:: prologue ::
Running Out Of Days
And all these little things in life
They all create this haze
There’s too many things to get done
And I’m running out of days
Running Out Of Days – 3 Doors Down
My
life was never meant to turn out this way.
Growing up, my brothers and I were closer than close. Some referred to us as just our names, all run together – Isaac-Taylor-Zac. Our parents called us the Three Musketeers – Isaac was Athos, Zac was Porthos, and I was Aramis. But we called ourselves the Three Amigos, a reference to one of our favourite movies. We were so certain that nothing could tear us apart.
But then all the bullshit with the label happened. Record executives who didn’t give a toss about us or our music pulling us in all directions, songwriters who didn’t understand us making us go from pillar to post, and every demo we submitted considered to not be good enough. Nothing we did was ever good enough for them.
I’d always thought that if one of us was ever going to snap, it would be Zac – famously short-tempered, the lowest tolerance for bullshit I’d ever seen in another human being, and the only one of the three of us who had never fully adjusted to being famous. The only one who barely coped with millions of people knowing his name.
But in the end, I was the one who broke. And like a coward, I ran.
That was fifteen years ago. Fifteen years since I fled the bright lights of the Emerald City in favour of a new life on the other side of the country. I went to university, graduated with a degree in music composition and technology, and worked my way up from producing music for local indie artists and short films to running my own production company with a few of my friends from uni. I fell in love with one of my uni classmates and asked her to marry me. But at the same time, I forgot the one thing that most people would consider intrinsic to their entire existence.
I forgot who I was.
If not for the world-shattering news I was given a week and a half ago, I would have kept right on forgetting. I would have let the world keep on forgetting about me. But I guess the universe had other plans.
I don’t expect to be forgiven. I don’t expect to be welcomed back. And I definitely don’t expect anyone to forget what I did a decade and a half ago – that I abandoned my family, my bandmates and my career. And nor do I want them to. I just want them to know how sorry I am, and that if I could fix everything I would do it in a heartbeat.
I just hope that it’s not too late.
Growing up, my brothers and I were closer than close. Some referred to us as just our names, all run together – Isaac-Taylor-Zac. Our parents called us the Three Musketeers – Isaac was Athos, Zac was Porthos, and I was Aramis. But we called ourselves the Three Amigos, a reference to one of our favourite movies. We were so certain that nothing could tear us apart.
But then all the bullshit with the label happened. Record executives who didn’t give a toss about us or our music pulling us in all directions, songwriters who didn’t understand us making us go from pillar to post, and every demo we submitted considered to not be good enough. Nothing we did was ever good enough for them.
I’d always thought that if one of us was ever going to snap, it would be Zac – famously short-tempered, the lowest tolerance for bullshit I’d ever seen in another human being, and the only one of the three of us who had never fully adjusted to being famous. The only one who barely coped with millions of people knowing his name.
But in the end, I was the one who broke. And like a coward, I ran.
That was fifteen years ago. Fifteen years since I fled the bright lights of the Emerald City in favour of a new life on the other side of the country. I went to university, graduated with a degree in music composition and technology, and worked my way up from producing music for local indie artists and short films to running my own production company with a few of my friends from uni. I fell in love with one of my uni classmates and asked her to marry me. But at the same time, I forgot the one thing that most people would consider intrinsic to their entire existence.
I forgot who I was.
If not for the world-shattering news I was given a week and a half ago, I would have kept right on forgetting. I would have let the world keep on forgetting about me. But I guess the universe had other plans.
I don’t expect to be forgiven. I don’t expect to be welcomed back. And I definitely don’t expect anyone to forget what I did a decade and a half ago – that I abandoned my family, my bandmates and my career. And nor do I want them to. I just want them to know how sorry I am, and that if I could fix everything I would do it in a heartbeat.
I just hope that it’s not too late.