All of my life I’ve struggled to find some kind of balance. The whole finding “Who you are”, “the purpose of my life”, and “what it takes to make me happy” paths….yes those have been some seriously treacherous paths but I also realize that a lot of that stems from my whole, “This is my world and it is going to be the way that I want it to be” idea. Life is never what we want it to be and it is probably best to just relinquish that idea now.
More so than anything, though, I think the problem really has been the whole “what does it take to make me happy when everything seems to be going wrong.” The bad always seems to out weigh the good, because it is so much easier to see bronze than gold. Both the good and the bad are essential to our lives and they both bring riches even if we do not see it at the time.
Truth is I’ve never been good at seeing the not so obvious like the not so obvious gold mixed within the bronze. Give me some silver or black, something that stands out a little bit more. I guess that this would defeat the purpose of life, though. Having everything handed to us with the utmost obvious, where is the fun in that?
Despite my lack of ability in seeing the gold amongst the bronze, I am realizing how simple blessings have a way of shining through when we don’t look for them. I’m also realizing that those are things that make me feel the greatest. I’m also accepting the fact that all the bronze makes me stronger and makes that little bit of gold a lot more precious.
I’ve always been a huge cowboy fan. Who am I kidding, fan is an understatement. I love cowboys and they can pretty much make me happy as long as they are not being idiotic fixtures in my life. With that said, if there is a cowboy event in town, or at least within driving distance, I am there; especially, if it is a bull riding event. I don’t know if it is the bulls or the cowboys or if it is just the caliber of character of the guys I find myself most drawn to. You know those “genuine, sincere, fan-friendly, good-hearted, shirt off their back” kind of guys. It could go either way, but that is a topic for another day and my point is there is just something about a bull rider that makes my heart tingle. The bulls too, but they are not much on the talking so that is kind of where we are with that.
On that note, there was a bull riding event over in Kentucky this past weekend. I debated on whether to go, because there are a bunch of no names (or at least no names to me) on tour and if I’m going to drive, it kind of needs to be worth my while, but there were also another number of factors. Still come yesterday, I had decided that I was going to go ahead and make the trek to Kentucky, but I was on a serious time constraint.
I had decided that if it was meant for me to go, it would work itself out. If I was meant to finally meet my favorite bull rider, it also would out the way that it was supposed to. I’ve been trying to hold on to that mentality. It is something that I have always believed, but when all the bad keeps smacking you in the face, that phrase becomes a serious cliché and pain the butt. I was bound and determine to live by it though.
As I mentioned before, it was a three and a quarter hour drive and I thought the event started at 7:30p. That means that to be there on time, I needed to be on the road no later than a quarter after four. I have class on Saturdays and technically class doesn’t get out until 3:30. We often get out early, but it is still a twenty minute drive to and from school. I like to get all dolled up when I go to see cowboys, even if nobody is going to notice me, I like to look all pretty and decked out. This means I needed to be home, dressed, dog walked and out the door by 4:15. It figures that this would be the one Saturday where we are in class almost every bit of the time because someone decided that we needed to have 900 class things to do. Yee-haw.
To make a long story short, I was barely home by 3 and not on the road until 4:19, which only became problematic when I realized that I still needed to stop by the bank to get cash (you always have to pay for parking) and that I really should grab a lint roller. I always seem to take Ramsey, my dog, with me even when she is not in the car. So, I didn’t actually get on my drive to Kentucky until about 20 till five. Already starting out behind, but I was still faithful that it would play out the way that it was supposed to.
The whole time I’m driving, I’m watching the minutes dwindle down and the miles still be in abundance. The old me wanted to get all negative, but I was bound to stay positive. Then I get to my destination….not. The mapping systems always seem to fail to mention when your destination is actually the part of another location. Like if you are looking for an arena and you are thinking that it will be a lonely building that stands out quite nicely, only to realize that it is actually a smaller building that is part of the fairgrounds and not even the front part of the fairgrounds. Oh no, smaller arena clear in the back of a very large fairground surrounding. Needless to say, that I missed it.
I am following the road that the “arena” is supposed to be on, looking for an arena or a sign that says, “BROADBENT ARENA”. There is nothing so when I realize that I’m totally out of my destination, I start back the other way and finally decided to pull into the fairgrounds and just ask since that is supposed to be my location according to Bing maps. Nice old guy, takes my money after telling me that I am in the right place and gives me directions to the backside of the fairgrounds where the arena is…..it’s not looking good. By the time I find lot J, where I needed to be, and a parking spot it is going on 7:55p.
I am walking up, fighting the urge to be negative, but thinking that I’ve already missed 30 minutes of the event and my favorite rider riding. Get to the window, the event doesn’t start until 8pm. Things are looking good. I asked for the cheap seats and woman tells me they are sold out. I’m like what do you have and she gives me the most expensive so I’m all like do you have anything cheaper? The next to expensive seats, but cheaper than the last so I just take it. They’re finishing up introductions as I find my seat. Score…please, not that simple.
