I’ve been busy, but I haven’t been busy writing. If you’re one of the many people that have continued to visit my blog over the last couple of months, you know this already. I have a million excuses I could share, but the prevailing reason I haven’t been writing is because I haven’t wanted to write about anything. The thousands of ideas I’ve had lined up against the million excuses and battled like Spartans and Persians. The ideas fought valiantly, but they couldn’t overcome the numbers, that darkness that poured over them from above.

The battles continue, and I’m starting to win. Some of the ideas that managed to retreat are even coming back to join our ranks—and we are strong. Our strength is in our lines; I will not send them off to die alone. I will secure their advance. So, for now, I push one clear message, a collage of ideas.

What have I been doing this whole time? Surely the Man of Many Hats has not been sitting idle.

You’re right, of course. I have kept myself very busy. After my friend Clay died, my desire to control my surroundings intensified. Every morning, I’ve woken up and immediately began pushing and stretching myself so that I can collapse into one big pile of horse and rider at the end of the day, hoping to get some real sleep that is untouched by loss and haunting visuals. That sleep hardly ever comes, but I’ve pressed on anyway. And I get stuff done. My new normal is starting to take shape.

Because I’ve been unable to write creatively (music, blog posts, poetry, checks—you name it), my other talents have gotten a lot more attention. The new girlfriend, who has been so wonderful and supportive through all of this, has been the beneficiary of a lot of this unrestrained energy. She even let me make her graduation announcements. It wasn’t a charge I took lightly, and the results show this. I couldn’t be more proud of how this turned out.

Nothing makes a man feel more like a man that being able to make his girl something she can use, and it’s even more of a testosterone booster when she shows it off and brags about it to her friends.

We drove through Texas this spring, and I made her let me take some pictures of her. Despite how gorgeous she is, she doesn't act like she is, so it took some convincing. I took these with my iPhone 5, so they didn’t start out great (besides having the perfect subject), but that’s why God invented Photoshop … And it turns out that I paid attention during my graphic design classes in college.

I added some convincing clouds, changed the lighting, and brought out the blues in the blue bonnets. For those of you who are fluent in Photoshop, you’re probably laughing right now, but I don’t do this shit for a living. I do this on a Sunday night, bat .750 at softball on a Monday night, and play live music somewhere on a Tuesday night. I don’t care about being the best—just being my best, and I do a helluva a job at that …

Being Clay’s friend was truly a gift. If you knew Clay, you knew the honest light that he was able to bring into any room and any conversation. He lived his life hard and completely unfiltered. Yes, his life was cut far too short, but he lived and loved more in his 27 years than most of us, if we’re lucky, will live in 60.

I use to imagine us all growing old together: He’d be there standing next to me (or close to me because picking my best man still isn’t a lock) at my wedding; we’d take our sons camping and teach them the ways of the woods; on Saturdays, we would tailgate before the MSU football games; and on weeknights we’d injure ourselves playing softball at the River—where he would somehow become the best hitter on the team … Okay, so that last one was pushing it. But, we would grow old gracefully and peacefully, reliving all of our old stories and reminiscing about how we got to where we are.

I didn’t know that that was this year. This was the year we would grow old together. This was the year we would share our last memories. One last everything. The stories we shared on our front porch are the only glory days I get to relive with him. All the fears and hopes we shared together are mine, now. And it’s crushingly lonely. He won’t be at my wedding, though I will wear his ashes around my neck, and I will have him. We won’t take our sons camping together. He won’t be there the next time I’m in a fight, either. And, we won’t get arrested for being drunk and disorderly at an MSU football game in our 50s. Maybe that last one is a bonus. Nah, I'll miss that, too.

It hurts. It’s not the normal type of hurt. I’m no stranger to pain or agony. When you live a life of love, you learn to lose because of the temporary nature of this beast we call life. But this—this is different. It’s more empty than what I’ve ever felt before. I can’t see the bottom, and my cries only return to me from the echo of the crumbling walls leading down. Down. Right now that is the only direction.

Sometimes the loss and my experience that night leads me tumbling, bouncing off the rocks only to feel the shock of something, something human—anything human. The numbness that comes from reaching terminal velocity is terrifying. The pain reminds me that I’m alive. I’m still here. And I’m not alone. I have support. I have a reason to snap out of this. And I do.

I won’t ever have Clay as a friend again, but I will always have him. I wear a different hat, now. I wear his hats: what he left for me, who he was. I don’t know what stories I will share in the future to show you what we are all missing; there are so many to choose from. I don’t know how I will ever live in his honor; there are too many ways to honor him. Do I try to be as strong as he was, both physically and spiritually? Do I write and perform more music? That may be hard. He knew all the words to my songs and would sing them around the house and at work. I still hear his voice in my head. Do I go hiking and loose myself in the love of Mother Nature? Do I even have the strength to do anything besides stabilize my life and hold on to everything I care about before it is ripped away from me? I know there is a message in all of this: a lesson to be learned. I will find it.

All in time. I need more time. We all need more time. We all want more time …

I can’t leave this alone without saying something positive and encouraging. During the chaos, a good friend of mine messaged me and told me this:

Live your life that way! People always say that actions speak louder than words. I say do both: tell of love and live in love. Grow old while you're still young. Regret nothing. Remember everything.

Clay would fucking kill me if I ever said, "Rest in peace" to him (that was never his style), so I say, "Keep kicking ass, Clayton Kent Stevens." I’ll be missing you.