Yet...I'm still the same "fun loving guy"...I'm just not as reckless. With time comes filters, some days more than others, thinking how your actions affect others, realizing you just aren't in a bubble. With time comes a wonderful sense of responsibility and a greater sense of purpose. Call it an idyllic narcissistic legacy. With time comes more knowledge, a greater journey, and for someone who is in love with life itself things just become more meaningful.
Presently and literally the perfect storm has happened...two blizzards in 1 week. All of this amidst my 31st birthday. And with snow in the south (yes, southerners, Maryland is still the south), EVERYTHING shuts down. Meghan and my busy "run run" life has taken a reprieve and has allowed some time for me to re-evaluate what I want in life.
Usually our life consists of working 60+ hours a week, and then getting as much away from work as possible...parties, social functions, volunteer opportunities, traveling. It's non-stop. And we don't even have children. But I've found myself empty. Culturally and spiritually there has been a void. Laugh as you might I am quite spiritual...just not churchy. I have my conversations with God, I just don't like to conversate in a "church" per se. And at many times folks my age sense this void as a time to be "saved". I ask...saved from what?
On my birthday my parents sent a great gift grab bag box of goodies. And what pulled at my heartstrings the most was an article from "Our State" magazine (North Carolina) about my old professor for Trumpet. If you didn't know, I was a trumpet major on scholarship my freshman year at UNC. I chose medicine, gave up trumpeting at age 19, and never really looked back.
Feeling Nostalgic I Facebooked Professor Ketch (I love the miracle of Facebook) and got an immediate reply thanking me for the note and asking me to pick the trumpet back up for 10 minutes a day. He said, "it will lessen your stress, you can even join a community band or something". Paraphrasing what I heard, "Matt, the possibilities are endless, just pick up your horn, it's part of you". Apropros?
You're talking to a kid who started playing on a used Coronet at age 7...practiced 30 minutes a day religiously until age 17 or so and then I started playing 2 hours a day. Deeply ingrained in my soul is music and giving it up abruptly was a choice of finding a career that paid me well in dollars as well as in spirit. I have always been driven to do things my way, and find some sort of financial comfort. A career in music didn't seem comfortable for me. I worried about constant travel, auditions, jobs, and no way to settle down. Plus, I had a need for science, I loved helping people through medicine. In short, I have always wanted a career in medicine, and I put my music on hiatus in order to achieve those means. At 31 I find myself trying to get back to my roots.
Amidst those roots, I also paint watercolors. So I have decided to commission a few still's of some beautiful flowers my wife placed throughout our house. It's been almost three years since my last piece of art. I guess it's been a little too long.
So, I've decided to blog my re-immersion to music and art. It's that place in my soul that I find so unique about me. My quirkiness was born from the Jacobs's musical and deDon's (my mother's side) artistic soul. Fun loving, mischievous, yet driven. It will be a slow start full of bad notes, missed strokes, and maybe the dog will howl. I'm really not sure. But I know that for now, I have found a solace for my spirit. Thanks in advance to my wife for putting up with the music.
Stay tuned...
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