"What it's like to live and die"

To be fair to you guys, I want you to know I may not be posting much in the next 9 days. My mind is completely full and I have a tremendous amount of work that needs to be finished before WingBowl. I’m mentally cutting off anything that isn’t WingBowl or my family, that’s the only way to keep myself on track and do the job that must be done.

Recently I’ve had some fear and anxiety over this whole thing. I’m not worried that I wont perform my best…I’m worried that my best just isn’t good enough. I think that is rooted in a fear of getting older, and being left behind. Like I’m past my prime and will never be able to pull a rabbit out of my hat because the magic is just plain gone. The kind of self doubt that wraps around your chest and makes it hard to breathe. I’ve been beating myself up with this for awhile now. Will it be enough??? And not just WingBowl, I think it’s a fear I’m dealing with about Life in general.

When I was a teenager, I had a Rock and Roll fantasy that I would someday be up on stage playing Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Prove it all night’ in some heavily packed Jersey Club. The would be a deep connection between me and the crowd and they’d respond to the fast and slow parts of the song. I could hear my voice and see the sweat on my body as I played the guitar. As the years have gone on I can still feel the pull of the that dream, like it STILL might happen, that I might still find myself up on that smokey stage someday. The bigger problem is of course that I can’t sing, and I don’t know how to play guitar. I don’t have any interest in learning either, which pretty much kills the dream. I guess that’s why this WingBowl thing appeals to me. It’s the closest thing I’ll ever have to being up on that stage, doing something I’m really good at. It’s a chance to be bigger than life…for thirty minutes anyway it will be my Rock and Roll fantasy fullfilled.

The good news is that something clicked in my head last night. Some emergency survival switch went off and today I don’t feel those emotions. As things get closer, I have somehow hardened myself, and I’m having a difficult time paying attention to anything that does not concern my family or WingBowl. While being a very passionate and emotional person, I’ve pushed a lot of that away for afterwards. I’ll have plenty of time to mourn my youth and fall apart later on, if need be. Currently I’m concerned with the tasks at hand, and how to achieve them. I think about it, talk about it and I dream about it every night….I think there’s more than a few readers that can relate.