"I give up, in the nicest way"
"The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than The Driver of The Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do" is my favorite album of all time.
This is my second time writing this issue. In the first draft, i talked about this specific topic being one of the reasons i decided to start my Newsletter. I just didn’t get to it earlier because i didn’t know how to approach it, and i still don’t!
I could talk about how this album was defining to me in a time where everything seemed dark, hollow and empty. I would explain my mental health journey and say i’m doing better but the truth is…i’m not. The behaviors that got me into that pit of self hate and despair are still very common in my life. I avoid my emotions by consuming a lot of media, my stubborn being still prefers to crash instead of learning how to say no, i’m still depressed and anxious! The biggest difference between the first low i ever hit (2020) and now is that i finally don’t care.
I’ve learned how to live knowing that i’m probably never going to find the stability i yearn for. I’m fine with that. I’ve found comfort in letting the guard down, letting people into my life without knowing what to expect from them, making mistakes and feeling. Expressing myself was always a big task for me, until i realized i could vent through my writing. I could scream, desire, hate, rage and hide through words.
Fiona once described this album in an interview as “giving up, in the nicest way” and i’ve understood more and more what she meant with each listen. Giving up is not a sign of weakness. Admitting that you failed after trying and trying is sometimes all you can do. Resilience gets often romanticized as just getting up from the worst situation you’ve ever lived and coming out successful and rewarded from it. As a matter of fact, not a lot of people manage to surpass or “get over” whichever trauma they’ve went through. When i talk about resilience, i think about waking up and getting through a day without feeling the need to end my life. I’ve not felt that in a long time! And even if i’m not happy, i’ve learned to just give up and enjoy what life has to offer. Even if it means suffering in the process.
This album is a journey but i am not going to analyze it today. I’d like to speak about how this project marked my life and still helps me get through rough times.
Control
Choices require conviction. Good choices at least. I’ve been wondering lately if i deserve to have control of my life. Sometimes i see the streak of horrible things that have happened to me and end up questioning if i’m really the best captain this ship could have.
I am a very religious person and for the longest time, i used to pray everyday asking Him to just take away my free will. I feel undeserving of the control i’ve been given. Even when it comes to smaller choices, my conscience drowns in guilt thanks to constructs i was once taught. So, no wonder these lines on Daredevil stick out to me:
The one thing i don’t really want is what makes me human. I lack the rationality to make the best choice. I get driven by my own emotions, by my body, by whichever i desire at any moment. I’m reckless and i’m stubborn, the worst two things someone could be! But i’ve slowly embraced those things that i cannot control, i’ve realized sometimes it’s not my fault. I’m taking little steps towards my biggest goal: Learning how to say no.
Isolation
“I don't wanna talk about
I don't wanna talk about anything”.
Opening up is hard, but interacting with people when i feel like shit is horrible for me. And the thing is, anything could trigger a bad feeling! Even just a compliment can make me overthink and get anxious in just minutes. Interacting with the world is all i’ve ever wanted to but fear ties me to the ground.
“I say to her, why'd I say it to her?
What does she think of me? That I'm not what I ought to be
That I'm what I try not to be, it's got to be somebody else's fault
I can't get caught”
I have to prepare myself mentally to go to very crowded places or events because i know my brain will be working 10 times faster than it usually is and i find shelter in my headphones every so often. Isolation is my choice because it’s safer. I have been challenging myself every 6 months by just putting myself in situations where i usually get uncomfortable so i can learn how to adapt. Sometimes i have fun, sometimes i get overwhelmed by loud noises, skin touching and suffocating spaces but if i don’t put myself in those scenarios, no else will. It’s my own responsibility to make myself uncomfortable. Growth doesn’t comes when you’re comfortable so i guess this is my way of “breaking the shell”!
“How can I ask anyone to love me
When all I do is beg to be left alone?”
Desire
For the longest time i thought i was not living. Living to me was freedom, loving and chasing your dreams. The pandemic taught me that sometimes restraint can save your life. I was miserable during this period, i hit a very low point that lead me into considering not living anymore. 18 years of my life i had been living in denial, oblivious to not only who i was but what i had been through. My trauma flourished as my dreams withered, i couldn’t bear the amount of feelings i had been escaping from since i was a kid!
My life was driven by desire. I went through a very rebellious phase but the only thing that came out from that was more pain. I wanted to experience “life”, i wanted to feel.
“I just wanna feel everything
I just wanna feel everything
I just wanna feel everything”
And you know what? After a year or so of therapy i was still making choices that opened the door for more trauma to enter my life. Every choice had one purpose: Wanting to experience something real…
“And there you got me, that's how you got me, you taught me to regret”
I’ve never fell in love, i’d never been desired or accepted. Not even by myself. I longed to feel that from another human. Someone kissing “life” into me.
As i’ve grown from my mistakes, i figured i had been living. All that time. I was so focused on making experiences and i ended up gaining a new weight in my back, filled with choices i shouldn’t have made or things that should’ve never happened. It’s infuriating that i had to go through all of that to finally understand that all of those experiences are useless. I had to go through that so i could understand you only learn how to live by living.
