Sacrifices

I'm finding out that my priorities are changing more and more as I get older.  Sometimes, I look back at how I was in my past, and realize how intensely selfish I was.  To be honest, I'm probably still pretty selfish.  When I was married, I truly felt like I gave 100% to my family.  I worked my ass off, and gave up a lot of stuff.  One thing was always off limits though, and that was my guitars and music stuff.

I held onto that with some sort of strange stubborn passion.  I wouldn't let my wife touch my guitars, or my kids.  They were mine.  They were the one thing that was off limits.  They were my babies.  My basses and guitars had been my passion and portal into music, creativity, and life for so many years.  So many memories were associated with them.  It was a part of my past that I just refused to give up.  It was like they were my connection to youth.  When I first separated from my Wife, I left with nothing.  I suppose that isn't entirely true.  I left with some clothes in my car, and my guitars.  Short of my kids, who I couldn't really take with me at the time, they were the only things in the world that I cared about.  Sounds pretty silly.

When I was going through the divorce, I ended up having to sell one of my basses so that I could pay off my lawyer.  That was really hard for me.  I hated doing it, but life happened and lawyers aren't cheap.  I had to do what I had to do. 

Recently, I sold my other bass.  Not completely out of necessity though.  I had not really touched the thing much since I had bought it back in 2008.  It was a 6 string Ibanez bass, and to be quite honest, I didn't really enjoy playing it all that much.  I wanted to try out playing a 6-string bass, but ended up not liking it.  After planning out my budget for the summer, I decided that I would rather sell it and perhaps use the money to buy a mountain bike and kayak if I could find ones that I liked.  Selling the bass wasn't hard either.  I posted it on KSL.com and within 1/2 an hour, it was sold.  When it came time for the guy to come pick it up, I got a little sad about it though.  Not because I loved that particular bass, but because it was the last bass I owned.  Watching it go out the door was like watching a part of myself die off, and then I wasn't sad anymore.  I know that not too far down the road I'll be able get another one.  t What was more exciting to me than getting a mountain bike or a kayak though, was having some extra cash so that I could go guy Preslie a new wardrobe.  That kid keeps growing and growing, and has had a pretty big growth spurt this last year.  She has seriously grown out of ALL of her clothes. 

I wanted her to have nice new clothes, more than I wanted those other things.  The majority of the time when Preslie is dropped off by her Mother, I've noticed that she is wearing hand me downs.  Things that I remember buying her sisters years and years ago when we were still married.  That isn't the worst thing in the world.  I know that a lot of families simply can't afford to buy the newest or nicest clothes for their kids, and hand-me-downs are normal.  For whatever reason though, this seemed important to me.  My job as her parent is to make sure that she is well taken care of.  I want her to have the best, and to spoil her.  As long as she doesn't start acting spoiled, I think that is perfectly fine.  I am certainly OK with going without certain things if it will make things better for my Daughter.  Life is good, and I am thankful for the opportunity and ability to do so.

:)