Benefits of the Blues

Maybe it was some bad choices that I made last weekend, maybe it’s the string of terrible luck I’ve had with girls lately, or maybe my Mom called it while I was moping around my parent’s house doing laundry this weekend and she said that I was missing Melissa, but this last week has definitely been pretty depressing.

However feeling depressed this week hasn’t made it terrible and from it some good things came. For example I got together with my oldest friend last Tuesday and had a great time, I got to catch up and hear how he’s doing and give some good advice and we went to go see the movie “Crazy Heart” which is all about an old country music legend. While watching the movie I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the songs that were played only consisted of two or three chords and that they sounded great. So on Wednesday night, while feeling particularly down and with the music of Crazy Heart fresh in my mind, I sat down with my guitar and wrote 3 songs. Two of which I’d had the lyrics already written forever but was never inspired enough to complete with music due to my lack of chops, but seeing how great a song can be just using three chords I finished them and now I really love them.

After writing them in about an hour I quickly went down to the Red Room upstairs in hopes of performing them at the open mic that was currently in progress. I signed up and as my luck had been going I just barley didn’t make the cut due to the time cut-off. I’m hoping to play there next month and if I get too I’ll try and record it so I can post it here, stay tuned.

When you’re in a funk I think that your friend’s are more willing to open up to you about things that are going wrong in their lives. Feeling sad and telling people about it in a non-whiny annoying way (<<< That’s the hard part) seems to put friends at an ease where they feel comfortable opening up to you more as well. I remember after Melissa and I broke up I was talking to one of my best friend’s who was happily dating someone and after listening to me he began opening up about his daunting financial troubles, something that he’d never shared with me before.

I think this results from an unconscious competitiveness we have with everyone in our lives. We all want to appear that we have it together and that maybe are doing even better than the people we’re friends with. My honesty about feeling bad this week opened up great conversations with my friends that led to me feeling supported and also closer to them. So feel encouraged to open up more, it could be what turns a buddy into a best friend.

P.S: Don’t forget to include God into the mix, you might become closer friends with people but never start feeling any better. Friend can provide support but God offer peace.