“but I can feel my heart in my chest”
Middle West Cities
A few weeks prior to one of my pre-teen birthdays, I learned a lesson that I’ve never forgotten. I elaborately and enthusiastically told a friend about my extraordinary birthday plans. Myself, and a friend of my choosing, got tickets for a day at Silver Dollar City. Have y’all heard of Branson, Missouri? Silver Dollar City is their “Wild West” theme park. It’s kind of rad.
This friend was not going to have nearly as rad of a birthday as I. His was also on the same day. This was NOT the friend I had intended to take. My dad has always had a way of asking about three questions and then somehow you magically understand the right thing to do. No praise, please. I’m certain he wasn’t really ASKING me to make the right choice.I invited the friend whom I had so obnoxiously gloated about Silver Dollar City to. We had a blast, but mostly I never expected that lesson to be so rigidly ingrained in my memory.
I recently turned thirty-three, and I can confirm that it is indeed a strange time to have a birthday. I had been pretty convinced that 32 was going to be my most memorable birthday of my thirties. Oh, young and naive, thirty-two year old Jake, you had no idea.
Thirty-two was going to be a standout birthday because of how I rang it in. It was the second year in a row of being out of state for my birthday. Thirty-one was Chicago. Thirty-two was South Dakota. I sat in a Wal-Mart parking lot in the minivan, which was also conveniently my lodging for the evening, about to eat my first meal of my thirty-second year: A lunchable, Nutty Bars, and cheese crackers.
There are many things about being a folk singer that make you question your life choices. The sheer amount of fast food alone should call one's sanity into question. Bad nutritional habits don’t skim the surface of questionable life choices, but this was the one I was facing at thirty-two. It was honestly with joy that I peeled back the top of that Lunchable. I knew I should be thinking,”why is this a meal that a thirty-two year old human is okay with eating?”
I thought a lot about the last year of my music career in that parking lot. I had played in new states and shared stages with new folks. Bigger tours and shows were in the talks. Creatively, I finally felt like I understood my process a bit. The less sexy side of music is the rest areas, McDoubles, and hours of lost sleep from the racking guilt that comes from not working every second of the day.
With every passing year, I get a little more reflective on who I am and have been. I think in the last year I’ve learned more about how to enjoy life, regardless of what storms or gas station meals come along.
