She captioned it “I hope I never take this for granted.” That was when it hit me.

I miss Key West, and I’m angry at myself, because I took all of it-my jobs, my friends, the environment, all of it-for granted.

people talk about the accomplishments that they’ve had in their lives as things they’ve worked hard for. I can’t say that, because anything that was hard work in my life I quit on. The areas I’ve had my successes in are things that just seemed to come naturally to me, easy things to do that took little time and less effort. Maybe I has embodied the old maxim “If you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” so deeply that I didn’t realize any of it was hard. I certainly loved so many aspects of what I doing: being able to entertain people, creating new drinks, studying the history of alcohol and cocktails, the only times I didn’t want to go to work was when I was too hungover or the sun just felt too good. It’s only now, that I sit back from it and look at the whole journey, that I see it for what it was.

In my mind the journey of a career is something that you plan. There are benchmarks that you can aim for so as you hit them you know you’re moving forward. This was something I did when I was acting, and it was something I did at first when I left acting and switched from bartending and serving to management. the thought process was if I was going to be in restaurants full time then I should follow the logical chain of command up the ladder. In the meantime, I just kept making drinks and moving forward without realizing it. The next thing always just seemed to happen, not because it was the next station on my job train but that was just came next. I proved to be an excellent server so they made me a bartender. I proved to be a good bartender so they gave me more responsibility. I proved to be a great co-worker so they petitioned to get me on the main bar. I proved to be a strong worker, so they gave me a job at the new bar. And so on, just kept building up until I’m out of work and a phone call comes looking to me and the next thing you know I’m leading the cocktail program at the best resort on the island, I’m teaching a mixology class, I’m working as the lead cocktail consultant for a new rum company, and I’ve got regulars from as far away as New York, Ohio, and California. And let’s not forget that over-sized novelty check I’ve been dragging around for a few years.

And I took it all for granted. I never saw it as a culmination of a 19 year process, I never saw it as the big thing that it was, and so I never gave it the respect it deserved. It came to me easy once, so I figured it could come to me easy again, so who cares what happens in between? Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t see the enormity of it all, because if I did maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Maybe I’d just end up twitching in the corner, unable to handle the stress I was putting on myself. And maybe that is what did happen. Maybe I saw it all, all of the parts moving together, all of the people I was meeting, the lives I was touching, the decisions I was making, the expectations I was creating, and still thinking of myself as no more than a fraud, still lacking the faith and confidence in myself, still believing that one day people would see through my new clothes and laugh at my nakedness, maybe I decided to beat them to the punch. Control my own downfall, create my own destruction and no longer have to worry about spinning all those plates and keeping all those balls in the air. Honestly, it’s a possibility. I may never know. The only way to ever find out for sure is to eventually get back on the horse and find out. Maybe I will. Maybe after some more time away I’ll have a new attitude and a sharper focus, and do the things that I’ve spent 19 years learning how. Or maybe this focus will keep me on a new tack, and as my writing continues to grow, I’ll learn to appreciate it and the work that it took to get me there. That’s all in the future. And just like I can predict the future, I can’t change the past. I can only learn from it, and learn not to take any of it for granted.

Today’s soundtrack: I know that this song isn’t about Key West, but so many of the lines fit so nicely. I know every waterfront town has a Front Street, but something about the mood of this song, to me, fits in so nicely with the few “hidden” bars on that quiet stretch of Front Street just around the corner from Capt. Tony’s and the insanity of Duval Street. Click here for the song that should be every vacation’s last day anthem.