CRITICAL MASS HYSTERIA! (1978-)

This is a blog to say that soon, there will be a longer blog. And…

I had my weekly volleyball game tonight. It’s co-ed. Some of my greatest friends are on the team, and this is the first year in 10 that I could commit to being consistently local on Sunday nights for a Summer. Anyway, tonight one of my female friends walked up as I was tying my shoes on a bench at the park and said, “Hey, Owen. God, you look exhausted.” I had woken up 30 minutes earlier after a 2-hour nap, just in time to get to the game. My eyes were puffy, I was sorta discombobulated. I haven’t slept much this weekend, not much at all.

Seriously, most of the time when someone tells me that they think I look tired, I get inordinately pissed off. Because telling someone else, “You look tired,” actually means, “You look like sh*t.” But today, I laughed. And my laugh was authentic, from my belly. Because the truth is, I probably do look like sh*t. What I’m experiencing is a complete decompression, not merely a recovery from an evening of physical, emotional hard work. It’s a comedown from 10 years of pure, unadulterated devotion to my band.

I think that there are realities that are only now beginning to settle in, ones that weren’t apparent the other night while on stage in Indianapolis, or even in the 48 hours following the show. Realities will keep settling in for weeks, months. And I’m not confusing decompression for depression. What I’m feeling is heartbreakingly right. It feels so true, like I’m letting go of something that I’ve cared for like it was my own child. But it was only my child for a finite amount of time, during which I was responsible for it’s growth, well-being, and nurturing — and now I’ve got to let it go, let it become something it can’t be while restricted to my care. And right now, it’s looking back at me, lovingly, for the final time as I release it into the universe to find it’s own way from here on out.

Yup. It feels like the end of E.T. I’m Elliott.   
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By the time the show was over last Friday (all 4+ hours of it), every part of my being was so exhausted that I could barely stand. No joke. But at the same time, I couldn’t bear the thought of not getting a chance to see/embrace/thank everyone at the show for being there, for being here with us for so long, so faithfully, like family. 

Now, it’s the middle of the night. I’ve got The Hurt Locker on play, then pause, then play… it goes like this when thoughts are coming to me fast — ones that will find their way into some form of communicative offering — and I react instantly in real-time so I don’t neglect and subsequently lose/forget ideas. I pick up my phone and start spilling my guts into the voice recorder, or jump to my computer and start typing. Truthfully, I can’t remember the last time I sat down and watched a movie from beginning to end without being disrupted multiple times by the need to capture these thoughts. (By the way, thanks D&L for The Hurt Locker birthday gift.)

All this to say that while my thoughts are coalescing, I’m still in shock and reeling from both the exhaustion and overwhelming sense of reality. If you didn’t see my tweet the other day, I was knocked off guard by how backward the emotional experience was for me on July 30. I was nearly positive that the evening would be toughest emotionally at it’s end, when the finality of the situation was most realized. Instead, the emotional peak for me was during the down section of the show, the middle hour. The evening’s basic formula seemed to be:

-FIRST 90 MINUTES: Pure energy.
-SECOND 90 MINUTES: Pure emotion.
-THIRD 90 MINUTES: Pure endurance.

By hour four, I wanted every drop of sweat out of me, every muscle and nerve to be completely engaged. I wanted to finish strong, with my whole heart. I desire for the work of The Elms to be remembered as pure, no cutting corners, no phoning it in when we got weary. That’s how I wanted to spend the final moments, giving everything I had left. Giving more than I had left.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what you write, I read. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, whatever. If I don’t reply, it’s not disinterest. It’s just timing. Talk to me anytime, family.  

This was supposed to be a short one. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that the friend who told me that I looked exhausted is pregnant, so I’m cutting her some slack.

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