"I AM"
I often have in-depth conversations with my children. Recently I had a conversation with my oldest son Kyle. I found myself coming away from the conversation with a different perspective of my life.
I want to share what I discovered with you. Maybe, you will feel the same as I do!
I was fortunate to have all four of my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in my life while growing up and most of my adult life. My entire family has been super supportive of my music for over four decades and counting. Their love, feedback, understanding, and encouragement began on the first day I picked up a bass guitar. Before I could play a Cmajor scale, my uncle was calling me the next Commodore. Nana, my dad's mom, invited neighbor's to her home just so my sister and I could perform live for them! That felt weird to me at the time, LOL!
My mother's parents let my band M-U-1 perform at their wedding anniversary in 1979. I cannot begin to tell you how uplifting it was for me at 17yrs old to see my family dancing to my band's music! These were some of the ways my family supported and approved of me becoming a musician. I never gave much thought to any of it, and as my children now, I too thought it’s what family is supposed to do! I later realized that's not always true. Those blessings, that love, the support from my family made me who I am, or should I say, made me who I thought I was?
I noticed something about myself. I discovered all of the love, support, and encouragement my family sewed into me was gone! That light, the energy that powered me for decades was out. And the most painful part of it was. I never knew it was gone!
At some point since 1990, I was no longer who I knew myself to be. Of course, I knew I was David Knight, but the core person I loved was missing, or only there in bits and pieces. I was placed on autopilot. In that mode, I was just doing. I was not living. I was not surviving. I was not being the human being life had created me to be! I had become what I call a sleepwalker.
Life, in some way, quietly muted the self-identifying parts of me that blew out my bright light. A bitter divorce, multiple deaths, raising children, new wife, career, jobs, and everything else I had decided was more important to me than maintaining my self-identity and my self-awareness.
I totally lost my... I AM.
I had to ask myself; who am I? Who and I now? What am I doing? What original parts of me have remained? Are there any parts I need to let go of, and what should I bring back or keep?
Life did not steal anything from me. Though that is not a popular belief with most people. Life never takes anything away from us. Life is always giving, adding, and increasing. It moves things around, hides things, changes things up to where it looks and feels different, but never removed.
It was and continues to be my job to figure out what happened between 1990 and now. I first have to answer the question, why did I allow the events in my life to mute all the good that my family put in me? I know everything I went through has made me a better person. I know it has prepared me for a music career that I could not imagine forty years ago. I understand how it has built me as a man.
So yes, at the end of the day, it's all good. However, the process was rough and continues to be challenging.
Finally, I know who I am once again, more so than who I thought myself to be thirty-five years ago! Further, I see this as something I will need to update throughout the rest of my life.
What do you think? What are your thoughts? Have you had an experience similar to mine?
David