Irish Exit

I thought it was only appropriate to shoot off a blog today. The entire month of September is dedicated to acknowledging mental illness and especially this week, as suicide prevention week. A friend of mine lost their brother two weeks ago. Their story and his story or not really mine to tell, like many other people who feel like they have nowhere else to go and nothing else to turn to, we are always left with a million questions in our heads. It sucks. But in the end, it’s not about us that are left behind. We can overanalyze things, we can lose sleep, we can turn to the bottle, we can turn to some of the things that helped them decide they didn’t wanna be here anymore. The pain doesn’t really go away, does it? I post, and I re-post a lot of things from my favorite place to get help, to write love on her arms. It doesn’t mean that I am in trouble, it doesn’t mean that I am in a dark place, it really just means to anyone who’s paying attention that I understand, my door is always open, my phone is usually on, and at the very least I will listen. After all, I am the guy that sits down at the bar and will talk to anybody. You never know the life you’re going to change by simply being kind. I have my moments. I know I can be a prick. Don’t really know why that ever happens but it does.

You are not alone. We are all worthy of love no matter how fucked up or screwed up we really are. Our stories are important. That is why I’ve been telling mine for the last 7+ years here. It’s not as consistent as it used to be but I will do better. I am dry. I hate coming here and sounding like a broken record to the three people that might be reading.

But it’s suicide prevention week and I just want everyone to know that you are not alone. I’ve had four people that I know, some closer than others choose to end their lives in the last two years. They were not alone. They did not need to face the darkness by themselves. That’s all I really have about that today. We will have to be the hopeful.

So…..

This is probably been one of the most stressful summers of my life. And I am finally starting to look for the sunshine through the rain. I have to admit life really makes it hard sometimes.

When I wrote my last blog, we didn’t even know if we’re going to be able to finish our summer shows, let alone who the hell is going to be on stage with us. One Facebook messenger note to a friend in New York wishing they lived closer so they can play guitar for us, led to his brother-in-law who a few hours later agreed to fill in for us as long as we needed to. Fast forward one week, he played his first show with us blindly in Avalon and a few days later was part of the band. Almost completely against all the things I wanted for the band. And not in a bad way but I would love Bigg Romeo to continue on without me at some point. You can only do that when you hire some younger people and trust them to do the right thing, our new guitar player is a little older than all of us.  You would not know it, by the way, he jumps down on his knees and does guitar solos in front of kids in New Jersey lol. But he definitely fits in with the rest of us whack a doodles so it’s not a bad thing. One less musical stress that I have to deal with. One more to come.

Last Friday night as soon as I was done work we jumped on a boat and went to the wharf to see the Juliano brothers play. I have not seen them all summer and I really wanted to see my friend Matt who battled Covid for most of last year. When the show was over we jumped back on the boat and went out to the ocean. It was a very beautiful, calm night. Somehow we ended up in an ocean fender bender with a rock, or 20, or like my friend Sean likes to say a boat hit him in the head…. And with my leg up on the center console, I took the hot HARD!  I  have not been doing very well all week getting around. Nothing is broken, I do not have any blood clots, but not what I wanted going into a very big weekend of shows and my vacation starting on Sunday. I’ll be OK. But my heart is heavy.

I am not where I wanted to be going on vacation. And when I come home from vacation I have about six weeks or so to get ready for a little mini Nashville trip so six weeks are going to be a reckoning both in the gym and in the kitchen. Summer is over, excuses need to be over as well. I will miss you Fritos and cream cheese. I will miss all the bread. But I miss my skinny jeans more. I said that I did not want to see any more T-shirts with an X on them and then all my new shirts coming out of summer have one or two x’s in them. Not where I want to be and I have no one to blame but myself. But the time is gone.

I am a summer God. Summer slipped away too quickly on me this year. It is what it is.

Life is not about how many likes you get on Facebook. I didn’t mention my accident anywhere on social media. I did not mention what is going on with me anywhere because I don’t need sympathy, I just needed time to heal. I don’t do things for the likes, I don’t post things Nilly Willy and you can probably notice from my Instagram things have slowed down completely. I will need to keep myself accountable once I get back on the program so you’ll see him a little bit more gym stuff and I hope to blog here more often. It always helps with my accountability. I check in with people, my circle is small and continues to get smaller. We always have room for more though. I mean my friend Sean and his wife Mary Kate are going to have to stay around for a while because I was with them when God threw a boat at his head. Now we just have to get Luna to like him because she does not. She hates him 🙂

Tonight we play Parx casino and I’m so excited, I’m also petrified because I wanted to put on an amazing show personally and I’m going to have to play quarterback more than anything. Tomorrow night we have a wedding and then in the middle of the night, we leave for Florida. God, I was so excited for Halloween horror nights and I’m usually already packed, and guess what?, I am not right now. I will be excited when I am on my way. Hopefully, I continue to feel better every day.

Although we all may be broken, there is still a lot of beauty in the broken pieces. Remember that.

Thanks for reading.  Keep the faith.

Franco