Ordinary.

I had no idea tour would be this hard.

I'm learning to value time with people more than I do sleep.

I'm learning to focus more on what people are saying rather than what I will say next.

I'm learning that I can push myself a lot more than I originally thought.

I'm learning that you don't always have to pretend that life is fairy tale romantic. And that there is beauty in the rough days..the moments when no one really has anything interesting to say..beauty in realizing that I'm extraordinarily ordinary.

I'm learning to embrace my love of cheap buffets. The fact that not everyone is going to love my music. The fact that I often don't know where I'm going with what I'm saying. The fact that sometimes I fail.

But of all the things I've learned, this is what I most love:

We spend almost every night in a different house. We have met so many incredible people. But by the world's standards, they are completely ordinary.

Last night we stayed in an old couple's house. They have lived in the same low income neighborhood outside Houston for 30 years. They have had pretty boring jobs inside the oil business. Their house is decorated with trinkets you would find at any garage sale. Pretty boring..pretty ordinary. They can't offer you important social connections, and they can't offer you extravagant gifts.

But their stories are incredible. Their lives have been so rich. They told us about the young people they have taken into their home. Young people whose parents had abandoned them. They loved on them. They offered them a safe home, with biscuits at breakfast and a comfortable place to sleep. They have had near death experiences that blew my mind. As the old man told the tale of an 8,000 pound piece of machinery that nearly crushed him he said, with a laugh, "that didn't feel too good." He was so light-hearted, and he had such a refreshing spirit about him. He and his wife had a strength about them that is so rare. They had wall upon wall of photos of the people in their lives. They shared countless stories with us about the friends and family on the walls.

This morning I sat around the table with this couple, their friend Tom, and my roadie family. We ate sausage, bacon, eggs, biscuits, campfire potatoes (so good), and...steak. They prepared a feast of a breakfast for us. The 7 of us crowded around a small table for 4.

It has been so heavily impressed upon me that we so often want to be known. We want to be known by the world. We want to make a name for ourselves. We want to be noted as someone of special success. We want to have remarkable experiences and impress people with our adventures and well-roundedness.

As we have traveled from house to house, I have learned the stories of people the world considers small. I have seen the way they impact the people around them. I know that this impact reaches so much farther than these people can know. I love seeing how content people are in so many different towns..in these Texas/New Mexico towns where most everything is just so ordinary. But completely extraordinary. And so beautiful. It makes me so much more content as I look ahead and to the future. It has given me such a new perspective on what it means to live a full life.