Piranhas

Just as the actual fish are actually herbivores, the stats still aren’t in favour of 0% in as far as them eating flesh is concerned. 

I’ve been up for two hours thinking about the human psyche. How we have people we lean on and friends we use as sound boards. And sometimes, those friends end up using your strain as a way in to ruining your life at your most vulnerable. It’s not to say that you’re exactly guilty free of presenting yourself as a meal in front of them. But they’re just as, if not more twisted for even entertaining the thought of seeing you as someone they can change their palate without giving you the courtesy of warning you. Anyway why would those blood-thirsty wolves in sheep’s skin warm you?

Hindsight truly is 20/20 and my bad eyesight makes me appreciate hindsight even more because I’ve been in situations that have led me to being prey to palates that I didn’t think were “me-vorous”. Call it naivety, whatever. I have just had a history of trusting people I shouldn’t have and  ended up deep sea diving in the dog-box. These so-called friends who circle around you and cause unnecessary drama when you reach out to them for a shoulder to cry on are the reason why I’ve turned to being more reserved. You wouldn’t  think that your “help me” cry would lead to them helping themselves and working their way into your system. And why would you think that? Why should you even have to consider that people don’t have your back? That people are innately selfish and really don’t give a rat’s ass about you and your problems. You’d think that that would make me write a little more, but I’ve also been a victim of privacy invasion via pages of diary being shown to my dad, so I am not that great at trusting pages (nor screens) either. This is a story for another post when I can figure out a metaphor for it.

Anyway, this now feels like an open letter to bore myself because I can’t sleep and it’s almost 5AM and I’m thinking of piranha-friends and this upsets me.

Of Cuts And Stitches (part 3)

FUN. - SOME NIGHTS ALBUM COVER

I received this album whose cover appears above as a birthday present in June 2012 from one of my closest friends when I was deep in the throes of a depressive state. My everyday thoughts were of not wanting to live anymore and trying not to cry again and trying to fight to keep myself from killing myself. Every. Day. I don't think I have ever fought for my life as hard as I did in the first 6 months of that year. I've never not wanted to live more than I did then. It was so tiring and painful.

I felt alone and I just couldn't bring myself to talking to anyone who didn't understand the pain; hurt; regret; anger; shame and horror that was my PTSD. You know, sometimes you need to sit with people whose demons are just as monstrous and scary as the ones that cohabit with you...to feel like kindred spirits of sorts. Nobody understood that until I was presented with Nate Ruess and subsequently, fun.. I had never up until the moment I finished listening to "Some Nights" from beginning to end, felt more understood.

Three boys came together to save my life with songs that when you choose to just read their lyrics, would have you feeling all kinds of heartache in magnitudes you never thought were possible to feel. This album opened with a song that collided with my thought patterns, as though I had somehow managed to write an album while I was passed out (I didn't sleep - I passed out). "Some nights I say 'fuck it all!'/stare at the calendar/waiting for catastrophes, imagining they'd scare me/into changing whatever it is I am changing into.../and you have every right to be scared." And later in the intro: "There are some nights I wait for someone to save us/But I never look inward, try not to look upward/And some nights I pray a sign is gonna come to me/But usually, I'm just trying to get some sleep". *sigh* I found so much joy in the songs on "Some Nights", more so "Carry On":

“If you’re lost and alone

Or you’re sinking like a stone

Carry on

May your past be the sound

Of your feet upon the ground and

Carry on”

These lyrics are accompanied by the boisterous sounds of an electric guitar and drums with hints of an Irish harmonica and faint trumpets towards the end of the song, as though to further spur you on to get out of bed and just take it one day at a time. This was the most perfect gift. Almost like being gifted with a second chance at your own life.

I thought about this album today because I have been battling with the resurgence of the series of events that led up to my great depression of 2012: Another friend of mine (after having not hung out with him in almost two years), just suddenly brought up the topic last year, in a way of saying “you are one tough cookie” (he actually used these words LOL!)…for having gone through the trenches and come out barely showing scars. I however, have internal scars. Everything came back to me like an avalanche in that moment and I silently suffered from random panic attacks for weeks on end and I depended on him like a crutch (again) as I did when the fresh wounds of 2012 threatened to fester. I know for sure that it was not his intention to make me re-live those months but my mind just went ahead and took me there as though I was a body being dragged by a truck over a tar road like those “Newly Wed” tins.

It took me until today, when I listened to this album again after a very long time, to remember to let my past be the sound of my feet upon the ground and carry on. Maybe I’m giving too much power to the music but without it, I’m not sure that I’d have been here today.

I love this album and I am grateful for it and the person who gifted me with it. It was a gift for her too because she is the only one I allowed myself to unravel around. I sometimes tried to hold much of what was happening in me because I could see it was too much for her to handle. This album saved us. It continues to save me.

#MusicIsTheGemInI

*my thoughts have been all over the place because I haven't blogged in a very long time. I have since edited this post.

Living Young and Wild and Free

The chorus to the song below goes: "So what we get drunk?; so what we smoke weed?; we're just having fun; we don't care who sees. So what we go out? This is how it's s'pose to be: Living young and wild and free"

My last weekend lived up to this Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg track. I last saw my boys as a crew in 2007. I dunno what it is that kept me away from them for so long, but when we hooked up at one of their hotels out in Walkerville; twas as though we hadn't spent a week apart. For reasons I have no interest in getting into, I have been a little anxious about being around too many people at private parties. Seeing these boys living life as though they had no problems or responsibilities for just 72 hours made me realise just how couped up in my head I had been in the last 6 weeks.

I am young; have a little bit of a wild side that's nowhere ready to be tamed and I'd like to feel free, and comfortable and unguarded when I'm out celebrating my youth and independence.

I'm just happy I got some of "me" back within less than 24 hours.

Don't Do Drugs. They'll proper eff you up!