“After all, look around, it's happening, it's happening, it's happening now”
How was i going to find someone i love if i kept looking in the wrong places? How was i suppose to feel accepted if i didn’t do it myself?
I’ve reached a point of stopping that endless chase. I know things will come my way if i keep on living, you never know what life has prepared! I still pray a lot, as i said earlier, but i do not longer do it thinking about my future. If i even want a future i have to watch what i’m doing today. I shape up my own future, sometimes i have to remind myself of that.
“If what I am is what I am 'cause I does what I does”
Rage
Anger is often labeled as a “negative” emotion. Can emotions even be negative? Well, even if it was it still lives in me. When i walk through the street and see someone getting mistreated, when i get triggered about my past experiences with bullying, when i remind myself of my own choices.
“But now I ran out of white doves' feathers
To soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth
Every time you address me”
I roam through the world angry, helpless and frustrated. I was never taught how to explode. I accumulated all of that rage i lived with until i imploded. I still have regrets about not being able to fight back but with each try, i learned that’s not me. My parents pressured me into fighting back my bullies in school but the only moments when i felt comfortable doing it was while “playing”. I sneaked a hard punch through some games and got myself in trouble because of it…
Right now, i wish i could just scream at people and tell them how of a waste of oxygen they are but that anger is draining. I used to feel tired all the time because i didn’t have an outlet for those emotions. Even if i ranted on social media or spent my days fighting there, i understood that i was wasting my time.
“My ills are reticulate
My woes are granular
The ants weigh more than the elephants
Nothing, nothing is manageable”
Speaking is what gets me out of those insidious places. Once i express my thoughts, once i tell someone i’m angry at them and why, i feel free. It’s liberating to discuss and have an actual outcome from it.
And if i find myself wanting to fight, i do what i know best: Scream my lungs out to Fiona Apple!
“Say I'm an airplane and the gashes I got from my heartbreak
Make the slots and the flaps upon my wing, and I use them to give me a lift
Hip hip for the lift, hip hip for the drag, I want them all in my bag
Oh, give me anything, and I'll turn it into a gift”
Emptiness
After years of studying a major that did not fulfill me or interest me at all i began feeling empty. My daily routine became a prison to me. I tried to drop out at least 4 times but i’m in my senior year and as i contemplate my future, i wish i could say i feel any different.
“A fugitive too dull to flee
I'm amorous but out of reach
A still life drawing of a peach”
Everytime my classes come back i have to grasp to any thread of hope i can find. What keeps me going in the morning is that i’m very close to not having to do this anymore, but if i do get this degree in April 2024 (crossing fingers) what will keep me going? Which job i’ll be able to get that’ll make me feel fulfilled if i want to live from my art?
My best way to fight against this feeling is dreaming. I battle with those despairing thoughts by closing my eyes and imagining stories that could reflect a brighter future. I refuse to give up on who i want to be because i haven’t even tried. I’ve been writing for so long that i’ve got to a point of feeling comfortable with what i write, i’ve been learning how to sing and i am not at the point i want to get but i’m working to get there, i might not have written a book but at least i have 20 pages of one in my drafts right now. My present might be frustrating but that cannot define how i project myself as.
“And every single fight's alright with my brain, brain”.
And even if i don’t get to live from my art, just the pleasure of doing it might be enough to keep me satisfied. I don’t want to be successful or wealthy, my biggest aspiration is to be satisfied with who i am and what i’m doing. Living is not about results either way, it’s a journey that either you enjoy or waste working for something unreliable and ephemeral.
“Run it if you want
If you think it’s worth it
But not with me”
Hope
As i said in the beginning, i still struggle to keep myself sane everyday. And i don’t aspire to. Emotions come and go, i know my mental health is fragile but i’ll enjoy every moment. When i have to face terrible breakdowns at least i’m going to get a good poem out of it! I don’t know, hope is weird. Hope is an exercise, you have to maintain it and it’ll only grow if you’re constant. I am not a very disciplined person but i’ve found comfort in hope. It might transform into daydreaming sometimes but i still find myself smiling at the thought of meeting someone that’ll bright up my days, sharing with them my secrets and fears and even projecting a future beside them!
“He makes my heart a cinemascope screen
Showing a dancing bird of paradise”
My biggest dream is to love. To love who i am, who am with, what i’m doing… all of it. I yearn of playing Anything We Want at my wedding. But what i yearn for the most is to keep living. Every now and then those suicidal thoughts come back but i’m thankful for those who i love because they protect me with their presence.
“My heart's made of parts of all that surround me
And that's why the devil just can't get around me”
Largo by Fiona is the perfect representation of hope i could’ve asked for. When i’m with my friends i also question myself if i was ever alone, when i am with my family they also keep me from dying when i want to die but most of all, i’ve found my Largo in my dreams. What drives me everyday is knowing that someday i won’t get what i want, i’ll be graced with what i need.
I rely on God to not only take me where i want to go, but to lead me through a path where i can find peace, where i am loved and who knows? Maybe find the stability i’ve struggled to obtain.
“Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key”