So it's been a month, (a busy, complicated month,) since I last wrote anything. A lot of overwhelming real-life-and-death stuff happening behind the scenes whilst I try to make good on promises made to you all. It seems as if every time I reach a milestone or a pinnacle - something to look back at and remember fondly - there is always an accompanying tragedy, sadness, or generally depressing thing to remember, too.
Now, I try not to get into too much detail about the health stuff or family things because that has always a separate Dave. There's Music Dave that puts on a goofy face and wails his heart out on stage. Then there's the quiet, struggling Loner Dave that is a social misfit and slowly slipping into a physical sickness that's not quite understood yet. You can see how those two people don't seem to fit together but...that's life, ain't it? But it's getting harder to keep the two distanced from one another as one relies heavily on the other.
I fought myself all the way through recording and production and pressing of this record. Straight up to the release and these supporting shows. And now that I want to get things accomplished, (getting prints made, CDs mailed, hand-made things actually made, videos, and a long list of other things including updating my website,) My health has gotten in the way. I collapsed the day after my big CD release at Beatnik's while walking to my day job only a mile and a half across town. I was basically in bed for the next two days. I've had increasingly strange symptoms and issues affecting me randomly.
Originally I was told it was Lyme Disease. Then that changed quickly when a second opinion came into the picture and I was told "I don't know what's wrong, maybe some new kind of Parkinson's or maybe you're over-stressed..." ...Seriously. A specialist in the field of infectious disease said this. Most of the last three months of appointments and blood-work have been empty space. It's the waiting that's destroying me. I have an appointment with a neurologist in a month! What do I do in the mean time? What if I collapse at work or on stage? What if these varied and intense symptoms continue to grow and get out of control? I mean, the things I've been experiencing have all begun getting rapidly worse since February. That's a fast moving condition...
You can see how I would be distracted from the music and normal life in general. I apologize for the slow turn around on the Kickstarter rewards. I really wanted to have them done before the CD was released but I'm working with what I have. And I am still doing everything myself because, although people say they want to help, there's not much for anyone else to do other than promote for me and spread the word about how much this album rocks. And I'm not saying that because I made it. I would listen to this record if someone else put it out. This is music I enjoy and believe in. I need people to feel as passionate in order to really make a difference.
But I digress. I wanted to write to reveal a sliver of the iceberg that is sinking my proverbial Titanic. I don't mean to be melodramatic. I'm simply saying, hey - I'm doing the best I can and it's not going so well.
And all this is roiling in my mind on what would be my nephew's 18th birthday. And it makes me stop and say to myself - how DARE you be so road-blocked and derailed by this. HE fought cancer and he was just a kid. You're a grown-ass man dealing with some heavy stuff but it's not the end by any means. It's an aging argument. One I've had every year around this time.
I don't even know the tenth part of the agony he must have been in yet he always could smile and he never stopped believing he was strong enough to fight. When you're a kid, you haven't lost the ability to believe in yourself. You're still naive to a lot of things and looking at the world through a dream-shaped prism where anything is possible. So I try constantly to remember that hope and those dreams and enjoy my life the best I can at the moment no matter how sick, sore, tired, or lost I feel.
I have several friends fighting far more difficult health battles than what I'm facing right now. They do what has to be done to make happiness a reality, despite their physical restrictions. I hope and pray I can find and keep that same drive to overcome. If I can bring a dream like recording an album from concept to a CD in my hands, why can't I harness that same energy to get back to my old self when I was rock-climbing and active and pushing myself to improve? It's rhetorical because only I can answer that, but the question still needs asking.
This is a long post and if you've read this far, thank you. Blogs were originally meant to be journals and diaries. So I'm diary-ing my heart out. (Yes, that's supposed to sound 'wrong.' I'm still funny, you know.) Please just know that I am fighting to stay on top of my music work - getting it out to everyone everywhere who will listen. It's just going to take a little more time, more support, and greater determination than ever.
I'll see you all on the 25th for the next big show. And I'll see you, Providence, tomorrow night.
Thank you for continuing to support me as an artist, and me as a human. They are the same person and they both have to be healthy in order for the whole to survive.
--dam
