Edna Mode said in The Incredibles to, “never look back, darling - it distracts from the now.” And while I think that is sound advice, I have been thinking over my past often in the last few months. I feel I’m at a crossroads in life and want to learn from my past, and also never forget who I’ve been.
When you have an anxious trauma-brain, it can be super easy to look at the past and only see the negative. And while my aim is to always bring positivity and hope to all spaces - especially online spaces -, I feel like I want to share what I’ve learned when it comes to relational loss/rejection/pain. I don’t necessarily have a solution to the circumstances I’ve been through, especially since they put me through my own levels of debilitating emotional pain which I am still growing through. Also, I believe that pain is super relative and I am teaching myself to look at my pain with compassion, not minimization, judgement, or feelings of guilt. We experience what we experience how we experience it and I’ve found the only healthy response is growing through it, slowly and surely. And never, in my relation of my truth, do I intend to project hopelessness or hatred. Only hope, love, and solutions if possible. One last point and then I’ll get to the meat: I share all of this in a semi-public format because my childhood was full of people who either minimized my experience, never listened to and honored my truth, or had little to no personal relationship with me when it was their vocation to do so. As a result, I have always felt embarrassment at sharing my personal experiences with my corner of the world. I have gone through years of self-imposed silence because messaging I received when I was young taught me that very few outside my immediate family really wanted to hear it. I was a people-pleaser and my truth was not pleasing, so I kept silent. By sharing what I’ve learned from my experiences, I hope it encourages silenced individuals to speak up in their individual ways, to share what they’ve been told no one wants to deal with, to speak when they’ve kept it all back. I believe that is the ultimate bravery and I honor those of you who speak your truth. Thank you. And now, the meat: I don’t know about you, but one of the things that defined my young adulthood was folks I loved leaving my life, often under traumatic circumstances and without closure. Between my early teenhood and now, quite a few prolonged, formative relationships in my life broke apart and left my heart destroyed. I remember rejection and betrayal from friends I cared for with all my heart, boys who lied and made me question if I could love again, mentor figures who left me high and dry when I needed their help, close relationships that were not what I hoped... and I feel the power of these memories like it all happened yesterday. I often wonder if it’s just the way things are - if your youth, teenhood, twenties are meant to be a slew of misunderstandings, losses, unrequited love in various forms, and nights crying alone in the car. Is life supposed to be a pandemic of hurt people hurting people, with no solution? I ask myself, the universe, my mother, that if all these relationships meant something and if I gave them my all, why did I lose them? I construct karmic structures and expectations for my behavior, in hopes that I can obliterate any chance of future heartbreak. I guilt-trip myself, thinking of all the minute ways I could have been better, and maybe they wouldn’t have left. My fears of abandonment take over and I begin to believe that I am destined for loss, after loss, after heart-crushing loss. Sometimes, I start to believe I’m too weak to sustain anything meaningful in this world. But then a softer voice, with no anger, blame, or panic reminds me that yes...
We all experience the pain of losing ones we love, sometimes without justification or a satisfactory resolution to the situation. And sometimes, we need to learn the hard way how to protect our love and give it judiciously, not willy-nilly with the hopes that it will work this time. Sometimes, I feel like a bit of a veteran when it comes to heartbreak. I get a little bitter, grow a little chip on my shoulder, walk around in the world lonely, expecting anything good to end in a busted soul and tears rolling down my face. Sometimes, I start to think the cynicism makes me stronger. Sometimes, I think the lone wolf lifestyle looks good on me. But sometimes, I sit crying over something that happened years ago, and I know that lone-wolfing it doesn’t suit me, that learning to love and being loved in return is my bread and butter, that I need to hold onto hope even though my past sometimes seems to be telling me otherwise. And at that point, the only solution to my heart breaking apart in my hands is to remember that none of it was for nothing, that the wholehearted love I always try to bring to my relationships has absolutely resulted in ones that have lasted and deepened, and that there is hope for the future because of that. I remember that heartbreaking situations teach me more about human nature, about how to hold my own heart through disappointment, and about how to be stronger for the next time. I never know if everything will be alright, but I have some assurance that it’ll all be good, somehow. Thank you for reading; much love. X
0 Comments
This song "Lament" was created in about two hours' time on a highly caffeinated Sunday night and is part of an overarching series of electronic music I'm working on called "Out of Heaven."
My initial inspiration for the series is that I want to create an apocalyptic soundtrack/scape for what I imagine the Judeo-Christian narrative of the battle in heaven and its fallout would look like. Since the fall of humanity is part of that fallout, the theme also encompasses earthly battles as well and I spent the whole time making this track imagining battle sequences from my favorite films. I designed "Lament" to sound both industrial with its heavy drumbeat and heavenly with the choral and string voices that progress through the piece. This track went through several iterations before I called it done and the childlike voice that closes out the track was my favorite accident. I think it sounds like mourning over the loss of life in the battle, but also hope that the world can someday be better. A human voice has so much power to it and I think this electronic likeness gives credence to that - I get goosebumps every time I listen to the ending. I hope you enjoy listening to this track and I am excited to share more with you. Until next time. X |
Archives
March 2024
Categories |