Groundhog Day came early for me this year. I was born on The Day The Music Died.
On February 3rd, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper's plane crashed. Later, Don MacLean wrote the song "American Pie", inspired by the event.
In the movie "Groundhog Day", Bill Murray endlessly wakes up to the same day over and over again, his alarm clock always playing Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe".
For me, it's "American Pie". I don't hear it every year on my birthday. But a lot. This year, I heard it a few days ago, but it instantly transported me to that eternal day.
Every day we wake up. Each day seems different, but often it's not. An entire life looks like a single day: come slowly out of the fog, get ready, start working, take a break. Back to work, quit and relax, lose consciousness.
If the days repeat almost indistinguishably, maybe the lives do too – not reincarnation necessarily, but maybe everyone's experience overlaps more than we think. We all put clothes on every day, but we can't possibly remember every time we tie our shoes. We all bite our cheeks, forget what we went in the other room for, wake up on a cold gray morning and stare out the window a long time before remembering what happened yesterday.
Regardless. There's two skills to master: the short game, and the long one. I work to get better each day I repeatedly wake up to, and also the single arc of future days, getting fainter as it stretches into the distance.
If we knew how long we had, we could balance the two perfectly, but it doesn't work that way. The person who gets a terminal diagnosis puts their affairs in order. The person who passes in a plane crash leaves everything undone. What if you didn't have to balance?
Spoiler: In "Groundhog Day", Bill Murray first goes nuts with boredom and confinement. Then he becomes a hedonist and indulges all his worldly desires. Finally, he turns to others. In learning how to become the life of the party and how to interact with the townspeople, he learns how to accept, how to love, and be loved. And then he's finally at peace.
Someone said, live every day, not like your last, but like everybody else's. If it was that person's last day, how would you treat them differently, would you forgive them more easily, go out of your way to make something easier? We have to balance first taking care of ourselves, so we can then care for others.
I haven't put out any music or writing for a while, but it doesn't mean I'm not working on it. I just have to try different paths, different balances. I'm learning how to be at peace, and still be the life of the party.
To me, that's love. That's the day I want to wake up to endlessly.
Groundhog Birthday.