I love taking pictures and I’m thinking these have got to be good seats. They’re on the floor. Those that know me, I’m barely 5’3” on a good day and wouldn’t you know the fence towers me so really all I can see is bars and not really the bulls let alone the bull riders. So, I snap a few bar pictures and a couple of “back of the audience head” shots, because I love metal fences and strange people’s hairlines and decide to wait until intermission to go find a better seat in the cheap seats. It is amazing how many empty seats there were for a section that was supposed to be sold out.
I find some good places to snap a few “up and personal” shots of some bull riders and bulls and I watch the short-go from the high grounds. Not only could I actually see what was going on, but I figured out new features on my camera and got some new shots. Now that is a score.
After the event is over, the guys are signing autographs. I normally do not stand in line for autographs. The old me, when I first started watching bull riding, would; however, the new princess…not so much. I’m not one of those, “OMG it is so and so. Nope sorry, just don’t care enough to stand in line. Tonight was different, though, and I’m not sure why but it played out well.
Two years ago when the cowboys came to Cleveland, OH, I went and got an awesome picture of my absolute favorite rider. Good-hearted, genuine, fan-friendly cowboy that has pretty much ignored me every time I have stood in a place trying to get his autograph (before I stopped standing in places trying to get autographs), but he’s a good guy and pretty damn hot and it was an awesome photo. I posted it to his fan page, which I normally don’t do but I decided to share and his wife made it the profile picture. That alone made my day even if she didn’t acknowledge the photographer. That annoyed me at first, but I knew who took the picture and so I was pretty content in my accomplishment.
So, this night, this time…I decided to stand in line and get his autograph on it. I mean seriously, I drove three an a quarter hours for this. The guy behind me in line was talking to his wife about how he only wanted one guy’s autograph and felt bad because you have to go through the whole line to get autographs. I will leave out the details of that brief moment, but my guy was the end of the autograph line and I had no intention on getting any other autograph. Sorry, that is just not me. I stood in line for one guy and one guy only.
As I get to the second guy before him, the guy looks at me and says, “Is that a Dusty picture”? That kind of freaked me out, because I was guessing that I had forgotten to take off my, “I’m a Dusty LaBeth fan” t-shirt and I kind of nodded. For some reason, he felt the need to laugh and yell down to Mr. Dusty. I’m thinking, “Did they seem me stalking him trying to get a good shot from the stands? What the muck?” When I got up to Dusty, I handed him the picture and that is where it got interesting.
He was all like, “Where did you get this?” and I’m like, “I took it” and he’s like, “My wife has been trying to figure out who took this picture.” And I’m like, “That would be me” and he is all like “It is on my facebook page.”….me: “I know”….Dusty: “She was wondering who took it. Did you tell her?”….me: “She never asked.” He kind of looked a little shocked and the other guy that thought it was funny made a comment about it being plagiarism or something like that.
I just smiled and thanked him and got my Sharpie back as he looked all confused trying to write. Yes, I did ask the hot bull rider for my Sharpie back. That was a $3 sharpie and it is silver. Sorry, I don’t care if you are hot, that is my Sharpie….thank you. That made the best night of my life for this year. Not asking for the Sharpie back, but that moment and the realization of things really do happen the way that they are supposed to.
I could rant about how his wife really should know who took the picture considering that I’m the one that posted it to his webpage and she then felt she needed to be tagged in it, but the new me-doesn’t want to be that person. So, I’m going to ramble about how it is the little things in life that make all the difference.
I’ve spent so much of my life just wondering aimlessly and looking so hard for happiness. I, more often than not, forget that the true moments of happiness often come when I am not looking for them. Having him recognize my picture and brag to those sitting around him about what an awesome photo it was is pretty damn cool and made me feel pretty damn special. I mean I’m the one that took that. That was my photo, I did that. How many fans can say that?
That is just one example and the most recent, but as I reflected on my three and a quarter hour drive home, there have many so many of those little moments and those are the ones that I hold on to. Those are the ones that we need to hold on to. The moments that are not so obvious, but make us feel like a million bucks. Those golden moments amongst all the bronze, those are the ones we need to hold on to. Those are the ones that have the purity and clarity that happiness is supposed to have. Those are the moments that make life real.
There is always going to be bronze, but we should not look at those moments as nuisance. We should look at those bronze moments as a moment that we needed to have. There was something from that moment that we needed to grown and experience so that we have a greater appreciate for those gold moments. The bronze are just important as the gold as there cannot be gold without bronze, they balance each other out. Still, that doesn’t mean that we cannot live up those gold moments we have them. Look for the gold amongst the bronze, but don’t magnify in hopes of seeing it quickly. The gold is there and we see it when we’re not trying to find it so hard. Life the moment and grow from the experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment