Thursday 29 December
The soundtrack for today is:

Bon Jovi
31 December 1988
Tokyo Dome (“The Big Egg”)
Tokyo, Japan 
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

Full concert in audio, 80% pro-shot video.
Channel Rock Remastered has created the full concert, by slicing in the missing songs from bootleg recordings.

Only want the songs where we have video?
Try this one:
Bon Jovi | Live at Tokyo Dome | Pro Shot | Tokyo 1988/89
A new remastered audio and video production from the hAnD90 channel.

 

Let it (2023)rock! Let it (2022)go!

👩🏼‍💻 the story 29 December

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Oh dearest of dear.
To think that just this summer I thought I had to overtly celebrate my birthday, because otherwise I would forget this year;
I, should not have worried.

My 2022 will be far from forgotten.

It will be known in my personal history as the worst year I had, which is saying something because A.
In June I still believed it would be one of the BEST years.
And B.
Things have been pretty rough (for whom hasn’t it?!) since Covid, but I was already in a process of much needed reinvention and change, since 2018.
The month I knew how I would proceed, Covid hit. Which didn’t just delay what I wanted to do;
It changed the professional game entirely.
2022 was bad, after years that were already disappointing. 

My reasons for things not having panned out second half of 2022 are personal, coincidental, accidental.
And at the same time they seem to have been signs of something systemic and general as well, because I know more lives that were hit by 2022, than those that were helped.
Sometimes I think the year did little more than bringing to the surface what was already there.
It seemed the year of inevitabilities.
Of things falling apart.

Yet for me there still was that first half of 2022;
Six months that solidified my love for rock concerts, as well as brought me the sex life I knew was mine to have for as long as I can remember.
The sex life that called for me from far away, years and years ago. And I gave up everything for, when it was little more than a hunch.
But I feel I got it “nailed”.

The quotation marks should not have been there, because that is definitely the perfect word for the occasion.

And I will stick to it, and reject sex all the times it isn’t at that level, including the times when I, am not at that level.
Just like I don’t listen to any other bands than Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses.
Real deal only.

I m sure there are people with a broader taste in both sex and music, but for me it is really simple:
It only gets better, because every time you learn a little more. You move deeper into the relationship with yourself, with a partner, with music, with the band, every time.
Yet, the PASSION has to be there, from the beginning.

You may get to good sex, putting in the time and effort to know each other. Just like you can make any concert enjoyable if you get to know the artist, their albums, their background.
But neither will give you a great experience, unless there was passion to begin with.

With my writing too, when I wrote in 2022, I have experienced that same passion as with sex and with rock music.
My (creative) writing simply breaks through my to-do lists and my productivity ideals, because I don’t ever make time for writing.
“Write” is never on my list.

And in a way I think it’s a good thing, I let it come like this. It, the lust for writing or the thing, the idea that wants to be written down by me, needs to care enough to gather strength and build momentum to push through!

The writing only comes when it’s powerful enough to push away everything else on my plate.

By now you may wonder where I’m going with this post, why so many words on how poor I did – and without being very specific or catchy-
only to then commemorate everything that went so good in these obscure areas of sex, rock music and writing.
Again, without making it very applicable.

But it has taught me a lesson.

You see, the big difference between the two areas I totally lost in, in 2022 (and I could name them, but I won’t) and the areas of writing, rock music and sex, is really very simply.
Painfully obvious, with regard to what didn’t work.
And liberatingly obvious, in what did.

The things that didn’t work were when I played by other people’s rules. Where I tried to stay in my lane and do what was expected of me. 
There’s different ways to word it, but the most practical way of putting it is that I did not know how to GIVE my best self, my real work, the real ME, in those areas.

And so I gave what I thought what was expected of me, but it wasn’t enough. The puzzle never fit, and now the year has gone by and I have nothing to show for in those areas. And no one to show it to either.
It’s all gone, and I have to rebuild my life, in 2023.

But why?
Because the PASSION, wasn’t there.

If I learned anything this year, it is that there is a staggering difference between how I “do” in the areas I have a wild untamable passion for;
Versus when I don’t.

And that “almost”, “nearly”, “not that bad”, “difficult”, “challenging” , “necessary” or “worth it”? 
Make lousy bed partners.

So in 2023 I’m going to keep doing the things I have a passion for, even though (and in particular) if I have no idea how it will ever amount to anything.
I already have everything I can ask for, when something or someone is a place where I can give my highest work, my true self, the real me.
Where I can give, my passion.

And I m going to leave behind all the parts of my life, where I thought I had to be some lukewarm, half-dead, dried up version of myself.

Or as Jon Bon Jovi said, needing far less words than I did;

“Nothing is as important as passion.
No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.”

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Therefor 

31 december 1988, Tokyo, Japan🇯🇵
Bon Jovi – Live in Tokyo – 1988 (Full Concert)
is the soundtrack for today

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The show has been added to the playlist 
“Part II: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 6 Dec- and up (before 1997)”
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScbVI_oPZcf77OtrO_935JD
at 31 December.

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 ~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
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🇳🇱Tikkie van de week 

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