Near Tears in a Bar

Before I begin writing this blog, I need to make it very clear that I am not the type of guy to easily cry. I have never been moved to tears in a public place in my entire life, but tonight was much different. I literally felt my eyes well up with tears and I had to excuse myself to the bathroom, where I continued dabbing my eyes with paper towels in the stall.

What brought this on? What could possibly move me, a stoic and mature guy to suddenly display such intense emotion -- especially in public? It was due to a story told to me by a good friend of mine. It hit my heart so hard, that I could not help but care who was looking or who was around me. It was the most profound and heartfelt story that I had ever been told by another human being in a public setting. I can honestly say that it was one of the most impacting moments in my entire life.

I have a friend who is in the music business. He is a black man with many tattoos all over his arms. He is a very intelligent and sincere person who knows music inside and out. I call him the Einstein of music, whereas I am the Neils Bohr of music. We constantly struggle to outdo each other with music trivia. That night, the subject of drugs came up. I was talking about cocaine with his girlfriend for a bit and how cocaine isn't the "hard" drug that many make it out to be. We went on about the the economics of the war on drugs and how our prison system is overcrowded with non-violent drug offenders, etc.

Well, I had to make the reference about coke first so that the rest of the story makes more sense. I started talking to Jason (Einstein) and asked him a very simple question, "what do your tattoos mean?"

Now, most of the guys I have met who have tattoos usually get very unoriginal ones -- vines around the arms, Chinese symbols that they think mean "love and war" but really mean "black and fight." He proceeded to go into one of the most amazing and heartfelt explanations about his tattoos and how they pertained to his life that I had ever heard.

"This is my flesh, and these are the reminders of where I've been in my life, and where I want to be. They are reminders of the struggles that I've had and how I do not wish to repeat those same mistakes." He had wings of Gabriel and Jacob on his back, spiritual symbols of love and death on his forearms, etc. Each tattoo was accompanied by a very sincere and true story about why they were on his arms.

I found out that at some point, he suffered from a severe cocaine addiction and almost killed himself because of it. I instantly remembered his girlfriend moments earlier telling me how much she hated cocaine -- it all made much more sense.

What moved me to tears, though, wasn't necessarily the stories of struggle and recovery, because we have all fallen. What hit me hard was how sincere he was in telling those stories. Generally, you can tell when someone feeds you a bunch of bullshit while you just nod your head lightly and roll your eyes. This was straight from him heart. I started by scratching off the label to my beer bottle in some feeble attempt to keep composed but I just had to get up and head to the bathroom where I took some time to really think about the important things in life vs. what I assume to be important things. There is a difference.

The best thing about being in my 30's is having the same energy and drive as I did in my 20's but having it tempered with a lot more wisdom and compassion.