Between the show and the encore, my mind tried to absorb the world that was changing around me. Somewhere across town my future was fighting with her future's past. I would glance over at my past; she was sitting at our table talking and joking with John, who would become her future. Phil was on stage playing his heart out in the last show in front of an audience that was becoming his past as he headed for Nashville. Beside me were Jason and Brian, who, despite living hundreds of miles away, were the only ones not going anywhere.

It was an exciting time, whether I realized it at the time or not. I think a part of me was there just to forget the doubts I was having about my future across town, the regrets about my past sitting across the room, and living, for once, in the present. It was hard to let go of what I once thought would never end, looking at someone I loved more than I was ever able to demonstrate.

I wondered what Phil's encore was going to be, hoping beyond hope it would be the song that he had never played in all the times that I had seen him perform. Stories had been past around that he would never play it for sentimental reasons because he attached it to a painful memory in his life. It was a shame, because it was one of the best songs in his arsenal. Finally, after his second and presumably last encore song, we were ready to go. That's when we heard the chords. It was the song. He was playing it at last. As a final goodbye to his fans, he finally played "The Encore."

It's a song about trying to hold on to what's passing you by. I couldn't help but look at Tanya, think of her parents that would never be my in-laws, and purge the memories of the life I had walked away from just five days before. I would hear Phil play the song again, nearly a year later, the last time I saw the girl across town that I had thought was my future before I walked away, yet again, under very different of circumstances.

Phil eventually came back. Tanya found the happiness she deserves with John. What was then my future disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Jason went back to Waco. Brian went back to Austin. I went back home. We all got on with our lives. Sometimes, there is no encore. Sometimes there shouldn't be.

"Why must it always be ending
always waiting for more
but I've got a cigarette lighter
and I'm waiting for the encore..."
-Phil Pritchett