it's two a.m. on christmas morning, i'm rippin' down the highways of west texas, scared shitless i'm going to hit a deer...again. but nonetheless after a week of friends, laughs, stories, solitude, hiking, snow and thousands and thousands of miles my heart is full and i'm ready to rest. from my truck stereo comes that howlin' harmonica, that weathered voice; dylan.
i was raised on dylan and i'll probably die with dylan, just as my father did. an album of his greatest hits playing as background music at the funeral. "everybody must get stoned", wildly inappropriate, but oh so good. hell, my youngest sister even has the lyrics to forever young tattooed on her shoulder as a reminder of him, and the words he taught us to live by.
i'll never forget hopping in my car after shoveling dirt on his casket. surrounded by tears i turn the key, my radio already tuned to the local classic rock station, "it ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe...don't think twice, it's all right." dylan. grief and sorrow all around me, but true to myself i couldn't help but smile.
there it was, words i needed to hear as a sixteen year old who just buried his father. "don't think twice, it's all right." if ever there was a moment in my life that i believed in god this was it. a sign from something, someone, somewhere. it put all my fears to rest, gave me hope and restored my faith that at the end of it all, it's all right.
two thousand and fourteen has been a year of change, growth and discovery; not just for myself, but my friends and family as well. hardships and triumphs, i'd like to think we are all going into this new year a little stronger and a little wiser.
if there is one thing that my father taught me that was reinforced this year it is to stay humble. success, failure, love and loss; events don't define you, how you react and respond to them is what makes you. i'd like to think i've been nothing but humble and gracious through everything that has been thrown my way this year, but that's probably not up to me to decide.
so here's to a new year full of nothing but love and truths and staying humble. and of course not thinking twice because it's all right.