How often do you think about what your life would have been like if you'd made different choices?
These thoughts hit me frequently. The most recent being yesterday, when I listened to the last album I recorded with my mother, and ended up spending the next couple of hours bawling my eyes out in bed.
Why have I stopped writing music? Why have I stopped listening to music? Why did I turn to writing as my creative outlet and abandon the outlet I spent my entire life deeply immersed in? The answer is "I don't know." I will never know.
I will never know why writing has the bigger power over me now, and I will never know why my music has the tendancy to create a sadness in me that is NEVER present unless I am listening to it.
Why does my music make me cry? Why does my writing enthuse me to no end? So much so that I am able to give up a passion that moulded me into the person I am today. I could probably give you a bunch of reasons. Reasons that relate to my unusual upbringing, perhaps? But do I whole-heartedly believe these are the reasons? "I don't know." I will never know.
But what I do know is that the sadness attached to my music is eternal, and the enthusiasm attached to my writing is too. But they do NOT go together. They represent two completely different parts of my personality.
Since yesterday, I am craving that sadness again. Am I a little nuts, you ask, to WANT to feel sad? No, I don't think I am. I think I am emotionally deprived. I think I have been living my characters' emotions for too long. Listening to my music made me feel my own emotions again. And I want to cry. I need to cry, and ENJOY that amazing feeling of my heart being torn apart for no other reason than simply being able to 'feel me' again. I've been hiding behind written words for so long, that I forgot they can actually sing too.
If you like, have a listen:
Sometimes I just want to feel melancholy, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd music's a good way to do that!
I think everyone needs a good cry every once in a while. Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteThat song by the way...Amazing! Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful song. Music can move me in so many different ways. It's okay to feel sad. I think it's healthy now and again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
That song is BEAUTIFUL!!! It'd be stuck in my my ipod I can promise you that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sad thing. It's good for you. Sometimes I sit and think about this boy I loved but refused to settle for. He's married now with two beautiful kids and a great wife. I picture me there instead of his wife and it hurts because it could have been me but it's not and at the same it time makes me feel gloriously free.
You're multi-talented, Jess. I'd say right now you are just going in the way that has the most pull. Maybe music can be your outlet from writing?
ReplyDeleteAnd there's nothing wrong with a good cry. It makes you feel better. ;-)
~JD
I think without violent ups and downs once in a while- we forget what life is all about. Emotion is what makes life worth living. And words without emotion are just words at the end of the day. If we aren't feeling something at some point- we can't write to our full potential so i completely understand. I loved the song btw, you have a beautiful voice! and it def. pulled at imagery and emotion- it should be on a movie soundtrack!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful song. There is something about music that tugs on the heart strings far stronger than other creative mediums. My husband bans me from certain artists when we are fighting - it can deepen the emotion even more than a book does.
ReplyDeleteHow intuitive of you, though, to recognize that you needed something to allow yourself to feel YOUR emotions again. Something for me to think about...
I think music has a special ability to break through walls and touch the soul. It's amazing. =)
ReplyDeleteWow, beautiful lyrics and music! Learning to play the piano is on my bucket list. :) I hope you soon find the balance and joy in writing both music and fiction.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with sadness and there is nothing wrong with tears. Without sadness there would be no such thing as joy. Both are integral parts of the human condition.
ReplyDeleteI think that what you are going through is normal. Let it be okay to feel. Just don't do it alone.
Music and the potential it has to make us FEEL is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately.
ReplyDeleteI think music is a fundamental part of who are - not even part of our DNA, but something even deeper than that... everything resonates with it.
One one level, music is maths... waves and vibrations. Maths is in nature, too... recurring patterns and functions describing decay and growth. Everything is connected. There are black holes deep in space that emit the precise pitch of B flat!
Just think... when you listen to music, you're connecting with the cosmos :)
Beautiful, haunting song, Jessica. You are indeed multi-talented.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously associate your mother with your music. Echoes of joy shared sometimes give birth to the melancholy thought that they are gone.
Sometimes I think the world is drowning in sorrow. I have seen so much of it in my own life and in the lives of those I care about that I do not go out of my way to feel it.
Each of us adapt to life differently. I hope your end week is lovely. Roland
A beautiful song, Jessica. You are so talented.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to feel sad from time to time. I don't why, but it does happen. And it's perfectly normal.
Hugs.
music is just all the emotions hitting you at once. I cry all the time listening to songs... But you're following your path. And poetry is like music. Just keep putting those feet in front of the other--you might be surprised where you end up~ :o) <3
ReplyDeleteThat song is awesome, Jess. I think it's a good thing that you have something to bring out your sadness. And I agree that it's a good way to feel your own emotions rather than the feeling that you're living in someone else's skin. Plus, there's nothing at all nuts about wanting to be sad; it makes the happiness that follows all the better :)
ReplyDeleteMusic can make you feel any emotion under the sun.
ReplyDeleteOh, girl, I think we ALL have moments like that. Much to the dismay of the male population! LOL. Music is a wonderful way to settle into our melancholy, isn't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat fabulous insight this shows. When I was younger I used to crave the melancholy and sadness a lot more often. I think life is too real now, so I prefer to pull my tears from fiction.
ReplyDeleteI think too, there can be a craving not just for the emotion but for the place in life... the potential that lays ahead, but knowing the emotions that go with it have to be experienced. I had a bad patch in my late 20s that I could never go through again, and I've never yearned for the past since. I think I just couldn't have that still ahead of me.
You have an amazing voice.
I love music and I suppose I can play a tune for whatever mood I'm in,
ReplyDeleteI think your voice is wonderful well done.
Yvonne.
Catharthis follows
ReplyDeleteEmotions in sweet music
Flies over the cusp
Wow. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful, touching song. And there's nothing wrong with craving sadness once in a while. That's why I turn back to certain music and movies again and again.
ReplyDeleteMy outlets had always been drawing and music (on the orchestration side, never lyrics). I don't know why I ignore my former muses so much, but I do know why I switched to writing: I have stories to tell.
Yet, it'd be a shame to let such beautiful music slip away. Just as you make time for writing, you can make time for music. Bring it back into your life, sadness and all.
I've suffered so much tragedy, beginning at such a young age, I don't go looking for sadness.
ReplyDeleteBut, I will say, in the midst of devastating grief and mourning, reading of others' tragedies is a sort of comfort.
Misery truly may love comapany.
So, I understand...Thoughtful post. Thanks you.
I think we all need to cry sometimes, it's very cleansing. Every stupid thing makes me cry, and I am SO not exaggerating.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a beautiful voice, and maybe someday you'll return to music. Maybe.
That was a beautiful song.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your nuts, only human.
The song is beautiful and haunting. I have had times in my life when music and songs flowed from within, and these songs almost always come from times when I was feeling sad and lonely. When I recall those songs I recall the times that inspired them.
ReplyDeleteI love writing songs and often hear new songs in my head, but I don't follow up and don't write anything down. I should force myself to compose, but I don't want to have to be sad to do it.
Part of the beauty of emotions is that we can capture it in the arts so that we can remember.
Lee
Tossing It Out
What a beautiful song. Music has always been a part of my life. I love to sing, though I'm not very good past the point where I'm in tune. It does have a way of crawling inside you and stirring your inards. I love it for that reason because it's almost like no matter what emotion you feel, you're not alone because someone, somewhere felt the same and created the soundtrack to your soul. Elegant post.
ReplyDelete