When I was 19 I left everything I knew.
I drove to Nashville in the heat of a summer’s night. When I finally saw the city lights, it felt like my spirit shouting “hello” to me for the first time.
The first summer I spent in Nashville, I lived on a mattress that was my bedroom. It stood about 5 inches off the ground, and if I lied down on it too fast, my back would hit the ground beneath it and dust would mist out from the sides.
I lived in a cubicle-sized bedroom with a plastic wooden desk my friend and I dragged out of a dumpster. I knew two people in the city. I had no job, and after a few short weeks had reduced my savings down to -$13. My life fit inside a suitcase. I was free and after the second night in Nashville, I knew it was where I was supposed to start. It was where I first felt it acceptable to dream. It was the hope I had searched my teenage life exploring.
I was in love…
I traded in the comforts of Lexington—friends, girlfriend, and any semblance of reputation in the pursuit of this love. The love my heart had only heard as soft whispers from my soul. Some passion I began feeling was greater than me. I left it all to live out the dream I had so many times played out in my bedroom. Nights of playing for sold crowds in the form of clothes on my floor; playing until I passed out clutching the guitar to my chest.
Flash forward.
I graduated from Belmont University and was working valet downtown. The job allowed me to save up money so that in January of this year (2010), I was able to take my savings and start building on such a love. I play for a church which pays me for helping on the worship team, but other than that I had only faith and a small savings account to rely on. As of recently, the account has nearly run out and it is strictly faith I am relying on—it’s the only one of the two that has lasted.
To bet everything on a dream has been both the most terrifying and most rewarding things I’ve ever done. It feels like the dream I always have of flying; the one where I wake up in my bed every morning without wings. This has been my chance to keep dreaming.
“So, what are you doing right now?”
This question, often a crushing blow for my pride to answer. It’s hard during this “start up” stage in life. I’m young, and things I’m fighting for are still waking up for me. So, in trying to answer I usually stumble across a few things I’ve been up to. Nothing substantial. Nothing like what is resting on the inside of me.
When trying to live out dreams, at first the idea of it is all I have. Living in a city where “doing something” is as much a status symbol as anything else; I tend to get down on myself knowing right now I don’t have the elite job title. Unless you count the decimals, my bank account isn’t six-figures. My apartment doesn’t overlook the skyscrapers my life would like to wake up to. It’s just not there yet. But still I continue, because I am in love.
What I’m doing right now isn’t as important as who I’m becoming.
This is real life for me.
This is the season no one likes to talk about—but I have to get it out. This has to connect with someone, because it is the only way of life I know right now. This year has been the most humbling, and the most rewarding of any I’ve had. If nothing else, 2010 has taught me that life only really comes down to a few things. Faith, friendships, purpose, love… internal things that my spirit desires. My eyes are weak; because they change focus so quickly on the things it sees. I can’t trust them. But my heart knows what it feels, and seeks out truth to guide it.
So what am I fighting for?
Am I doing this for the love, or for my own glory? I’d like to think my life hasn’t amounted to something based on the recognition of others approving it. No, I stand firmly on the belief that whether I am at the bottom or top of this life, that the love of what I do will always overpower the things that come with it—good and bad.
The sad truth is that those who have more “things,” are only blinded fulfill desires. They have bought into the idea that by owning more you are becoming more, but often the opposite happens. Instead, in order to keep sanity, I have found loving something else more than myself has proven to be the love I now believe in.
My love is not my own.
It has been given to me to serve a greater good. To accomplish a greater victory. This life is a constant battle for me. On top of that, I’m constantly battling with myself. So to know that I’m doing it all for the right purpose, the true love, makes warpaths seem less combative.
To do something for the love of it is really the only reason I’m here at all.
-Jason O’Toole
(Source: memoir.jasonotoole.com)
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