Making Hits for Your Heart

Another day of recording John was sitting in his bed with the notebook Jamison had given him opened.

“She asked some difficult questions…” John thought to himself as he shifted through the notebook.

The questions were pretty open- with an infinite amount of ways to answer them. John felt a bit overwhelmed knowing there was so many ways he could go at the questions. The question he was trying to answer was:

Have you become what you had hoped to be? If not, what do you want to be?

John thought for a moment before he began writing.

I remember as a kid I wanted to be a baseball player when I grew up. I enjoyed playing it and thought I wouldn’t mind doing it all the time… it was as simple as that.

I never thought in a million years I would be where I am now—making music, making records, touring the world, meeting people from all walks of life, and making memories from these experiences with my best friends.

Kind of thankful for all these happy coincidences… or is it fate?

This is a dream come true… it wasn’t my initial dream but it’s has become my dream. I am living my dream.

I’m far from what I hope to become… sometimes, I want to become a monster-- someone constantly strives to explore and learn new things. I don’t want to be someone prepackaged or in a cookie cutter mold, that’s when things get a bit shady and I could possibly get my hands dirty and I don’t want that…

I don’t know if I’ve become a monster yet, I don’t have a clear plan about that-- just hopes and wishes… maybe things will change, I never know… things just happen and things change. I never planned to be who I am today; it’s just as a surprise to me as it is to anyone. But even if I do have a plan, it’ll be a secret from the world.

Monsters can have secrets too…

But other times, I just want to be happy… but I always wonder is anything ever enough? But these are a whole other slew of thoughts that aren’t enough for this prompt.

Despite living in a dream-- lately, I realize I am alone. But I'm not lonely.

Nevertheless at times, I wish I could wake up from this dream. Just for a little while…

But I don’t know why I want to.

John read over what he had just written and sighed to himself, wondering why he was feeling this way. He looked at his cellphone to check the time to see it was midnight. He flipped through the journal once more and decided to fill out one more entry before attempting to go to bed.

He looked through and found a topic he had been thinking a lot about—his family.

What is your family like?

He thought about the question before he began writing.

The O’Callaghan’s… we’ve been through our ups and downs. But at the end of the day we are a family and I love them with every piece of me—they’re apart of me. I wouldn’t exist without them.

Despite the fact I went down a different road than what my family had ever imagined for me… that I always try my best to have them be proud of the person that I was, that I am, and the person that I will be…

Lately, I have things I want to say to them… to thank them, to reminisce about the past, and everything in between. Even though I don’t have the words right now I always know that they have my back and I have theirs…

We have the same blood flowing through our veins-- we bleed the same blood.

And I would die for each and every one of them…

John dotted his final sentence and was about to close the journal. Before another thought came into his brain and he realized something. He quickly opened the journal again and spilled his thoughts onto the paper once more.

But I also have another family besides The O’Callaghan’s (that consist of my wonderful parents and two knucklehead brothers)…

I have my friends, my band/crew, and the fans… they’re also my family. Honestly, I spend time with this family more than I do with my other family. Which I am thankful for also despite it being kind of repetitive at times. Especially being with the band at close quarters all day, everyday, for long periods of time. We get into petty fights at times (usually while being heavily intoxicated) and go days without showers (so we all smell pretty horrible a lot of the time). But… I wouldn’t change any of that for the world. Especially meeting the fans… the last couple of years living on the road and meeting all the wonderful fans all over the world made me realize…

Home is in people, not places.

I’ve met a lot of amazing people on the road and made some lifelong friendships and no matter where we all are whether it’d be Arizona or Australia… I know whenever I come back to these people wherever or whenever that is. In this crazy world-- in this thing we call life. I know that we’re all in this together.

And that assures me that… I have the best families ever.

People are even lucky to have one family… I’ve got two.

John read over his entry and smiled to himself—despite feeling unbalanced. He always had his family… both of them.

By his side till the end…

And that had put things into perspective for him.

Suddenly he remembered the lyrics he had written about his family that he glazed over the other day in the studio. He quickly got his lyric journal and began writing—inspiration had hit. Something that hadn’t happened recently in a natural manner and here he was writing in the middle of that night depriving himself of sleep but... he was grateful.

He wrote...

Here's to this breath
And the one I hope we take next
It hurts to know
The hardest part
It hasn't come yet

And wrote...

We bleed the same blood
You and me
We bleed the same blood
The way that the river runs through
I bleed for you

And he meant every word of it...