Walking Away

I’m a proud man.  Not like, “I could whoop a bear with one arm tied behind my back while swiggin’ a jug of whiskey with the other’n”, proud,  I don’t drink whiskey no more, more on that later. But I’m proud of how I dealt with some recent lessons life has tossed my way.

Although I choose a more pacifist lifestyle, I do still take karate lessons when time allows. The first thing they teach you is to walk away from a fight, because they’re not worth it…and then they teach you a million ways to make a bear-sized man scream like Wilhelm with the twist of the wrist. *kudos to y’all who got the Wilhelm Scream reference, ya buncha nerds*

And yes, I am that bear-sized nerd, erm, man doing the screaming in class.  Everybody wants a shot at the biggest guy in the room. 

However the place I can’t start screaming and swatting when there is a fight (no, we don’t do that in karate class either…well, sometimes) is our little community of busy bees.  If something happens, like a big crybaby gets stung, one cannot start screaming and swatting and running around.  I mean, one can, but the results probably suck worse than that one little sting, right?  

I did get stung.  I also had a FULL frame of bees in my hands.  So I sucked up the pain after weighing my consequences.  I screamed multiple  obscenities in my loudest inside thoughts voice. Then I slowly and calmly put everything back together.  Lastly, I walked away.  

I had to, because I immediately wanted to start fighting back.  They were just protecting their home I had disrupted.  I was nursing a booboo, angry that my bees were mad at me and trying not to let my inner 5 year old start crying because it reminded me of the time I held a wasp and let it sting my fingernail because a friend told me wasps can’t sting through fingernails…but they can cleverly sting UNDER the nail if you don’t pay attention and it gets close enough. My friend apparently didn’t know that part. 

But I digress…

Now that I know the warning signs,  I know when to walk away.  And then once things have calmed down, I can make the choice to come back, or leave it be.

I’m trying to make those strides in the bigger picture as well.  If I get stung by something in life, I don’t fight much.  I walk away.  Not because I don’t want to keep fighting deep inside.  I still do. But I’m starting to know better in my advanced age of almost 47 years that I don’t have to stick around and fight something that’s not good for me anyways.  Remember when I said I could fight a bear with one hand tied behind my back while swigging whiskey with the other’n?  Well, I used to do that very thing.

I fought my bears by diving liver deep into the bottle.  I love beer, which usually led to whiskey or vodka.  I grew up with them, got to know them all well during my years as a railroader, and learned how to sing a good song without slurring most of the words and still slam it in tips. 

Then when 2020’s dumpster fire wiped my calendar with its crusty butt, I started drinking “pandemic punch” soon as it got close enough to noon to call it quittin’ time somewhere in the world.  It affected my mental and physical health. 

And when you’re loved by your people like I’m loved by my people,  your affection for the sauce affects the ones trying to give you affection.  So one day I slowly turned around and walked away.  I didn’t make a scene. I didn’t swat or scream.  I just put my hands up and went the other way.  Been a little over 2 years now and I haven’t been this happy in a long time.  Instead of raisin’ a glass, I’m raisin’ bees that are helping me be a better human.  And my Honey takes pictures if me doin’ it. (With a LONG range lens…she don’t want stung, neither.)

One of the results of putting down the bottle is it helped me pick up the pen and guitar a lot more.  Hundreds of songs filled the spaces in my mind where I used to fight my bears. 

One of those songs is a story similar to mine.  It’s a single I cut with my buddy, Jeremy, last year.  It’s called “Goodbye, Whiskey”.  I plan to release it on digital outlets at the end of the month, but since you put up with this long-winded story, I’ll letcha listen to it early.  I hope you enjoy it.  And if it helps one of y’all to walk away from a bear, that makes me proud.

Goodebye, Whiskey (Original Song)

V1
Every night I’d raise hell
then come home and tell her
why I’d rather be at the bar
I’d smell like the bottle,
be ready for battle
and one night I took it too far
PRE
Maybe my hands weren’t to blame
But the words that I spoke hurt the same
CHORUS
That was the night that she chose to tell
me to go straight to hell
she’d had more than she could take
She said that she loved me still
swore that she always will
but it was my choice to make.
Then she cried on my shoulder
and kissed me and told me she missed me
That was the night that I said goodbye
to the whiskey
INTRO
V2
Now I’m on the wagon
and she can’t stop braggin’
‘bout how happy that we’ve become.
And I can’t stop smirkin’
cuz each night we’re workin’
on makin’ our daughter or son
PRE
Now I’m glad that I finally see
What she saw all along inside me
CHORUS
Even the night that she chose to tell
me to go straight to hell
she’d had more than she could take
She said that she loved me still,
swore that she always will
but it was my choice to make.
Then she cried on my shoulder
and kissed me and told me she missed me
That was the night that I said goodbye
to the whiskey

INTRO
PRE
Yea, I threw the right thing away
and now I thank God every day
CHORUS
For the night that she chose to tell
me to go straight to hell
she’d had more than she could take
She said that she loved me still,
swore that she always will
but it was my choice to make.
Then she cried on my shoulder
and kissed me and told me she missed me
That was the night that I said goodbye
to the whiskey
TAG
That was the night that I said goodbye
to the whiskey

Here is a more polished, studio recorded version.