have at.

I've been absent. Not absent-minded, and still here physically. But the words don't come, or when they do I've been stuffing them down and in the end I've felt disconnected. Incomplete. Not present. 

Honestly, I've just been trying to figure out where I fit. And I've decided that it's wherever I want to be. Wherever I feel the happiest, repercussions be damned. After all, it's not what happens to you (or because of you), but what you do with what happens. A year ago, I stopped at Hooligan's to meet a friend for a beer. It was open mic night. About an hour later, the guy running the thing asked me, "You wanna play?" 

I only knew three songs by heart. I stepped up all by my lonesome and played a song, mainly because I didn't feel like being absent that night. Or invisible. Then someone said, "I know that song. You should have told me and I would have played it with you." I also didn't feel like being left alone anymore. So I looked at the guy running the thing and asked everyone in the room if we could do the same song again, the two of us. And I received a warm and resounding, "Yes!" from all of them. It was one of my favorite nights. It changed the way I felt about playing music until then, and it stopped me from shaking in my boots every time I've done it since. It's the reason I fell in love for the umpteenth time, and it's the reason I'm still hanging on, when everything I feel says to let go.

I don't want to shut up and be absent anymore. I don't want to be quiet. 

This time, it's really about me.