Letters to High School and Her

 Sept 5th, 2024 But sometimes, it's just nice to write into the void. I have no way of knowing if you read these or just delete them or they're going to some defunct email address left over from a couple lifetimes ago. Sometimes I just need an idea to write to though. A ghost, to listen to my whispers, if you will. Sometimes I just need to write and since you never reply this seems like the best one to do so to. I'm 49 now. It's weird. I don't feel 49 but at the same time I do (what does 'feeling 49' feel like? Questions). Well, my body certainly does. I bought a pair of shoes with a 3" lift. For no reason. I'm literally 6'3. Did I need to feel 6'6? Likely not, yet here I am. They are comfortable shoes though. Noone bothers to stare. Did I do it for that? Maybe. I live up on top of a mountain in North Georgia. BFE to the elevated extreme. There are a number of bears here and not the burly gay kind that want to buy you a spritzer. I'm ass...

 July 22nd, 2024 I have to, now. I wish I knew the Why. You see, I'm always drawn back to the trampoline and the patchwork sky above. The moon was wandering above all of that, pushing everything it had to reflect down. Down onto some random night in some random county at some random time. Admittedly, a long time ago, but it defined me in such a way that it's stuck around like a tattoo. I have a few. That one can't be seen though. Not to anyone without a wandering eye. Those are the best art. I measured days, then weeks, then months, then years against that sky above. Foolishness, really. No one finds their endgame that young. No one. I did what I could. I wrote about it in music and lyric. I wrote about it in words and paragraphs. I told tales about it to those who would listen and it all seems so naive and silly in retrospect. But it wasn't. Those notes, those lyrics, those words, they were all real. They were all a part of a life. Mine. It carried me through two marri...

 Dec 12th, 2023 I realize it's highly unlikely you'll get this email (who checks email in 2023?) but it's 2:52 AM and I'm sitting here at the hospital working a 12 hour graveyard shift while we undergo an EMR migration. I'm the only schmuck up here tonight and I am what you'd call, bored. I hope life has treated you well the past decade or so. I realized the other day that it had been almost 13 years since we chatted. Time is relative and unforgiving. A lot has changed in those years. So much. I bet your daughter is getting big now. She's 13 or so? Crazy. My daughter is turning 20 in two weeks and my son is turning 18 in two months. How in the hell did I go and get so old? I'm still down in Georgia but it's just Cayden and I now. I married Amanda in 2013 and we almost made it 10 years. Our daughter (well, my step-daughter) was killed in 2019 by a drunk driver and Amanda kind of spiraled down after that. Emmerie was 19 years old. She was so beautiful....

 May 24th, 2012 I thought about you today. It was one of those weird mornings where all of the songs on shitty FM radio line up just right and you're all WTF. I mean seriously, it was Buffett, Garth, GGD, & then to top it all off, Pearl Jam (the song Black, if you must know). I went ahead and threw in some TA just to complete the idiocy. I chose her tune Cars & Guitars. It was a good ride to work. Anyway, I hope you & your family are doing well, kiddo. I hope your gremlin is growing and giving you all kinds of hell. Ha Ha! You've earned it I feel certain. Talk hard M

 Jan 18th, 2012 Hey Red, I hope you're well. I hope that little girl is getting bigger and giving you all KINDS of shit. You probably deserve it. ;) (It'll only get worse if karma works out like it usually does...) I hope your family is sound, secure, and worth fighting for. I hope you're content, most of all. I hope that, above all things. You deserve it and those that love you deserve it as well. I hope you don't give your Husband too much hell for being who he may be. He took a chance on You, as it were. Credit is due there just so you know. Ha ha. I want to thank you for allowing me to know You in this life. For whatever reason, you chose to, and for that I am so very grateful. I want the entire world to be Happy for a change. I figured I should start with my own starting line. You take care of yourself, OK? You dream big, live bigger and love even bigger than that. Don't buy into petty crap. Let go of the little things that do not matter when all of the lights ...