I’ve just realised.
My last post, that described how self-deprecation seems to’ve become my identity, spent its entirety – being self-deprecating.
Kinda funny!
Another sort of hilarious feature of that post is that, in it, I wrote that I thought “only fifty” of my poems would be worthy of print. I mean I really could’ve been a tad more self-deprecating when it came to that estimation!
Anyway.
I think that post did cover some some of important things for me. It summarised this feeling I was having of being confronted with a lot of what’s been lost, within the specific terms of my values and habits, in the years since my accident.
Looking back, I see that before the accident, even though life hadn’t been easy, my mindset was one defined by gratitude, but since, it’s been one defined by bitterness. I’ve held onto that bitterness. It’s been easy enough to ignore both platitudes and thoughtful words offered by some who’ve tried to encourage me to let go of this bitterness. What I think The Saint has done, be it unintentionally, is through his actual example, he’s stuck two fingers up at the bitterness, and revealed it for how petty it is. He’s not preaching. He just does his own thing. But by doing his own thing, he kind of forces me to see how I fight for something worthless, in the way I seem to fight to hold on to so much emotional baggage. There’s a line in Stephen King’s ‘Pet Sematary’ that I think explains this need to hold on to pain perfectly. I can’t remember the passage the line is from, so can’t confirm I’m quoting it exactly, but it goes something like:
“When it stops hurting, it stops mattering”
I haven’t been letting go because I haven’t wanted the person I’d been before to stop mattering to me. I haven’t wanted to forget her.
I must try to tell The Saint about how his example has helped me realise this. He, unlike many people I’ve known, at least doesn’t seem weirded out when I tell him what I find to be genuinely admirable about him. Even though, unlike him, others haven’t been total strangers, and others haven’t had to endure lengthy monologues when I’ve told them what I admire about them!
I was thinking about my fascination with him. I’d compare it to the fascination I’ve had for artists and philosophers I’ve admired. I admire them for their work and then want to know everything about them. I admire his devotion to his craft and it’s turned into the same thing. Be it first via me allowing myself to create some idea of him in my head to fall in love with. But it’s good to feel I can talk with him now. I feel like he’s someone who inspires me to be better. And his uniqueness makes me smile! He must find it hard to believe I suffer from depression given all the looney-tune smiling I can’t seem to stop doing when I’m around him!
Will end this post with an effort to be less self-deprecating!
I am genuinely excited about a lot of the tracks I want to share this year. I do feel very proud of a not insignificant number of them. Especially of ‘You’, ‘Society’, ‘The End’, ‘Hard Cell’ and ‘The Beat’. I’ll try to do better to get back to focusing on my music. I’ve not spent as much time on music as I would’ve preferred so far this year. I know that time spent on my music will help me to feel less lost, more hopeful, and better about myself. I know that music is the medicine I need most.
LYNA GALLIARA 