My Elvis Presley Blog

Born about 75 years ago

It seems bizarre to say “happy birthday” to a man who is 33 years dead so I won’t.  But I will say Happy Anniversary to me as today marks 3 years since I fell head over heels in love with you.  Not one day goes by when I don’t think of you several times during the day, listen to your voice and feel those old butterflies in my stomach. 

When I first fell in love with you, it was with the Elvis on stage.  The one whose voice was sexier then warmed up massage oil.  The man whose moves on stage still make me laugh at the sheer audacity and sexual charge they contained.  The man whose smile always seem to indicate that you had a secret that no one else knew.  Then I started devouring every book I could find on you and now, 3 years later, more then 2 dozen books read and with a ton of research about the man that was Elvis, I love you more today then I did even then when your voice first thrilled me back in 2007. 

I know your warts, I know your lunacy. I know your vulnerabilities and I know your occasional bouts of meanness and paranoia.  I also know of your love for all women and your adoration for your fans. I know your generous heart and your deep seeded insecurities. I know all about your huge ego, your vanity and your desperate need to be loved.  Your fear of obscurity and public shaming. I know all this by reading between the lines of what other people say and write, by listening to you singing as well as recordings of you speaking.  Your sense of humor was phenomenal and if my impossible dream could be realized, I know that you and I would split a gut laughing together.  Women who loved you refuse to speak of it.  A precious gem that cannot be shared without soiling so it is kept locked away in a very special place in their hearts under lock and key.  That tells me volumes more then any books could about what kind of man you really were.   

Elvis, I know now that you were never meant to reach your 75th birthday or your 50th.  You couldn’t have dealt with the pitfalls that come with aging and you lived life more fully in your 42 years then most of us will have in 82 years.  You were here as a bright and shining star that was tragically destined to burn itself out.  But while you were here, you shone your light on each of us and our lives were changed forever.

And you changed our lives so much.  You brought us rock and roll music that finally allowed white and black people to find a common path that they could share.  You liberated women to allow themselves to show sexual desires and needs.  You gave us permission to dance like no one was watching. To sing like no one was listening.  To pray, like somebody was.  You gave us everything you had and left nothing on the table.

I love you and miss you so much Elvis. Each birthday we mark, I cry for missing you. Each anniversary of your passing, I cry for missing you.  But thank God you left so much of yourself here with us. Sometimes, like last week when you changed my mp3 player to that particular song that I had been just speaking of the day before, I feel you close by. Once in awhile, I close my eyes and you’re standing right in front of me. I can feel your presence, I smell your essence. I know that my thinking of you so deeply attracts your spirit to me and so I will go on dwelling on your face, your song and your spirit.

With deep abiding love…