Going, Going, Gone

 

Jamming for the first time after the injury

A few years ago, while fleeing the grind and driving over Homestake Pass, on my way to visit some weirdo friends near Wise River, I had an idea for a song. A song about living unconventionally, because you only get one life and you shouldn’t spend the whole thing working just to accumulate money. Typical themes for a mid-twenties kid living out of the back of his Tacoma. I called the song Going, Going, Gone. I promptly forgot about the song for a few years.

As one does, I soon found some stability. I would not ever call my life conventional, but there were hints of the normality that a younger me had planned to run away from. I found myself in a stable relationship and we made a smart financial plan to rid ourselves of the debt that sinks so many American ships. I started a construction company and worked six days a week, dragging myself out of the debt that I accrued for a college degree that I hardly use. 

I love building things, whether it is houses, furniture, fences, anything. I love being outside in all kinds of weather with a toolbelt and hammer drill, manipulating my environment on the whims of my creative mind. I love stepping back at the end of a day and seeing a physical manifestation of my invisible ideas. Throw in the happiness of those who commission these buildings and it is an utterly fulfilling way of life. 

But like all good things, a construction career is easily swayed by the need to make money. I am not good at setting limits on myself. Especially when chasing a financial goal like debt relief, I work until my body collapses. Another hour of work is another thirty dollars in the bank account. Too often, I would come down with a nasty illness because I refused to give my body a chance to rest. The short list of injuries sustained; a bum knee, an ruptured hip tendon, a chronically sprained ankle, carpal tunnel in both wrists. Then again, it is hard to argue with a bank account that is no longer in the red. It is hard to argue with the fact that we now have a paid for roof over our heads due to my construction work. But there are always more bills to pay, more jobs to bid, more excuses to keep working. You never know where the line is until you cross it and I eventually found the line.

Every time I hold up my left arm, whether it is to grab a plate off the shelf, or play a chord on my guitar or hold a trim board that I am about to tack into place, I see a three inch scar running diagonally across the inside of my wrist. Working late on a Sunday, a sixteen foot sheet of roofing metal fell across my left arm. Thanks to an amazing Missoula hand surgeon, I still have full use of my left hand. But an eighth of an inch is all that separated me from being unable to hold a guitar, or a hammer ever again. That’s how close I came to cutting all the tendons that operate my left hand. A quarter inch more and I might not be here at all. 

        Don’t wait until you are in a Life Flight helicopter to re-evaluate your life choices. As I flew over the high reaches of the Rock Creek drainage in the last light of the dying sun, I remembered my song Going, Going, Gone. Suddenly, there was a new meaning in my words from the past. I still work in construction because I love building things. I still work hard, chasing my dreams, but I take time every morning to watch the sunrise. I work shorter days and spend more time with my friends and family. I have taken up writing in the morning before work. Me and the band are playing gigs almost every weekend. Every time I start the opening chords of Going, Going, Gone, I look at the scar on my wrist and I am reminded of the things that are important to me beyond just working for a living.