Posts tagged with "experiences"

Hemlock

The two longest rela­tion­ships I’ve ever been in, both bor­der­ing on the two-year mark, were mean­ing­less. I learned a great deal from them, mak­ing them great expe­ri­ences, but in all truth, that can be said about any of the rela­tion­ships I’ve had.

My short­est rela­tion­ship, which nev­er even got into the three month range (and also hap­pened to be with the only girl to break up with me), was the most mean­ing­ful.

And tox­ic.

I should­n’t have been in that rela­tion­ship, and I knew it. It was unhealthy, it was destruc­tive, it was painful. Yet I kept going. I kept apol­o­giz­ing instead of accus­ing, I kept storm­ing with­out releas­ing. Was I weak? Perhaps. Was I in love? More like­ly.

But I was scared most of all.

Scared of giv­ing up a chance for hap­pi­ness, scared of for­ev­er won­der­ing, “what if?”. With lack of choice comes free­dom from regret. It took more strength to push on, know­ing that it would­n’t last, than it would have tak­en to end it myself.

It was­n’t weak­ness. It was deter­mi­na­tion. It was an attempt at per­se­ver­ance. It was an attempt at sto­ic res­ig­na­tion. I knew she was going to end it.

Because I nev­er would.

Album Review: No Motiv, Daylight Breaking

I real­ly have to say some­thing about No Motiv. When I first heard them, it was in prepa­ra­tion of a con­cert I was going to when they were open­ing for Strung Out about four years ago. I did­n’t real­ly like their first two albums aside from a few songs. They had a dis­tinct sound, but their lyrics, like advice from a com­fort­ing friend, did­n’t quite match. This band was like those kids I nev­er real­ly knew in high school, who weren’t pop­u­lar but had their own clique nonethe­less, and spent their free time mak­ing up songs and prac­tic­ing their instru­ments. The guys I’d sort of root for, not because their music blew me away, but because there was no one to appre­ci­ate them.

Their lat­est album, how­ev­er, takes things in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, hint­ed at in the album title “Daylight Breaking”. It’s dark­er, it’s mood­i­er, and it’s more devel­oped. Jeremy has clear­ly become more con­fi­dent with his singing, and this goes hand-in-hand with the new range of sound that they’ve devel­oped, from qui­et and bar­ren to heavy and angry. In pre­vi­ous albums, he sound­ed con­strict­ed, but now screams emo­tion­al­ly with con­trolled unre­straint. The lyrics demon­strate a new matu­ri­ty, and present a log­i­cal pro­gres­sion from their pre­vi­ous work. This is the album that they were meant to write, an album that makes them musi­cians and not just band mem­bers.

Now, as I lis­ten to their old­er mate­r­i­al, every­thing clicks, and I real­ize that I just was­n’t ready for this music four years ago. I don’t have any music that’s quite like this; a jour­ney through a com­ing-of-age that’s filled with ener­getic hope­ful­ness, along with the ups and downs asso­ci­at­ed with per­son­al growth, a sort of inspir­ing sad­ness. The lyrics bring me back to being a teenag­er again, when I thought peo­ple on TV were nor­mal, and believed that I should have been going through the same dain­ty prob­lems. It makes me think of what I want­ed to expe­ri­ence a long time ago, but nev­er had the chance.

Reversal: Part 1 (The Inexplicable Catalyst)

19. Have you ever been in love? Unfortunately.

—LBJ

Well, here we are again.

I used to think that love was only pain. That was when the only expe­ri­ences I had with love were bad, when every­thing I ever felt was unre­quit­ed. The fact that I felt this way was rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the fact that I had­n’t got­ten over those feel­ings at the time. How child­ish, inex­pe­ri­enced, con­fused, imma­ture I was. This feel­ing shaped much of my per­son­al­i­ty in the last few years, although I’ve recent­ly been able to come out of such an emo­tion­al block­ade.

Having a rela­tion­ship where most feel­ings, how­ev­er con­fused, how­ev­er tor­ren­tial, how­ev­er tem­po­rary, were shared, has allowed me to come to terms with the past. Such an inci­dent has ben­e­fit­ed me great­ly, has let me know that I’m not so numb any­more, that it’s pos­si­ble for such a rela­tion­ship to exist even if I may nev­er expe­ri­ence it again. Perhaps I was so scared that I would nev­er fall in love again that any such expe­ri­ence would have shocked me into get­ting over what had hap­pened in the past.

