Crawling

The darkness inside my head is so absolute right now, it’s difficult to identify the light.

Please don’t assume that I will take the “copycat” option, because I won’t, I can’t. 

But right now…I can’t say that it hasn’t crossed my mind once or twice.

I’ve thought about the subject of suicide for the majority of the last 2 days, since hearing about Chester over the radio. 

I’ve been locked in a cycle of numbness, shock, deep depression and tears, and something approaching normalcy- which is the mask I have to wear out in public and for work, so I can keep my job.

But, alone…my brain is stuck in a cycle of horrific awfulness, sadness over the loss I feel because of Chester’s death; it’s an overwhelming void inside.

Only one person in my life really gets how I feel about this band, these people who belong to this group, Linkin Park – my Beloved Nephew. Because he feels the same way about them. He knows, because he’s been through some of the same type of shit, and has had the same type of reactions to their music.

How the music gets under your skin, inside your head, and takes you someplace else. Telling you that it’s completely OK to feel angry, to BE angry, and to USE that anger to fuel yourself, to use it in your fight to make it past your demons, to surround yourself with all the emotions you feel, both good and bad, To wear them like a GODDAMN CAPE and USE THEM to pull yourself out of the black.

It’s OK. I don’t expect anyone else to get it.  Music is subjective, it’s art, and not everyone is going to feel the same about the artists others enjoy. 

And given what I remember and have experienced of grief, I know that loss takes time to work through. 

(Insert psychobabble logic here)

But, fuck.

It hurts.

It hurts so goddamn much.

And the only one I can reach out to who understands is hundreds of miles away.

So I go through this alone.

Fuck.

Crawling in my skin
These wounds they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

There’s something inside me
That pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self control I fear
Is never ending, controlling

I can’t seem to find myself again
My walls are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence)
(I’m convinced that there’s)
(Just too much pressure to take)
I’ve felt this way before so insecure

-except from Crawling, by Linkin Park

Songbird

Chester.

I wanted to write about this last night, but couldn’t. It was raw, & I’m not sure if I could’ve even written a coherent sentence without breaking down.

I still feel like an open wound.

As though a friend died.

And I know, some might not understand, they might say…”But you didn’t know him, he was just another celebrity, blah, blah, blah…”

Not to me.

Chester has never been just another celebrity, or just a singer to me.

Linkin Park has never been just a band, and their music has never been just anything to me.

Pts. Of Authority was the first video, the first song of theirs I ever heard or saw, on MTV, back when they actually still played real videos. 

I immediately fell in love with their style & their heart. Mike’s ability to rap his anger, his frustration & his Alpha status, Chester’s cracked-glass screams and his plaintive cry to the audience to hear his heart and his pain…they understood what was inside my head at any given moment. As though they were snooping through my daily emotions, and my nighttime dreams & nightmares, they seemed so in tune, so in synch with exactly how I felt.

Hybrid Theory, Meteora, The Hunting Party, all these CDs have given me outlets for my emotions in one way or another.

Their music has gotten me through some of the darkest, most awful, deepest depressions of my life.

2007 saw Minutes to Midnight come out…and in 2009, my best friend/soul sister passed away.  Her nickname? Midnite. She passed, literally…minutes…before midnight… And Linkin Park was there for me with Leave Out All The Rest. (which to this day, I still have difficulty listening to without losing my shit)

Their album, A Thousand Suns, released in 2010, was the music that got me through my divorce in 2011. I listened nonstop to that CD, playing it over and over…screaming and crying through the lyrics.

Living Things came out the year after, in 2012, and helped me work through the pain of starting over, post-divorce. It helped me work through being, once again, a single mom, trying to make my own way in the worlds of parenting, dating, and handling emotional baggage.

And… This year’s One More Light…breaks my heart…and mends it…and breaks it again…over and over.

The song, Heavy, so exactly describes what it’s like having anxiety, it makes me wonder, again, whether the guys have set up cameras inside my head.

Good Goodbye… Is just brilliant. Both song & video. Although, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to watch any of the videos for a while that have Chester in them. Not without breaking down.

But…Sharp Edges…wins. Hands down, my favorite song on the album. I love them all, I really do. But that one – for some reason, just grabbed me by the heart & won’t let go.

Just like Linkin Park did all those years ago with Pts. Of Authority.

Just like Chester did with his cracked-glass pain-filled cry.

Just like Mike did with his Alpha rapping and his smooth synchronous singing.

I never got to see them in concert.

It might sound selfish, but to me, it tears a hole in my heart every time I think about that fact. I will never see them all together in concert. And the tears start again.

I hope the band does decide to stay together. I do. Someday…I hope to be able to see them in concert, even if it’s with someone else singing the other lead. But I know that’s not the top concern on the guys’ minds right now.

My heart goes out to them, and to Chester’s family. Their pain is immeasurable right now, I’m sure. 

As a fan who loved his music, and as someone who feels as though she’s lost a friend… I leave you with this:

Songbird on my window, 

Please sing a song for me

As I sit here crying

I’ll join the harmony

Songbird the end is nearing

I hear it, I am not wrong

You’ve flown, my eyes are tearing,

Songbird, please…

Just one last song….

Insomniac Ramblings

Sometimes I think I think too hard.

