I was on about to meet up with The Ben Cerullo boys to go to Brazil....I was living in Miami so I met them at the airport and had a great trip with them....of all the blogs I ever wrote this one truly represented a turning point in my life...
3 AM Magic
Regardless of outcome, tonight, nothing can rob me of the magic that I find myself wrapped and enveloped in.....I have spent the better part of 2 weeks in a makeshift edit bay where I've been editing my reality show....Thunder Road....I'm actually in a maddenning deadline crunch because we leave to Brazil on Tuesday afternoon to shoot 4 more episodes which will also be the last 4 episodes that I will be producing...though it's a little bitter-sweet, I'm doing it because in doing so, I'll be able to pursue other things that will enable me to bring my children to Charlotte in January and move into our old home and start our new life together, as a little family....
Over the last few years I went missing, I made the wilderness my home....I found safety, comfort and security in uncertainty.....I made airports, airplanes, and rental cars my natural habitat.....at one point I could honestly not remember my mailing address and did not know that even if I gave it out that my mail would eventually find it's way to me.......I've been a gypsy.......I can't count the amount of kinks in my neck from waking up in a rest area somewhere, freezing and over-due on arriving somewhere..........I figured out that I was trying to outrun something that I knew was always on my heels, always about to dig it's nails and fangs into my neck, if I did not hide on an interstate, a rest area, the middle east, the jungles of Nicaragua, or in the darkness of my little apartment in Florida City....regardless......never did it occur to me that I was running away from myself.....I did not like myself.....I felt like a failure and like my best years were behind me....I basically wasted my mid thirties in depression from a broken marriage, I put on a happy face to avoid the concerned speeches,looks and sympathy from those around me, and to avoid making those around me who loved me concerned in the first place.....my depression was severe and life threatening at one point, but that passed......my depression evolved, and instead of driving me to alcohol abuse or drugs, simply drove me into a safe place inside of myself where everything was perfect.........I basically "invested" 2 years of my life seizing on every opportunity to be alone, with my thoughts, with my laptop, wasting time in photoshop picture montages for MySpace, blogging my thoughts for anyone who would listen, wrestling with God, finding myself with insomnia at 3 am and investigating totally random things like the accounts of the execution of Benito Mussolini after World War II; Googling just about anything that EVER interested me....
Sure, at face value, one might say, "what's so wrong with that?" and my answer is, I was running.....I was running, I was running......granted, that some of my best songwriting came out of those days, so it wasn't a complete waste.....but I despised pretty much every other aspect of my life except for my children and family.....I hated real life....and like I said, I would escape into the reality in my mind, where I controlled everything.....I retired into that place where I could be as artsy and strange and safe as possible
I hated the Television industry.....I got to the point where working became a chore.... I did it and did it with obnoxious precision because I did not want to be exposed, that I was really a mess inside and that it was affecting my work.....some of my best work came out of those years......but to me it all seemed hollow because with every detail that I paid attention to, I hated it more........I ran out of gas......I ran out of ideas, I ran out of steam.........
God was there.....in the middle of it all, in the middle of the deadly storm of silence that 19 hours driving-time creates on that drive from Charlotte to Miami.....thankfully, little by little the self inflicted torture of seclusion became an open line to heaven.......and one day things started to change.....what exactly triggered the moment I will keep to myself, but it just as easily could have been anything....it could have been seeing and hearing the unbriddeled laughter of playing "tickle tummies" with my kids, or it could have been having lunch with a highschool friend that I had not seen in forever, or maybe it was seeing my friend bawl his eyes out while standing on the mount of Olives crying over the son that was taken from this world so prematurely and unexpectedly, and crying right along with him and truly being able to share someone's grief......so many things, so many moments.....I have come to find that there is beauty, even in pain.....and at times, I never felt more alive then when I witnessed or endured pain, because little by little it awoke that need to hope again, the need to dream again, the need to live again.....yes, there was a specific turning point.....but some things are best kept unsaid.....
Over the last 3 weeks, while sitting here in this little room in front of a computer and over 87 hours of video tape, editing this series that is quite literally my interpretation of the footage acquired by 7 different cameras, I felt so proud (in the humblest of ways) that as a 37 year old man, I had actually learned editing software to the degree that I was cutting a network television show myself........yes you can teach an old dog new tricks.........and this trick served as the kick in the ass that I needed to get excited about my career again......to get excited about my life again, to get excited about the future........not of what it holds for me, but of what I am yet to contribute to it...........at 37, for the first time in a very long time......I feel that the best is yet to come.........this is not me "thinking positive", this is me legitimately excited about putting up a fence around my backyard next summer......about putting in hardwood floors.....about finishing a CD project that I started and never finished.....about Christmas.......about my faith in my Heavenly father who's been carrying me for 37 years.....about being the best friend that I can be to those who bless me with their existence in my life......and to catching up with my highschool friends who are all of a sudden back in my life.....most of all.........to being the best father that I can be for my children...............
it is now 3:27am and I want to keep editing but my eyes are getting heavy, so I'll start again in the morning......I leave you with a song that truly embodies how I feel tonight.......never did someone get it so right for me...........I'll update my blog when I return from Brazil........much love!
PS
This guy is timeless and gorgeous! Thanks for the video =)
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