Hello, you.
I have a few stories to tell you.
Tonight, I watched three different sets of people fall in love.
Or, back in love...
Interestingly enough, I used this evening as an opportunity to watch the crowd and educate myself about people.
I watched the first date infatuation and love. I watched a first kiss tonight and in the depths of me I felt so comforted by that. I felt the soft corners of the beginnings of love and it was fantastic.
I know those two are going to create something this year. I hope it's a phenomenal something that resonates in their lives. That they create a memory that lasts in their minds forever. That they find something in each other that makes sense and blossoms into a special part of who they are.
Love is such a sticky, messy, frustrating thing.
My second watching was of these two people in the Neighborhood Theatre who were... well, who knows. They seemed very intimate together.
She turned to him in the middle of a song (Shovels and Rope playing) and he looked at her and I was undone by the sparks. She loves him. He loves her. It was a beautiful, raw, honest feeling they shared. So incredibly beautiful.
That bleeding heart honesty.
I want to write stories about it.
I want them to write stories about it for their great grand children.
I want them to write letters and tell each other about the feelings they have for each other and put them in a shoebox. We will discover them when we should, but we want that story.
We want to hear about your adventures...
Regardless. Past the first stories.........
The third kind of love I saw tonight....
He conquered the "friend zone."
And, sometimes you don't want to pass that zone, I know that.
I have had the moment where I want to create something out of a prior relationship and I have been shut down due to my prior decisions. I've, almost, personally, ruined friendships by wanting more than a simple friendship. I have made that fault.
But, there was this moment. Where I, across the room, saw this man and this woman who had a connection.
And she made the move.
She kissed him!
He liked it too!
Life gets complicated, and often that isn't the answer, but I watched it turn out well.
They weren't just kindling a friendship, or an awkward love.... These two were past that.
They were in love.
They were writing each other love letters in their heads.
They were writing stories.
They were making movies in their heads.
They were beginning to create history.
Phenomenal.
I wish I had the words and the imagination and the ability to translate their story, their love, and their utter ability to let loose.
There isn't a perfect answer to how beer is let loose into the market; nor the perfect answer to tell the world how you sell beer...
...but there are a few beautiful opportunities where you get to share your experiences with each other and you get to change their lives the way that the first good bourbon you ever had did...
....the way that wheat whiskey warmed your throat.
.....the way you fell in love with the lifestyle our job gives us.
......the way we love whiskey.
Ultimately, I am so incredibly happy that you are part of my life.
Part of my story.
Part of me.
I love each and every one of you for that.
