Until Tomorrow

I wrote a song called Bullet at the end of last month (July of 2023).

It's a dark song, and a part of the chorus says:

It's hard when you got nowhere to go

and while it'll never happen

I'd be lying if I didn't say a bullet sounded good.

Now, I can write some dark stuff, but the lyrics to that song are full of darkness, depression, and loss.

The day I wrote that, I was in such a dark place that I thought it would be better for everyone and everything if I weren't here anymore. That included me.

I won't get into it all here because there is still so much I'm processing from the last couple of months.

But I'm in a place I haven't been in a very long time. I've lost things, or maybe never had them, that I never thought I'd lose. I've almost died again. I'm displaced and have damn near nothing like I did before. But I also have a lot.

So, the day I wrote that song, I had gone shooting, and the feel of the weight of one of my pistols in my hand just felt different. It was like it was calling to me, and I just stood there looking at it, knowing that with a few pounds of pressure and less than a second, I could get rid of all the pain writhing inside me. The pain I felt I was causing others.

I'm not going to lie; there was a part of me that really wanted the out, and then there was a part of me that was scared as hell that those thoughts were in my mind.

And how easy it could be done.

That's not me. That's not how I think.

Yet I kept staring at that pistol, and it was still calling me.

And then another voice came into my head. It was an instructor I had in the military who gave some of the best advice I ever heard.

He would talk about how hard things would be with what we were going to do and that we would want to quit. But then he said, "Don't quit until tomorrow."

And that's the place I've been in every day since then. The first thing when I open my eyes in the morning, I tell myself, "Don't quit until tomorrow."

Things happen in our lives that can cause an almost immeasurable amount of pain.

People hurt you, and you hurt them.

We get sick or have an accident.

We lose someone we love.

We're told or made to feel like we aren't enough.

Depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any of the other variety of mental and emotional challenges there is kick in.

That ultimate out looks really damn appealing when you're so weighed down. And I get that now. I never really did before the last few months.

But there is an upside because we are all loved even if we don't feel like it.

That day, I did something I don't usually do. I reached out to people. I let them know what was going on.

I talked to one friend, and an hour later, he and four other friends were heading to the airport to come to me.

Some other friends were immediately there.

Other friends drove from hours away within 30 minutes of hearing the news.

Others offered to come, and more offered to get me to them.

My family did what my family does. They circled wagons around me and worked to figure out how they could help support me.

And God showed up even as I cursed Him for everything that was transpiring.

As I look back to that day, I'm glad I didn't take the out that was calling out to me.

It doesn't mean the pain I felt then isn't still there. It is. And man, pain sucks in so many ways.

It can cripple us, but it can also remind us to fight.

And we need to fight.

It's been hard, and that isn't going to stop. Life is hard. Love is hard.

But love is worth it, and so is life.

I will continue to love what I've lost, just as I'll fight through the rest of the pain.

I can say that because I won't give up until tomorrow.