How a Guitar Became a Lifeline When Everything Else Fell Apart
Sitting here plucking away a few tunes on my acoustic, I feel like I’m talking with an old friend for the last time. The rich, woody tone fills my ears with pure joy and comfort.
Contemplating selling something this important to me hurts.
Having played this instrument for over 30 years, it becomes a part of you.
Amazing how much a finely crafted piece of wood with strings can mean to a man.
I know how I got here. I’m just not sure what the path out is yet.
Here I am, 48 years on this planet, and I am no further along than I was fifteen years ago. Well, maybe a bit. I’m sober. Have been for some time. So, there’s that.
Nothing has ever been easy for me. I didn’t go to college because I had no idea how to pay for it and no one around to explain the simple things, like student loans. So, I just started working.
I worked my tail off for the next few decades to make up for what I lacked in formal education, and it paid off. I became highly sought after in my field in retail. Things were not always easy, but I kept my head up.
Fifteen years ago, I got divorced after eleven years of marriage. Divorce is rough, period. It alters the trajectory of your life, whether it ends for reasons you chose or reasons you never agreed to. There is no such thing as an easy one.
Luckily, no kids were involved.
A few years later, I remarried. Probably quicker than I should have, but I found someone I loved unconditionally. Even though I did not deserve her.
Why?
Because I spent the next five years living in the bottom of a vodka bottle. Oblivious to the world around me. Each day was just a day, and the future was somebody else’s problem.
I ended up in rehab. It took a few weeks to dry out and realize what I had become.
After that, life started going pretty well. I somehow retained my career. Climbed the ladder, saved money, bought a home for my wife and her son. Things were good.
But there was still the part of me that used to hide behind alcohol, and now there was nothing left to mask the insecurities.
Insecurities about what, you ask?
That I was never good enough and would never amount to anything. Words instilled by an adopted father and a stepmother. A real dream team, those two.
So I pushed for more success. I figured success would define me. Redeem me.
In early 2019, I walked away from a very successful career to launch a startup. Something I had planned for years but kept finding excuses to put off because of the risk. It was time.
The launch was hard, but I could see it paying off. It was a risky sector to disrupt, but it was starting to show its worth.
Then 2020 happened.
Everything I had on the line, gone. Potential investors went silent. I had no cushion and no lifeline. I had set out to conquer the vast sea of potential knowing full well I could not afford a dinghy or an anchor. It was all or nothing.
You can’t forecast a pandemic. You can lower your risk, though, and not leverage everything you own. I wanted very little money invested that wasn’t mine. I didn’t want anyone else owning my work. The good news is nobody else owns it. The bad news is the same sentence.
Within weeks, I was drained. Physically, mentally, and of course, financially.
I tried to bounce back to my old career and instead found myself severely depressed and riddled with dark thoughts. I could not land on my feet for the life of me.
I ended up working a cash register at a gas station. My wife, who had never really had to work up to that point, was checking temperatures at a medical facility for $8 an hour, catching people with COVID before they could spread it.
It was eye opening. It made me start appreciating things again.
Both our vehicles were repossessed, so we walked everywhere for months until we could save enough for a down payment. The car we finally got was almost ten years old, but it was like a cold drink of water in the middle of the Texas summer heat. It brought us back to life. Suddenly the world extended past walking distance again.
That was almost five years ago.
We eventually moved out of the tiny rent house with no air conditioning except the window unit I took out a payday loan to buy. So yes, a $250 unit that ended up costing almost a thousand dollars. Welcome to my world. The world of bad credit, courtesy of a business I had not yet structured to protect me when it failed. I dove in headfirst and adjusted as I went.
We live and learn. Some of us just keep paying tuition on the lesson for years.
Now, here I am. Still not doing as well financially as I should be, but only because I am paying back bad debts, high interest on everything I have ever financed, and medical bills for my wife and her mother, who is terminally ill.
They always say God won’t give you more than you can handle.
Someone made that up. Seriously.
So here I am, holding something sacred and comforting, knowing it would keep the wolves away for a bit.
This guitar is more than an instrument. It was crafted and voiced with a precision most people will never notice. Not every hand that picks it up will hear what I hear.
Maybe that’s true of people too.
We all carry things most people never hear. Most pass by without ever hearing the song.
So tonight, I’m still playing.
And for one more evening, the old friend stays.
~ David A.K.