This is going to be a long post, let me apologize up front for that. I went down a rabbit hole tonight though, and it kind of threw me for a loop.
I realized I have lived a lot of lives since I graduated high school. I worked one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, I got famous as a musician and walked away, and now I am an engineer.
Keep in mind, I am not bragging by any means, I am nothing special, but looking back all these things were just me living life and seemed normal, but then I tell others the story and they say it's crazy, and I just wonder if this is normal to existing as a human. Where your life seems crazy to other but normal for you.
I was an Iron worker when I was a young man. I was part of the crew that built the biggest freestanding building at the time. A 240 foot span with no supporting columns in the middle. At that moment it was a feat of engineering, giant building with nothing holding it up. It was on the Tulsa State Fair grounds and was a great time in my life. We worked 7/12s to get it up in time and that was just one of many buildings where I can drive around to my town and other towns and say "we built that." It's a cool feeling.
Then I became a musician, or at least started playing music professionally and earning a living doing so. I played in bars and other venues 4 or 5 times a week for a long time. Sometimes I played for 20 people, and sometimes I played for 200. I had a guy named Wed Reynolds contact me and told me to come to his house and record some songs. When I walked in his home recording studio he had pictures of him playing with Elvis, and Johnny Cash, and so many other artists that I can't even begin to name them all. He even played the drums, the bass, and put guitar solos on my music and we made a demo record and he said "just give me the word and I will get it on the radio." I ended up getting pretty famous in my home town, the last show I ever played was at a place called Crow Creek Tavern, a Brookside biker bar in Tulsa. A buddy of mine asked me to open for their band who got their first gig there, and of course I said yes. It was a packed house. I opened the show and played my 7 or 8 songs and the manager gave me the "stretch it out" signal, so I played a few more songs, and he did it again. I was supposed to be the 20 minute opener and I don't even know how long I ended up playing, had to be over an hour. He finally gave me the "wrap it up" signal and I finished my song and said "Well folks, it's time for me to go, I want to thank all of you for…wait a second…didn't I promise you some Johnny Cash?! The crowd went nuts, I broke in to my version of Folsom Prison Blues and ended it to the biggest cheer I have ever heard in my life. I yelled in to the mic "and now, the reason you came here tonight, please welcome to the stage ___________!" I am not posting the band name because of what happened next. They took the stage to an electric crowd and within 15 minutes the place had cleared out…like…bad. I have never felt worse for a band in my life, I did my job, I got the asses in the seats and got them ready and worked up and they just fell face first off the stage. Great night for me, real bad night for them.
A couple of weeks later I was walking around downtown hitting the bars since I had the night off and a dude came up to me and called me by name. I said "I'm sorry man, I can't really place you, where do we know each other from?" and he said that we didn't know each other, he saw me play a few times and recognized me. I was polite and thanked him and we talked for a bit, but that's when I walked away from my music career. I knew right then it wasn't for me. That young man had no idea he 100% killed my music career by just being a fan, but that was the moment.
After that I got a job as a security guard, one day randomly decided to pack up all my stuff and leave for California, stayed out there for a bit living on the beach and in the sun, went to Colorado for a bit, and a few other places. Eventually came back home and got myself a job and went back to school. Now, I am an engineer at a place that works on medical devices.
That's all just life to me. Working what is considered the 5th most dangerous job in the world and not dying, becoming a well known musician who has met and hung out with people who are now just famous as hell and walking away from it when it got too big for me, and now working with some of the smartest people I have ever known. If I watched that movie I would think it's made up, but I lived it and it just felt normal. I wonder if other people feel the same way? Do you guys look back at your life and in retrospect feel like you have been really blessed and lived a pretty incredible life, or do all things you've done just feel normal to you? Before I went down this rabbit hole tonight I would never have really thought my life was that exciting, but at this exact moment I kind of feel like I am a redneck Forrest Gump.