I’m overwhelmed when I think about how much music has been made and will be made in the future.

This becomes especially true when I think about how much music has affected me throughout various time-frames in my life and how certain songs get embedded with people.

I told a friend via email this morning that I think I want to start a list of the albums that really fit my life at one point or another. Mostly so I don’t forget them.

This album right here is one I haven’t given a listen in probably a decade+ until I saw a beautiful boxed vinyl set of it. I owned this album twice I loved it so much. First on cassette and then on CD.

I dig finding new music to feel connected to, but there is something at home and comfortable in revisiting the stuff that I obsessively listened to long, long ago.

“the smell of hospitals in winter” is a lyric I wish I didn’t feel so akin to. I can feel that one in my bones.

I keep saying to myself ‘you need to write again’. ‘You need an outlet or you’re going to break’. Yet, the words falter every time I try. There’s such a sludge of things blocking my ability to articulate. There’s also the knowledge that I’ve gained over time that words have power and if I don’t wield them carefully they will betray me.

What I feel in a moment of passion, be that anger or joy, defies the reality behind those feelings. Haven’t been very astute at expressing either of those things in years. Everything has a haze and it seems to build the more I build a wall around myself. I’ve lost track of who I’ve built this wall to protect anymore. I thought it was everyone else, but maybe it’s really been me all along.

All the things that have been hard that I don’t talk about. That or worse, joke about in attempt to dull the depth of the pain that actually comes with them.

Everything boils down to the same jester I’ve always claimed. Human Eeyore at her best. Never wanting to be a bother, but eternally grateful for any thought or attention granted. Sometimes at her detriment. Always wanting to see eye to eye with another, to make a connection. Twist and shake in the bits that fit, glimpse the real when it’s safe. Close the door again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Assured that the dead would be insulted by mourning or sadness, Dia de los Muertos celebrates the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties, and activities the dead enjoyed in life. Dia de los Muertos recognizes death as a natural part of the human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood, and growing up to become a contributing member of the community. On Dia de los Muertos, the dead are also a part of the community, awakened from their eternal sleep to share celebrations with their loved ones. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/dia-de-los-muertos/

If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.

The days you came, the days you left, they’ll never stop being celebrated as long as I breathe.

I’m not one to shout any accomplishment I make or even acknowledge that I’ve attempted to do something but…this one feels worth saying something about.

I quit smoking 10 years ago today.

Driving in to work this morning reminded me of the one change in my body that has made the frustration in the process worth it – my voice. I can sing again like I did in choir as a kid. I’m not great, but just that I can do it is enough. There’s always been a stupid hidden power for me in singing to myself in my car, alone in my house, but don’t ever ask me to sing in front of people. Not gonna happen no matter how often I’ve daydreamed about being a badass frontwoman.

I joked in my usual way in an Instagram post this morning that it’s nice to have a reminder now and again that I am capable of change when I actually try.

That’s the kicker though isn’t it? You actually have to try.

You know how us Catholic girls can be
We make up for so much time a little too late
I never forgot it, confusing as it was
No fun with no guilt feelings
The sinners, the saviors, the lover-less priests
I’ll see you next Sunday

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

I sang Alleluia in the choir
I confessed my darkest deeds to an envious man
My brothers they never went blind for what they did
But I may as well have
In the name of the Father, the Skeptic and the Son
I had one more stupid question

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

What I learned I rejected but I believe again
I will suffer the consequence of this inquisition
If I jump in this fountain, will I be forgiven

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

We all had delusions in our head
We all had our minds made up for us
We had to believe in something
So we did

~ Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill – Forgiven

I’m having a week. Thankfully with J @ B’s for the weekend and the fantastic understanding human that is my best friend I am spending this weekend as a hermit to process and try to re-charge myself for the weeks to come.

There have been moments this week where observation has left me really hurting in a way I haven’t felt in a while. I think I’ve spent a good portion of the past four years a bit numbed to everything as a survival mechanism and I’m trying really hard to let myself feel things. The hard thing in that is that I don’t just want to feel them and let them lie there…I feel like I need to SAY something instead of just letting things build to my inevitable volcano that’s become my trademark.

I’m not even sure where to start, because actually being completely real about what I have going on in my sphere rolls into places that are not mine to share. Gone are those days of LJ where I would just spill and apologize for it later (or never). I can say this much, I am feeling some shit and I don’t really know what to do with it. I’m conflicted in a number of ways, enough that I write sentences here and decide not to move forward with them because it still admits too much and I just can’t do it. Not out of fear, but out of empathy.

I’ve spent a lot of time today dicking around the house but also considering where I am, where and who I’ve come from, who I’ve become and who I want to be. Existential crisis? Probably, but TBH I’m probably overdue for this type of shit.

Maybe that’s what’s driving me to want to learn tarot again. Something to give me focus other than on my own insecurities and inevitabilities that I’ll have to face. Trying so hard not to think about the people I’ve disappointed this week, or annoyed just by existing. Feeling the exact things I’ve dreaded coming to fruition.

