September 18, 2016 — A stage, a performer does his or her thing on a stage. We fans watch. When it is exceptional, when it speaks to us, we not only watch, but we love. Seriously, I’m going to call it love; we love what those performers stand for, perhaps some of us even love the person, or the person we think they are. We love them so much that we dress like them, we want to play our instruments like them, we write like them. We want to be like them.

A stage, we live our lives in stages. Our first stage is in diapers, completely dependent on our parents, families and caretakers; the next stage, school. And for some, even school has stages, breaks while we work to get the money to finish. Been there. Then comes work, perhaps our own family, mortgages, and planning for whatever comes after, something I’m not really sure how to comprehend even though it’s knocking on my door. All of us, the people who perform on stages, as well as the regular mortals, make decisions along the way of life that determines, that changes the path we take, decisions that literally create life’s stages.

Think of the performers. Like us, they had performers they loved, who they wanted to play like, dress like, write like, be like. Somewhere in their life, the performers we love made a decision that they would perform too. Some people who make that decision get on a big stage, some not so big, but deciding to be a performer is a big decision, a decision that most certainly gives them not only a stage to perform on, but a stage in their life, the performer life-stage, sometimes a lifelong stage.

I think those decisions happen, at least at some level, for each of us. For each of us, the decisions that change our life, that determine our stages, are sometimes made purely out of some necessity forced by circumstance. Of the ones that are voluntary, some decisions are made with great care. Some are the opposite – impulsive decisions.  I’m sure a wise person would tell you the most significant decisions come out of great care and preparation, out of considering lots of variables, but that’s not the case for me, meaning I’m neither particularly wise, nor have my significant decisions always been made with great thought. The decisions that made the greatest impact on my life, or many of them anyways, were made out of sheer impulse, sometimes fear, but that’s an entirely different story. As for impulse, I look to the moment when I decided my entire education as the biggest example. I was sitting on a counter next to the washing machines in my co-ed dorm talking about majors — the inevitable opening question, and some guy said I wasn’t smart enough to do what he was going to do. I said, “yes, I am; sure I’ll do that too.” I thought, heck, this gives me a reason to get good grades. Over some ten years of starts and stops and starts again, I ended up with some really cool paper to hang on the wall, if I were the type to do that, but then, when I was sitting on that counter in the laundry room, I knew nothing of what I was going to get myself into, nothing of whether it would suit me, just that it seemed smart. There were other decisions I gave more thought to, some nowhere near as significant. Then there are some I don’t even remember deciding — spend four hours a day doing dance and baton twirling instead of whatever else other kids do … perhaps studying. Probably it would have served me better to study, or so the serious people said, you know the above guy in the laundry room — he was smart; I was not, or so he said. Indeed, there are decisions for everything, even simple things. These decisions are every day — what should I wear, what food should I eat, or… should I take a hit of that?

Mind you, I’m pretty sure we’ve all done something unwise, something untoward; that caption is funny for a reason. Plus there’s the identification to the bands and artists we love. Most of those people epitomized that caption. Some of them are the reason the caption exists in the first place. It’s rock ‘n’ roll, as the saying goes. In fact, I’m pretty sure some of us might even trade our mortgages and our papers on the wall for their stage, well if the stage is a good one, you know, like the kind the legends we love play on. I think all of it, the untoward acts, the decision to be a rock star, all of that is impulsiveness. Remember my above story? I don’t think impulsive is bad, mind you. It’s your gut, your core deciding something. It’s instant and in the here and now. It’s living. Still, even though I think I know the answer, if I had any question of any famous rock star, I’d ask them how that thought process went; was it a well-considered and thought-out decision, or was it an impulsive decision? And because I know there are sacrifices – stability and mortgages, my papers, they are good things, I would ask if they have any regrets.

Regret is a funny thing. Mind you, I’m not talking about little regrets, you know like, I wish I hadn’t eaten a donut to blow my diet, or I wish I hadn’t spent two hours looking for things on the computer making it so that I now have to finish cleaning the kitchen cabinets on Sunday afternoon instead of resting. I’m talking about life decisions that altered what might have been. I think most people have one, something like … what if I had done X or hadn’t done Y? I think that question determines whether we have regret. Regret is a funny animal though because I believe if you’re alive, anything is possible. So whatever X or Y is, whatever fork you wonder about, you can find a way to relive it, to take it over… well unless whatever decision you make is a final one.

That’s really all that matters. It’s never too late … until it is. So live, keep yourself… no matter how hard it is, no matter what your regrets are, no matter your internal turmoil, your dissatisfaction, your pain, no matter how many decisions you wish you could do over. And if the decision, whether it was impulsive or contemplated, was really is huge, do it over, change, fix it… There’s no time like now.

This song, the last verse especially, is dedicated to jhs’ friend Bill who passed way too young out of a decision I wish could have been changed, a path I wish could have been changed. May his afterlife give him the power to start again… somehow.

If I could start again

A million miles away

I would keep myself

I would find a way