The unthinkable has happened. On Wednesday night, I finished all the mixes for the album. 6 tracks, 24 minutes. If We Were. I sent it out for mastering the following morning. (I can't believe how much it costs to overnight a package to California!!)
I'm not sure how to feel about it. About no longer being driven by this singular creative purpose, this "gotta finish, gotta finish" that has thump thumped in my head every day for so long. I don't know what to do next. Next week, I'll be on vacation, and for the first time, I'm not sure what to do. I've got a whole ton of Someday/Maybe projects that have been aching for their chance, but I'm not sure how to decide.
There's still work to be done though. There are still plenty of decisions to be made before the album art goes out next week - what photo to use, what paper stock, which lyrics to cut to fit into the packaging. But I have a great designer working on that stuff; this is no longer my baby.
And ultimately, that's the hardest and most wonderful part about being done. The loss of control. Now it's up to the mastering engineer, the designer, the distributors, and ultimately, you listeners. I've opened up my grip on this thing. It's out of my hands. It's done.