Always has been.

Do you remember that Oingo Boingo song where he’s like “I’m not the same man I was before” buh buh buh bu buh buh buh bu bu? That’s been playing in my head recently. Just that part. Randomly popping into my head at random times I know nothing about. Oh gosh is Eric gonna talk about how much he’s grown and changed again? Yes I am so shut your little mouth up and listen.

I have yearned. I have YEARNED so deeply and earnestly for all that there is to want. Always feeling like this is good but it’s in service of what’s to come. I suppose its good to plan and aspire to greater more fulfilling things but if my entire existence is comprised of waiting for that big thing or that big change or that big, what most people envision as, singular pivotal moment, I’m missing out on everything. All of it. So I stopped.

Instead of longing and quietly gooning over the supposedly greener grass in the other pasture, I feel the grass beneath my feet. The cool dirt under my soles and the sun that warms the top of my head and makes me feel alive. Alive and surrounded by so much love and support and joy every day even when I am at my worst of most resistant to it. It’s still there. I am still there enveloped in all of it.

Time passes both so slowly and at lightning speed. This adage that time moves faster as you get older has only rung more and more true with each passing year. I think part of this moment I’m having is coming from my photos app on my iPhone. The memories pop up and I click and before I know it I’ve spent an hour scrolling through a decade of memories that have slipped my mind. Full of people I once loved in cities Ive forgotten in communities I’ll never return to but still full of all the same emotions like the day they were felt. I feel the laughter in the tour van as we listen to some shitty or embarrassingly nostalgic song. I feel the lamaze of a muni bus ride where we’re both kinda grumpy but still smile in the absurdity of our exhaustion. A hike to a secluded lake where we swim naked and to a punk show on the way home. Building a little backyard in the Sacramento suburbs and watching our dog chase squirrels against the fence. Ikea trips and dick pics and lost friends and lost love and misunderstandings and immature responses and earnest creativity and a passion for feeling nothing except the intensity of our souls opening to the world of connection, love, joy and loss. I forget all of this in the day to day when I consider the notion “how was 2016 a decade ago? What have I even done?” But these reminders evoke such warmth and intensity its like a wave of your life swelling you back to shore reminding you that, yes, you’ve lived. You lived so well and so fully that to think otherwise would be silly. And hey, be silly, but not about this. Not about the immeasurable joy you’ve taken in and the outpouring of love you’ve given. You exist for a moment or for a lifetime in the souls of so many others. You have changed so many peoples lives and in return have been changed by them. God are we quoting wicked again.

But earnestly, I have never been more satisfied in my life than today. And sure yeah it’s still hard and annoying and generally T U F F but those moments seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The flashing moments on stages, in beds, in cars, on planes, in the sun, in the rain, holding hands, locking eyes, feeling chests, laughing, crying, grieving, celebrating, losing touch, rekindling, meeting and growing together. Thats all here right now in you forever. And yet there is still so much room for so much more.

For a little TLDR just go listen to Reminders by Touche Amore

I love you and I always will.