Sunday night I found out that a touring brother of mine had died. I was shocked, for it was very unexpected. I also was like, well it happens. People die. It is very unreal. The next day, I went through my photos and now remember how much of my life I spent with this guy. We did The String Cheese Incident tour together in 2005. We went around the world with Natalie Cole together in 2007 and he even joined the Mraz tour for a bit last year. Plus all of the Sound Image shop time and local shows that we worked together in San Diego.

When you tour with someone, they become family. Day after day, night after night, city after city, you are together. There is no hiding who you are. You sleep in a bus with only a curtain closing off the space between you. You are fully exposed. You have no choice but to be real in that world. There is no hiding who you are. You become so exhausted that you no longer know what the definition of that word is, so you are operating at some crazy energizer bunny level. You eat what catering has to offer you. You don’t go home at the end of the day and unwind with your family or friends. You don’t watch your favorite shows and go to your favorite restaurant whenever you like. Your life is your work and your work is your life.

So, you build a new family on the road and when that tour is over, you move along and join yet another family, but you will always be connected to each of these families. You may not have much in common with the people that share your stage and your bus, but it doesn’t matter. Often on tours I was the only girl, the youngest person on the tour, and the only person that cared about putting healthy fuel into my body. I was surrounded by men, junkfood, cigarettes, video games, caffeinated beverages, and more. I did yoga outside of the bus before load-in, carefully matched my funky colored athletic shoes to my belts, drank green stuff, and loved all of those boys just the same.

I’m crying right now and I don’t know if it is even for him. Or if it is for all of us. All of us in this world who are not truly living each day. For everyone that spends most of their days dreaming about a vacation they have lined up for 6 months from now. Or daydreaming all day about the next time that they will see a certain person, but in the mean time ignoring all of the beautiful people that you are coming in contact with. This world has so much to offer us, day after day. It doesn’t matter where we are. If you are in the confines of a cubicle, if you are on a sales floor of the local mall, wherever you are, make this day yours. Make it what you want it to be. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

RIP ROB. THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF MY LIFE