Now I embrace the feel­ing of love, embrace the fact that the sim­ple act of lis­ten­ing to a song can fill me such poignan­cy, com­plete­ly regard­less of whether it’s good or bad. Not only do I enjoy being able to care for some­one, I enjoy miss­ing them as well, as dif­fi­cult as it can be. I like the fact that some­thing can turn me ter­ri­bly, illog­i­cal­ly weak. Every emo­tion involved, whether it’s plea­sur­able or painful, fills me with the urge to write, to cre­ate, to express. This is what I look for. This is what I need.

Now only good can come of love.

The New Freedom

I did­n’t mean to talk about this so soon, but after con­tem­plat­ing this sub­ject for a while I feel as if I’ve done enough think­ing to prop­er­ly speak about it. I do feel like my mind is clear on this issue, that I’ve giv­en myself enough time to under­stand things well from as many aspects as pos­si­ble. This is some­thing that I had­n’t real­ly thought about in more than half a year, but more recent events have sort of spurred my mind on the sub­ject again.

Hah. It’s almost humourous, how imma­ture I seem back then to myself now, that it has­n’t even been an entire year and yet my mind­set has changed com­plete­ly in a total­ly dif­fer­ent direc­tion. I used to be so scared that I was indeli­bly affect­ed by a past expe­ri­ence, that I could nev­er change what I felt and thought. And yet I feel as if I see things much more clear­ly now. I feel less bur­dened, less biased, less neg­a­tive.

This does­n’t even have any­thing to do with hope or with chance, things which I dwelt on so much before. I’ve been able to see past these mat­ters, and free­dom from such things is great. Odd, that an expe­ri­ence that may have dam­aged or dis­cour­aged me has been able to resolve all my wor­ries.

And now, what has changed?

I’ve done what I thought I would nev­er do again.

One Man's Sip

Glasses on the windowsill

I final­ly print­ed off my pic­ture of the glass­es on the sill and framed it, which is quite some­thing con­sid­er­ing the fact that I have bare­ly any dec­o­ra­tions in my room. I was lucky enough to have been giv­en a nice met­al frame as a Christmas gift a few years ago, but have not had a decent pic­ture to put in it. Since I don’t have a career going yet, I try to keep a min­i­mal­is­tic amount of fur­ni­ture until I can afford to invest in long term sets, and for now the pic­ture rests on my cof­fee table. I want­ed a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the image because of the poignan­cy it evokes in me.

Every time I look at it I can’t help but think of the morn­ing sun seep­ing through the cracks of blue venet­ian blinds, of the flour­ish of green leaves out­side the win­dow. I think of lying on a swollen bed with my back to the wall, notic­ing the bright­ness of the sun fill the room, talk­ing well past the break of day. I think of sleep­ing next to some­one, hold­ing her head, draw­ing on her face, see­ing the ear­ly light bring out the sun­flow­ers in her eyes. I remem­ber how we’d go to sleep, plac­ing our frames on the win­dowsill before suc­cumb­ing to exhaus­tion.

Perhaps I’m so affect­ed by this image, this bit­ter­sweet mem­o­ry, because of how much I rel­ish the act of sleep­ing next to some­one. One of my favourite parts of a rela­tion­ship is being able to hold some­one before los­ing con­scious­ness. I sup­pose it betrays a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, a cer­tain unpar­al­leled inti­ma­cy, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is some­thing that I’ve always been attract­ed to.

But how odd it is that this may mean so much to me, yet mean so lit­tle to anoth­er. That even some­one shar­ing this expe­ri­ence with me may think of it in pass­ing, as some ephemer­al expe­ri­ence, not worth remem­ber­ing.

What do we take with our­selves when we fall apart? Do we keep the mem­o­ries or the emo­tions? Do we only take the good and leave the bad?

With this pic­ture I try to take every­thing. I don’t want to hide from hurt, I don’t want to neglect any feel­ings. I choose to see the image as a beau­ti­ful thing, a frame in time when I felt some­thing greater than most things I’ve felt in my life. I try to turn the pain into pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and gain from my expe­ri­ence. I look at this pic­ture and become affect­ed by every­thing it means to me.

Even if it means noth­ing to any­one else.