I worry, I overthink, I analyze, I pick-apart.  I try to break conversations down to their smallest components, searching for hidden messages and meanings, never just taking things at face value.

I love words.  I string them together in the same manner as a child stringing buttons for simple amusement.  Watching the play of light on the colors as they fall together, listening to the clinking sound they make when you shake the string.  I take them back apart, not happy with the purple round button next to the green square button.  They don’t work, so off comes the whole strand, to start again.

It’s the same with the words.  I write them out, and when seen all together, I listen to the sound they make in my head as they would if someone were speaking.  If the music is pretty in my head, they stay.  If it clangs, discordant, they’re discarded and ground under as fertilizer.

But, sometimes, in the middle of the night, when my mood’s been low, or I’m busy avoiding something…. words can be my worst enemy.

Today started out wonderfully.  My mood from the previous night had lifted.  I was good to go, to start my day.  I was happy at work, joking with my co-workers, and being my normal snarky self.

Until — family drama insinuated itself.  Then, the rest of the day fell at my feet like shattered crystal.  I won’t get into specifics here, because, as I said above – I’m avoiding it.

I’m good at avoidance.

I should have majored in it at college, but I wouldn’t have made any of my classes.

I was taught how to avoid difficult emotional issues by a master, and I learned my lessons well.  Everything is seen through a smoke screen, and when the really tough stuff comes up – SLAM the door – hard enough to rattle the windows.  Run the other way.

And then, I can’t sleep. 

Because, even though I’m avoiding – it’s still there, in the back of my brain, gnawing.

It can hear its little mousy feet scritching and pattering along the walls of my skull.

In daylight, I can’t hear it so well.  The diversions and distractions of the outside world are enough that it blocks the sound of the worry, the stress and anxiety going on in the back of my head.  But, as soon as there’s a quiet moment… the tiny sound of  clawed feet.

And, instead of medicating it, I wallow. Yeah, something I need to work on.  There’s a part of me that welcomes this wallowing as familiar.  The emo-teenager that still lives within my skin loves the drama of it all.  The adult?  Thinks it’s stupid.  Just DEAL WITH IT, ALREADY.  Tell that family member what’s really bothering you.  Get it through your mind, out of your mouth, off your chest.  Just be honest, you’ll feel better.

And then I want to scream.  Knowing that the other person won’t listen, doesn’t want to hear it – she’s the one that installed the damn program in the first place!  Avoid, Avoid!  Danger, Will Robinson!

Crap.  I don’t want to whine about this anymore.  *waving hands in front of my face*

Forget it.  I wasn’t here, you didn’t see this.  Moving on. 

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning.  Do you know where your insomniacs are?

YouTube.

WARNING:  These guys swear a lot – and they’re LOUD But they know how to string the beads. (This is not the official video, but I love the kid at the beginning.)

i LOVE THEM.

 

True Confessions

So, I’m pretty much out of go-juice right now.  The snot monster has won, taken my brains hostage, and I am having trouble stringing useable sentences together.

Don’t ask me to comprehend….. please? 

So, it’s time to play True Confessions:

1.  I have never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show all the way through.  I get the campiness, I love Tim Curry, but every time it comes on, I start to fidget – and find something else to do to distract me.  Maybe it’s Meatloaf’s fault?

2.  I cry at stupid things – like songs.  Katy Perry’s “Firework” gets to me, almost every time.  As well as Linkin Park’s “Leave Out All The Rest”, and Queen’s “The Days of Our Lives”.  There are others, but those are the man ones.  Don’t ask why, didn’t I say I can’t brain today?  Obviously, since I’m spilling all my embarrassing secrets… 😦

3.  I hate doing things just because people all clamor to do them, or see them.  If there’s a meme out there going, and I see that everyone is doing it – I won’t.  I just won’t.  I’ve successfully avoided ever seeing the Old Spice dude in the shower.  I hate reposting those “If you have a husband/brother/sister/child that you absolutely love/hate/loathe/are proud of then REPOST THIS LIKE A MILLION FRICKIN TIMES, OR OBVIOUSLY YOU DON’T LOVE YOUR LOVED ONE.”

You want to bet?  I just don’t like following the herd, and I hate having people tell me what to do when, especially on social media networks.  If I feel like posting something, then I’ll damn well do it my own way – when I’m good and ready.

4.  I was a holy terror as a kid – or so I’m told.  I was a snot to my best friend’s cousin when I was little, growing up in Iowa.  I think it was mostly because I was jealous. *shrug*  I apologized when she told me about it years later – but to this day, I still don’t remember telling her that she couldn’t play Barbies with us.

And one more, just to round out the list for today: (and because I can’t think of anything else)

5.   I get really uncomfortable when people compliment me – for anything.  I don’t know why, not really.  Probably something to do with my childhood. *shrug*  I never really know what to say when someone says something nice to me.  I usually go for a “Thanks, but…” and say something self-deprecating to make myself feel better about the compliment. Ok, that didn’t come out right… but the truth is in there, somewhere.  So if my responses to anyone’s nice words came out sounding lame, I’m sorry, I just really have trouble taking compliments.  I love you for saying them, I just have self-esteem issues.  Please, don’t think I don’t mean the Thank you.  I sincerely do. 

Ok, so enough for the True Confessions!  Ack.  Time to take something for this fever and hallucination, and think about what I’m going to write for the blog tomorrow…..