Post-midnight rustling through my personal historical archives

Possibly my favourite thing about listening to the entirety of an artist's music is piecing together the storyline of his/her life. I've been listening to a lot of Jack's Mannequin/Something Corporate lately and find myself fascinated with how Andrew McMahon fits his experiences and feelings and life history so gorgeously together to blend with his music (which is also exquisite... then again, I've always had a thing for piano rock, so I'm rather biased here). It makes me wish that I could get my poetry to feel less clumsy, less meaningless. I haven't written anything in over a year, but that's mostly for fear of it still being exactly the same as before. I know that I just need to swallow the fear and write, but something stops me everytime I open the notebook that I bought specifically for that purpose.

And it used to just pour out of me, words and lines flowing from my every breath. I have an entire binder full of scribbled emotions tucked away at the bottom of a bookshelf. Forgotten. Hidden. But why? Well, much of it is pretty damn terrible. Me at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen... well, let's just say there was a LOT of anger and angst there.

Maybe that's the problem. I don't have all that anger and loneliness and desperation simmering below the surface, demanding some sort of outlet to make its escape. I wouldn't trade the happiness and peace that I've come to possess now for any of that, but I wish I didn't feel like this person whose words I'm reading is a stranger rather than an earlier version of my current self. She's so lost, but has this spark that I worry present me no longer possesses.

Hmm. It's 1:30 and I've got a fitness class in the morning. Sleep is probably a better idea than sitting here sifting through my history. But before I end this, I want to answer a question past!Jocelyn asked nearly a decade ago.

I feel like sleeping forever, running away. And I would. I would leave this second if I could. Would leaving make it better? Would a new place fix me? Or would I be just as miserable in some other world than here?

If I could talk to the girl who wrote that, I'd tell her that the answer is yes. A new place, a new world did fix me. Or, in actuality, it helped me fix myself. It took a long time to get where I am, and I always remind myself that even when things feel unbearably bad that nothing can hold a candle to what I've already been through.

"I've got friends who will help me pull through."

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Now playing: Jack's Mannequin - La la Lie
via FoxyTunes