This week (June 11-15) was the second part of my trip outside of the festival week--the week after the festival. My purpose for staying this far after the festival was that I wanted to experience Nashville outside of the festival and see what it's like on a normal week. I also wanted to use it to accomplish some things with songwriting. Now being home and having experienced it, I'd say I accomplished both of those goals.
I don't know if this was a perfectly accurate example of a typical week in Nashville, but if it was, then Nashville is a pretty cool place to be. It's obviously not as busy as during the festival, and not all the bars are busy at all times on all the nights, but they were still pretty busy and stayed open til after 2am. There was still great music and good times and familiar faces.
In terms of songwriting, I didn't accomplish a ton this week, but I was fine with that. What I did do was go to a one-on-one mentoring session at NSAI, and meet a few more songwriters and industry people and hand out a few more business cards. I was going to also go to the weekly workshop at NSAI, but I ended up deciding not to go.
Now for the concluding remarks about my trip....
This was a wonderful trip. I had lots of fun and got to experience lots of great things and see and hear some great music. There were some points, just like I normally experience in my life, where I got a bit down or unhappy. This was (and usually is) mostly because I was lonely and not receiving the attention and affection that I desire from girls, or because I like a girl and feel (based somewhat on assumption) that she is not interested in me as more than a friend. This negativity and loneliness gets fueled a lot with the kind of lifestyle I live (on this trip and at home) where I'm at bars all the time and seeing all these attractive girls, some of whom I'm friends with, and seeing them giving affection to other guys, leaving me wishing I was them [the guys] and feeling like I have no chance with them [the girls].
Ok, back to the positive. This trip really was predominantly positive. And the biggest reason for this is the amazing people I met and became friends with. I've talked about it extensively, and it really was the headline of my trip. I was so fortunate to meet Bob, Wendy, Caitlin and Todd a couple nights into my trip, and from there be invited and continually introduced to more people in their group of friends. There's a lot of them, and every one of them was so nice, inviting, friendly, and welcoming to me. From what I've heard, it sounds like they really like me and enjoyed meeting me. They were so generous and took care of me and really showed it. Was their kindness at all motivated by pity, sympathy or charity (motives I always worry about when people are extraordinarily nice to me and which I strongly dislike and hope against)? I don't know (and like with anyone else I feel like I can't blame them if they were, and I'm sure they had pure motives regardless). But I'm going to choose to assume this was not the case, and assume instead that they are just extraordinarily nice and kind people. Again, from what I've heard, they really liked me and felt that I was a really nice guy. So I'm going to go off of that.
I'm very thankful for their kindness and friendship, and I plan on telling them so (and have done so a bit already). I really enjoyed hanging out with them literally almost every day, and look forward to doing so again in the future. They changed my trip and gave it a whole new shape and outcome. I spent much less time going to concerts and seeing all the live music during the festival than I originally planned, largely because I enjoyed hanging out with them and didn't want to leave them. It may sound a bit like a waste (financially at least), but the trip kinda ended up consisting less of me spending time involved in the festival, and more of me just hanging out and going out with these friends and drinking and stuff with them (albeit I'm sure more often than they usually go out). But like I said before about skipping most of the stadium concerts during the festival, I don't regret my decision and the way I spent my time. I'm sure I could and would have had fun on this trip if I had spent more time around the music or if I hadn't met them. But I think I had more fun with them. I would've been doing the music stuff largely by myself, and here, for one of the few times in my life recently, I (at least somewhat) realized and chose the companionship and fun of hanging out with people, instead of solitarily participating in interests I have. It may be worth noting that a significant part of my desire to hang out with these friends is that I view them as cool and popular and attractive (especially the girls), qualities that I tend to gravitate toward, perhaps because of my own insecurity and self-consciousness due to my appearance. But I don't want to knock them by saying this. Although I may have had somewhat self-serving motives for hanging out with them, they are all really nice and good and generous people, and treated me so well, for which I am so thankful.
So in the end, my trip consisted less of a typical CMA Fest experience, and more just going out and hanging with and making friends, which I found to be very fun. We'll see, maybe next year I'll sell my tickets for the stadium show and the Fan Fair Hall (unless maybe I have someone coming with me) and just go to the free shows and hang out with my friends. But as far as this year's trip, it was amazing, and I'm so glad to have so many new friends.
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