true story

I was trying to get out of hosting Music Bingo tonight. My stomach was hurting, I'm depressed as hell, I'm exhausted, and I wanted a night off. No luck, so I took a cat nap. To no surprise, I woke up feeling worse. I fixed myself some dinner, took a quick shower and headed to my gig. I'm no stranger to "performing" or being "on" when I would rather be doing anything else, so I did my usual trick- deep breath, slap on a smile, practice my emoting voice, and game on.

Busy crowd tonight. I recognize that hosting Bingo isn't climbing Mt. Everest, but it is a skill to let your personality leak through to an audience when you don't even feel like yourself. Anyway, I was going through the motions, giving out gift cards, joking around with the kids who always sit in front of the stage, whatever. I went to the bar in between rounds, and one of the employees came up to ask me how I was doing. This man has been so kind to me since the day I started working here. He is considerate, funny, and always makes a point to say hello. Anyway, I said "I'm alright, how are you?" and he said "I'm eh." I said "same."

He then said "I found out my Mom has cancer." He explained what she was going through, and that she was getting test results on Friday. I could see him trying not to cry. He told me that he can handle anything- hard days at work, shit going on in his personal life, a bad day, but his Mom dealing with that was something that he was struggling with. "I don't care what happens to me, but I care what happens to her." I asked if she lived nearby and he said she did, so he was doing his best to take care of her, while also trying hard not to show her how torn up he was about it.

I don't feel the need to fill in the blanks of this story. Truthfully, I'm bad with names so I don't know his name, but every week he is a ray of sunshine even when I am not in the mood. Please pray for his family. I then went outside, had a little cry, took a deep breath and went back inside for round two of music bingo. Suddenly, the children in the front weren't annoying me and I was able to joke around with them. I was able to tell fun facts about the songs I was playing. I was engaging with the audience in a sincere way, and I was once again reminded that human connection is King. Life is too short, man. As my favorite underground band says- "all you need is love." ♡

xo, BG