My touring cycle over the past few years has been typically the first 6 months of the year, and the rest is local/regional gigs. This time of year is when it gets hard, though. Not the gigs themselves, or the material, or the guitar parts. No, I'm talking about being away from my wife and kids. Is it fair to them to perpetually keep myself in a state of arrested development just so I can fulfill a childhood dream?
This is not the life of a normal adult.
There is safety and comfort in the predictability and rote of a 9-to-5 existence (and its steady paycheck), if you can live with it. Some days I can. Some days I can't. I can't wait to get back out on the road, until I have to actually do it. Then I feel terrible for putting my family through that, especially my wife for having to pull double duty as both parents while I'm away "playing rock star".
The problem is that I've been headed on this course since I was a kid. I've prepared for it as best I could. Truth is, I'm pretty darned good at this. Not the guitar playing (yeah, I'm ok at that), but the readiness to eschew normalcy. It's been my expectation (as well as others expectations of me) as long as I can remember.
The dichotomy of "regular guy with a family and house" and "traveling musician" are hard to reconcile.
I do like waking up in my own bed and having breakfast with my family, cooking dinner in the evening and running around the yard with them in the afternoons. But I also like talking shop with my bandmates, soundchecks, playing shows, and the general camaraderie that goes with a touring production. Your fellow performers become your family, at least for a while.
So, currently, I'm packing my gear (and clothes) while vacillating between eagerness to get out there, and trepidation at leaving my family.
So, what to do?
Let me just pick up this here guitar and play a bit. I'm sure the answer will come soon enough.....or not.
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