Sometimes I feel like a manager…..putting the chairs away in a cavernous hall, repairing all the damage caused “post-performance”.
Of course, I co-manage this whole deal.
In fact, I don’t even think that I’m the main manager of this organization.
I may be the road manager or something….the sanitation engineer….the chief mechanic.
I don’t know.
But….the show seems to be going on all around me….all the time….and it’s a “band” of rock stars with more demands than just the old cliché about “only brown M&M’s.
All these “clients by default”…..these little rock stars.
It’s funny how parents become the support crew.
It would be pretty sad if they couldn’t rise to that role, though.
So we become managers…..facilitators…..but when all of the crowds have gone away, and the rock stars are asleep, and all is quiet…..sometimes we take to the stage when everyone else has retreated…..and “turn on the microphones and plug in the guitars….and rock out”.
Who would have thought the managers could do that?
Who thought the managers were anything other than a vehicle for the “other ones” to shine.
What child understands that the parents have a life, too?
I didn’t….I was too busy trying to expand….trying to stretch out and figure out just what I was and could be.
That’s the secret parents carry with them….as they watch from the wings of the stage, they think, “I remember how that felt. Now look at them go…..”
That’s their secret….all the living parents carry with them….watching the little guys turn into big guys…watching them have their own lives….but, remembering that they have a bunch of living under their belts, too….remembering that everything that led up to this time is just as important as the things their children are going through.
And the thing that started it all was a shy sideways glance.
That’s pretty wild.
Who sees any of a life hurtling towards us?
Who thought we’d be “managers” someday?
Here’s a new Martin Sexton song….from his new album “Mixtape of the Open Road”.
Martin Sexton….so good.
“You (My MInd is Woo)” Martin Sexton