Ugh. I feel tainted. Moody. It feels like no one likes me. For the first time in a very long time, I feel alone.

I just started three different entries, but didn’t finish any of them. I’m not even in the mood to write this. I’m just sitting here with the lights out, two Candellas perched on top of my desk, and the first volume of Buddha Bar resounding in the room. My head is numb, my throat dry, my cat uninterested.

This has become so bland. The same things over and over again. Where did my humour go? When did things stop changing? Maybe I need a break from this.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish this tomorrow. This is just a mood. I’ll explain when I’m not as tired. I’ll go to bed with this music on, dreaming of quaint European architecture and parties I could host to this sound.

Maybe I’ll feel better when I hit, “Publish”.

I used to seethe, stew, and marinate. If I was in a bad mood, I wanted to stay in a bad mood because, somehow, I would want to make it worth it. I figure that if something is bad enough to make me sour, I shouldn’t be easily taken out of that frame of mind. It’s the same with forgiveness. I’m slow to anger, but once I’m there, I’m extremely slow to forgive, for the exact same reason.

For years, I would listen to music to help me wallow in these emotions. It would cradle me, fuel me until the emotion burned out. Listening this way, with a surge of sentiment, would let me feel the notes, and I would savour every second, minute, and eventual hour of it.

Lately, though, I hear music differently. It inspires me. It moves me. It helps me out of an emotion, instead of into one. And it feels like this change is a reflection of how much my life is changing now, how I’m beginning to see the entire world around me in such a profoundly different way.

As if everything that’s past is prologue to this.

Tonight I ordered the escargot, while Tinsley Ellis, a man who seemed to have a certain uncomplex wisdom beyond his years, sang his version of the south Florida blues. I admit that I was skeptical at first, but was pleasantly surprised by the time his first number had ended, an instrumental piece that one could tell was written as more than a simple introductory song.

And while he sang his words with a combination of gruff sincerity and stoic confidence, I sat there. Wondering why sad music can’t make me sad right now. Feeling something I had never felt before.

Lost in a moment of clarity.

Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.

I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.

And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.

It’s rare that something will make me feel forlorn nowadays, but every so often, something will set me off. I love to stew in those emotions, to appreciate them when I do feel them. Some songs sound totally different, like Battlecry by Grace Like Winter, but there’s nothing like hearing the opening bars of Oddity by Coal Chamber. A song that makes the skin feel like it’s peeling off, that must be loud enough to burn the tympanic membrane. It’s like the body melts, and everything fuses together.

Eventually, everything goes away.