I hit it tonight. I hit it hard.

The open mic night, that is.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. After years and years of working diligently to move ahead in this music industry of today's pop culture and whatnot, after finally making my money solely through paid shows, after moving up and up and up, I made an appearance at an Open Mic night tonight; the first I've played since 2007 when I first moved back to San Diego.

And I'm gonna be honest.
It was awesome.
I wasn't sure it would be, but lately (taking into account my most recent chain of life events) I've been feeling quite down. Haven't been writing, haven't been recording, haven't been singing. And it's made me lose a little bit of that feeling of self worth that I'm in a daily struggle to uphold.
(as I'm pretty sure we all are)

It felt good to get in front of a crowd again, even though I wasn't getting paid. It felt good to hear music come out of my guitar instead of just listen to it collecting dust at my house. It felt really good to sing in front of an audience. It felt good to make people feel good.
I helped in making people's lives feel good tonight, if even for a split second, and that was awesome.

I've spent a lot of time worried about succeeding/growing/progressing monetarily/being financially secure through music. And I forgot in the meantime how much I really just love performing, and love singing.

Maybe this minor setback is just what i needed to get my engines running again. Maybe it's just what i needed to re-feel the passion that sort of got swept under the rug for a minute.

I'm back, folks. I'm ready.

Let's do this.