008.

There were times, not often, that I awoke in the middle of the night on a tour bus or in a hotel room and wondered what the hell I was doing.  Why on earth was I spending my time with these random dudes in bands when people my age were normally having house parties and drinking cheap vodka?  Then I'd realise that was exactly why I was doing it.  There was no part of me that craved average teen years.  I wanted excitement, adventure and the idea that I had somewhere to run away to whenever life became insane.  Of course, I ended up doing it too long, to the point where it was no longer my escape, it was my life.

After a few brief explorations into into various aspects of the music industry, I ran far away from the idea of working within it, mostly because I liked the idea of keeping my soul, but also because that wasn't how I wanted my life to be.  I didn't want my love of music to become a paycheck, I heard more than enough disheartening stories about artists, managers and record companies without ever officially working in the industry, I didn't want to hear more, didn't want the grimy, sallow part to overtake the simplicity of hearing a song for the first time that you know will have kids singing along with it.  I wanted to still hear that without working out a marketing plan in my head.

So I slipped into an anonymous role, involved enough to help out baby bands, hands off enough to never risk losing my love of music.  It got to the point where all my male friends were in the industry and, by default, so were all my (ex) boyfriends.  I've unwittingly become immortalised in songs, but never spoken about by those who wrote them, which is how I wanted it and proved to me that I'd chosen wisely.  Despite my dalliances, fame was never my objective.  I could think of nothing more depressing than people believing you're worth attention based on who you've had relationships with.

It's been a very long time since I've taken part in a tour for any reason.  It's not what I need in my life any more, there are times when I get the urge to run across the country and see bands and I usually go with the urge, but a few shows are usually enough to remind me why I stopped touring in the first place.  My wanderlust these days has less to do with seeing bands and more to do with discovering new places and seeing old friends.

After the 10 plus years I spent running away and running around, I'm left with a handful of fellow retired road warriors as great friends, a whole bunch of musicians, some of whom are still close friends, and a life time of stories that I'm currently trying to mould into at least one novel.  So what was I doing with myself all those years ago?  Starting to build a life for myself in the most interesting way I knew how.

xo