People like us get so heavy and so lost sometimes/So lost and so heavy that the bottom is the only place we can find

one should always try to be sorrowful rather than depressing. i am mourning the death of the future i thought i would have. hopefully you can join me in the realization that we are still here, we are still holding so much life. for now. i do not want to live in the past and everything looks so bleak now, but there is so much left to dig up and create.

You get dragged down, down to the same spot enough times in a row/The bottom begins to feel like the only safe place that you know/But you know what?

one of my best friends was venting tonight about how he would be far from his misery if he lived a calm, blue-collar life. he has realized he never felt a strong desire to touch the clouds and now that his accomplishments fill the mold of the stereotypical success with branches of outsiders’ pressure, he would kill to work at a movie theater, coffee shop, a supermarket, get home at seven pm and live his own life until the next morning. midway through the conversation, i sent a verse from fetch the bolt cutters just because it resonated with what he was saying.

i know we all are still relatively young, out of college, living in a once (twice for us!) in a generation financial crisis, bla bla bla. cannot wait for the 2020 adam mckay movie where taylor swift will have a fourth wall-breaking cameo to explain how those republikkkan senators profited off the pandemic. but we are still humans. we are still are sensitive beings. there is only so much we can bare at the same time. most of us were not even happy in january!

I spread like strawberries (I spread like strawberries)/I climb like peas and beans (I climb like peas and beans)/I’ve been sucking it in so long/That I’m busting at the seams.

i could not make my friend feel better because i absolutely agree with him. recently, marisa asked me about some of my dreams. it was the first time in a while i actively thought about them rather than running on a dreamy subconscious machine. after considering all my feelings and how my future crashed down like a zeppelin, i wrote that i believe i am actually living my dream. my ambitions are a different conversation though. i’ve always wanted to have nothing but time for myself, in complete isolation and solitude. it is the first time in my life i do not have a routine that numbs me down enough to not face all the demons that creep on my mind every day. it has also been very painful and often has me wailing for solace, but i cherish every moment. i have learned that i am by no means alone in this rodeo and there are probably old, dead souls laughing at my attempts for Answers. i told my friend about this little club called despair and how i think we all are living in it but some are more numb to it than others. so it’s normal and even healthy to feel this way, it tells you you’re not conforming with the mediocrity of reality, it’s a reaction to the human condition. and millions of people have lived through it. but he said that after his friends of all levels and family react to his success in different and positive ways, he knows that i am the only one who will say “it’s more than understandable” rather than guilt tripping into indulging in his false notions of accomplishments. because of course i would not trade places with him, under any circumstance.

but then what? i know this will end soon, as i told marisa. these past few months have been equally painful as insightful and wonderful, and i would not wish this pain upon anyone (outside of those who probably deserve even worse). i have to face myself every time i keep waking up alive and i grew up used to numb it down by being a ranty contrarian, who years later ended up being right. the present is probably the most emotional i have ever been since i was a baby. the vessel i have become does not give me any breaks. i told my friend there is plenty of soul food in consuming what those who went through similar stages did with their art. you see new perspectives that even when fictional or artistic, have strong roots in a dreadful reality. there are even plenty of contemporary artists doing it right now.

this vessel for everything that goes through my eyes and ears feels everything so much. i mentioned fetch the bolt cutters because instead of channeling her inner Elliott Smith, trying to write like Paul Simon and sound like Fleet Foxes, or traveling back in time, Fiona Apple rejected all pop expectations the world has for renowned songwriters like her and released the most honest and revolutionary album of the last few years. and it’s all about destroying whatever it is that is chaining us, just like she did. she tells us to join her in this act of freedom, but only after taking a good look in the mirror until we can no longer lie to ourselves.

and i feel like we should be able to feel everything that passes to us rather than repressing it just to act like wage laborers. there is no reason to follow the dreams our parents implanted us, listen to the expectations others and capitalism have from us, live through the eyes of everyone around us. we are fucked already, why let these crooks turn us into clowns? these are not revolutionary or newfound ideas. it’s a blueprint that has existed throughout generations. we only have to add our own twist.

i am glad to know i am not losing my mind.