Think I’ll try to study some of my tarot book before I call it a night. Maybe one more round of Monster Prom.

Things remain generally awful in that ‘I wish I could take this away for these people I love, but I can’t so I’ll just love them’ kind of way.

In these times, my brain shifts to weird ‘leave your mark, say your piece’ type project ideas. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a brush with someone else’s mortality, fuck if I know. Maybe it’s because it’s easier to say the things to people/about people that you love in a roundabout art way than actually just saying ‘hey man, I love you’ or ‘this is why this stupid inanimate object means so much to me’.

So, projects.

I’ve been telling myself since we bought the house that I should put all my most prized items in a fire/waterproof safe of some kind. Most people would assume such a container would be saved for important papers and things with monetary value. Mine? Aside from some assumed paperwork I have notes, pictures, trinkets and concert tickets that need to be preserved. Those are my prized possessions, above all others the last card I got from my grandmother. These are priceless commodities to this heart. Much as I want to make that shadow box for Aaron, I’m more tempted to put his belongings right in there as well. Squirrel away all the things that once touched a loved one or emotionally touched me.

Part of putting those things away is documenting what they are, how I got them, and why they are important enough to be placed there i the first place.

The other project is not so tangible, but still worth it I think. Hardwick talked on one of the Nerdist casts eons ago about a playlist project he started for himself many years ago and still does. Each New Year’s Day he creates a new playlist and adds to it through the year songs that he found that year that he enjoyed or songs he listened to in general that year that triggered an emotional or memorial response.

I’d like to take that project with my own little spin and make friendlists. Playlists with tunes specifically tailored about or for my homies. They’ll probably end up with more songs than could go on a mixed CD, but fuck it. Someday maybe I’ll share them with them, maybe not.

These have been your random ass thoughts from the resident redhead who’s at hopefully the tail end of a cold and feeling like she needs to channel her nostalgic ass into some sort of tangible result.

I’m aggravated that I can’t remember the name of that song right now. You played it for us one night when the back room was still yours. Ballad of Hollis Brown? Was that it? I can’t remember, but I want to listen to it. I need the notes, something to cling to besides blips of memory. What was that fucking song…?

I hate this. The complete and utter helplessness, uselessness. Wish it could be mine instead. Surprised it’s not mine instead. Weird fucking twist of fate that seems like cosmic dark humor that far surpasses my own. Fate, as always, you’re a raging cunt.

Judgement could fall this family as so little in some people’s eyes but they are so great in mine. A chaotic maelstrom of human emotion constantly holding each other up and keeping each other afloat. Their own little solar system. So much love in that house. So lucky to have it extended to me when I needed it. How often I ran there as a refuge from whatever battle I was waging. How often you accepted me at your doorstep without question (maybe with a dirty joke re: your son, but not so much question).

I’ve always loved the scars in people. The “flaws”. Good people always have a checkered story. Very few really interesting people have squeaky clean floorboards.

I remember going to pick you up in Ann Arbor from treatment. Wish I remembered it more for whatever conversation we had on the way back than I do the moments on our return. Although, I’m not even sure that I remember that afternoon correctly anyway. So many moments jumble into memories turned fuzzy around the edges.

I won’t romanticize you anymore than we do Aaron or I do my Grams. The real person is more than enough to love, I don’t need or want the heroic fairy tale variations people like to eulogize.

Simply, thank you. Thank you for your kindness, candor, and way of being. Thank you for giving me a father figure that doesn’t suck.

What now, don’t know, just wish I could take the burdens off your kid’s shoulders. However, that’s a battle we’ve been waging for way longer than this. Giving is his path; we’re just trying to make sure the destination isn’t a steep cliff. Keep an eye on him from the stars, sure you will, in one way or another.

I fight my battles in the shadows most people step on
A walking stride replaced with a dodge, parry, roll
Answer the questions with just enough to give someone a glimpse
See if they’ll take the bait and ask for another taste, a deeper embrace
Let’s dance with the shadows you and I

You and I

You and Me

I miss you two most desperately

Tomorrow starts my rather belated Winter-een-mas vacation. Usually I take a break between Christmas and New Years from work to not only take in all the festivities of the season with family and friends but to reboot my introverted self back into some semblance of wanting to deal with other humans for another year without going into hermit mode.

With the multitude of things going on in my sphere as of late I struggle greatly with carving out the space I used to have where creativity seemed to blossom, even just for a moment. When a spark hits my nerves and I want to write again, something else inevitably requires the attention that such endeavors deserve.

What I hope for in this week off aside from the rejuvenation I so dire find myself in want of is to rekindle some bit of this part of myself again. Be it here, in actual written form, or just something besides the drivel that seems to escape my lips day to day. I’ll take it.

Where there is desire there will always be a flame.

Sometimes someone else’s words are just better…

http://kiricallaghan.com/tw-suicide