lyrically speaking

"If I hide myself wherever I go, am I ever really there?"

Call me cheesy, but there's just always been something emotionally charged about music for me. Song lyrics fulfill a literary longing in me that other, more high-minded folks get from poetry or the classics, perhaps. I have been brought to tears by a lyric more times than I can count, and I'm not just talking about my adolescent years spent singing with the requisite melancholy into my hairbrush. Just tonight, as I basked in the glory of household chores, the above lyric came through my earbuds, a lyric I had heard many, many times before as it's in one of my favorite songs by my favorite former band of five Canadians. But suddenly, those familiar words sounded new, like a revelation, and the tears formed before I could even fully process my thoughts.

I feel like I've been doing a whole lot of hiding myself lately, both intentionally and not. Without putting the dirty details out there, suffice it to say that I'm not in a happy place right now, and I don't feel at all like myself. I feel stuck and unproductive, like I'm losing my voice, but it doesn't really matter because I can't think of anything to say anyway. But the reality is, as much as I hate the overused phrase, it is what it is. The circumstances are not going to change, and I'm going to have to face the fact that I must do what I've never been any good at doing- make the best of the situation.

But where does that leave me? Am I ever really there? I don't know how to find myself right now, and that is pretty damn disconcerting. The me who I want to be isn't able to come out and play all that often now, and the me who I have to be just doesn't feel like me anymore.

Change takes time, I know this, and even more so, I know that I'm simply terrible at dealing with change. Right now, all I can do is hope that this feeling fades, and that I can soon feel that I am truly here. My fear is that it's years away, and that is an awfully long time to stay in hiding.


With a high cheese factor and a big old dash of melodrama,