Spent

It’s been a while since I blogged. Not a while since I thought about blogging, because I’ve been doing that like, everyday for the last month...but actually sitting down and writing something. Well, lately I just haven’t had the gumption.

And then today I read Amanda Palmer’s latest blog post . She mostly writes about playing gigs to no one, a scenario I am intimately familiar with. But she starts off by describing why she hasn’t blogged in a while -- about how the grind of touring takes away her desire to open up on the interwebs.  It was like a revelation. “Oh, touring does that to other folks to. At least to another artists whose music and blogging styles I really dig.” And suddenly, I felt like blogging again.

Because suddenly I wasn’t only lame person in the history of the world who didn’t have anything left after going on the road. 

For a while, I stayed away from the blog because I was beat. I was recovering from tour, while concentrating on emptying my house of stuff, then kinda sick, then back on tour where I needed to put my head down and just deal with the next drive, the next sitter, the next gig, the next 2am, 3am, 4am kid wakes up and wants some milk crying spell, the next meal, the next drive, the next sitter...and on and on. It used to be I had time to blog on the road, but with two kids any free time I have  I use to  just think. my. own. thoughts. for. 5. minutes. 

But we’ve been off the road for two weeks and we’re back and I’ve had time and still, I couldn’t blog. Because I felt spent, and sensitive, and tired. Because in my time alone I wanted to strum guitars and write songs and play the bass badly and fix my internet and listen to the Flaming Lips and definitely not write about how spent and sensitive and tired I felt. 

Because to say that felt lame.  

Because I felt lame for feeling spent and sensitive and tired.

In my mind, I am the person with the least amount of stamina. Ever. I am surrounded by people who handle jobs and kids and still have the energy to clean their houses and make beautiful things and write beautiful things  and take showers and go to parties and stay up late not just stop and stare into space. 

Stopping and staring into space, or into a tv, or into a computer screen is pretty key to me when I feel this way.  I’m basically an introvert...an extroverted introvert to be sure, but I do not recharge around people. People wear me out. I get back to right by being alone.

On the road, you are never alone. And lets face it, when you have kids, you are rarely alone.

To admit this seems so...so lame. The world seems full of people setting fire to it, and these days all I want to do is watch it pass me by. 

So when I read that major fire starter Amanda Palmer felt a similar reaction to the road, well, it seemed like less of a big deal that I did. And It made me think that yes, I could take a couple of free minutes and spend them writing rather than staring off into space or listening to “It’s Summertime” on repeat.

So thanks to Amanda. And thanks to anyone who is taking time out of their busy life to read this.  I feels good to write, even if only to say y’all, the road wears my ass out.