Ghosts

I often find it not terribly hard to avoid unpleasantries from my past. Then they all come back to get me at once.

Rarely am I glad a weekend is over more than this last one. I had 5 gigs and out of those only 2 were pay but they were ALL exhausting. I don't mind doing freebies for family and church but it's when you do a favor for someone you barely know thinking they'll at least buy you a beer and then you get nothing... now he's emailing asking if I can play in Seneca MO on July 4th - he knows I'll be in Colorado, and he is asking us to move our trip. Highly unlikely, unless some $$ magically appears.

On top of that, it was 2 days of constant reminders of my past that I perpetually try to ignore.

An ex best friend, someone who I thought would never turn their back, ended contact with me almost 9 years ago. Most of the time I don't think about it, when I do it's like a fresh dagger in my back. This person gave me no explanation for ending our friendship, just coldness. The wedding I played at for a relative this weekend was right across the street from her mother's house. Consider that there are scarcely any houses and this is out in the middle of the redneck jungle of the Oklahoma woods, and that many summers were spent at said mother's house. Die memories, die!

An ex boyfriend, whom I loved yet he could give less of a shit about me, also ended our relationship about the same time as the ex best friend. So much was wrong with this situation and I was so young, yet we reunited over and over then he vanished off of the end of the earth each time. He told me he was moving to Milan. 9 years later, he's still haunting me by being in the paper and working with my friends.

An estranged friend, one who seems to only have an interest in me if there is a male in my band that she can obsess over, runs into me at a friends birthday party. This friend stands me up on a regular basis. She never calls me back. She talks about my ex boyfriend, apparently they've been working together. And she tells me all of the things I already know "he's a totally douche! OMG he's so arrogant!" Tell me something I don't know. She said that she was moving to L.A. in March.

We had to remove a member from my current band a few months ago. He was a huge disappointment; he was creative, good at writing, didn't have any drug/alcohol problems and -at first - seemed to be into it. Then he became a wuss and for months failed to show up at practice, didn't do things he said he would, etc. Eventually he left/was removed and the rest of us are truly relieved. Now he's working with members from my ex-band, one whose birthday I attended and saw my alleged friend talking about my ex boyfriend. I wished them luck.

On Sunday I thought I had escaped my ghosts. In between church services, I go to starbucks and see one of the session drummers from my other ex band. This band was supposed to be the next (fill in the blank with a really hot band) and took me to NYC, Nashville, LA, Burbank. This band had David Cook open up for us. This band met celebrities and were shmoozed by A&R reps from every huge label, played for presidents of record companies in their offices, hobnobbed with rockstars... only to be led to our less than climactic ending where my producer didn't even call me to tell me that nothing was going to happen. It just went out with a wimper.

This is why I want to get the hell out of this town. The census says it houses 384,037 people. Out of all these people, how is it that all of the ones I don't want to see and who are from different circles know each other??? If it weren't for my parents and parents-in-law I would take my band and friends and be living in Golden, Colorado before you could say bust.