Damn…

Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright, 65, dies of cancer

Pink Floyd founder Richard Wright died today at his home in England. He was 65.

A spokesman for the band confirmed that Wright had been battling cancer, the AP reports.

…

Wright wrote and sang some of the band’s most memorable songs, such as "The Great Gig in the Sky," and "Us and Them" on the 1973 album "The Dark Side of the Moon."

Dark Side of the Moon was pretty much the sound track to my college years.  I was a young gay man, just off his first serious heartbreak, headed toward an even bigger, much more disasterous one, still trying to make sense of the world, still believing I could find my creative place in it, find my soulmate, and unleash all the creative potential inside of me.  I still believed that everything was possible to me creatively.  But…it wasn’t…  Not without that once missing piece in my heart…

Breathe, breathe in the air
Don’t be afraid to care
Leave, but don’t leave me
Look around
Choose your own ground

Long you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be 

And especially…

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. 

I swore when I first heard those lyrics that I’d never let that happen to me.  And somehow…I did…