Mar 2013
Being an artist is hard. Especially when you write songs about love and love unrequited and addiction and death and wanting to die and wishing you were loved by the people who put their addictions before you and pain and self harm and hope and disappointment and everything that has made me insane.
The only thing I can do to make myself feel less insane is to write about it.
But as soon as you create something, it’s like “Well what the **** do I do now?”
Normal people would get a grant, make a record, go on tour.
Well guess what? I’m not a ******* normal person.
I have to deal with voices in my head 24/7 telling me I’m a failure, I’m a waste of space, that nobody cares about what I sing or do or make, that I would be doing myself a favour if I just ******* died already.
I have to deal with memories from my ****** up childhood that haunt me every day because my parents were too busy being addicted to alcohol and drugs to actually parent me.
Well guess what? I know that was unfair and sad etc, etc. I don’t want your pity. I know what my mind tells me are straight up lies. Depression is a mental illness and it doesn’t just go away because you’re intelligent enough to know that what your mind is telling you is not true.
But it’s the hardest thing anyone will ever have to live with and it makes it ten times more difficult to muster up enough confidence & self esteem to pursue being a musician, or writer or artist of any kind. Because being alone can be dangerous. I often feel so misunderstood and misheard by other people that I choose to be alone to do both them and myself a favour.
But that’s also *******. Because when you create something, no matter if it’s good or bad, you are giving something to the world that has never existed before.
Do you know how ******* beautiful that is?
What people don’t realize about artists is that the majority of them already are extremely insecure and feel like failures and ****-ups.
The last thing I need from someone is for them to say:
“Oh, you have over 100 songs, how come you haven’t put out a record yet?”
“Here comes the girl who’s been saying the same thing for the past two years - that she’s ‘working on it.’”
Well you know what? I AM working on it. I don’t have to ******* defend myself to other people when they criticize me by saying things like this. You don’t have to sit hear and listen to me sing. No one is making you stay. They have no idea what I’ve been through, how I’ve changed, how I’m trying to heal, how healing does not come naturally to me. I was never taught how to heal. I was never taught how to live. And what I’m learning is that it is never too late to start trying.
I realize I’m getting older and time is passing but for someone to make some snide remark by commenting on how I seem like a failure is unacceptable, especially when I feel like one already.
My songs are a gift. I know that. I have given them away for free, to many people who, now that I think back on it, never even deserved to have them. Whether they’re jealous or mad or sad or whatever themselves, they don’t ******* need to put their insecurities on me when I clearly have enough of my own to begin with. We’re all human, how about we have some ******* compassion for each other?
There are a lot of things I’m not proud of. I have made many mistakes. I have wanted to die many times, and struggle with finding a reason to keep living daily. But music has always been the thing that has kept me alive. Music is what flows through my veins, and whether or not I “make a record” in the timeframe that people expect me to has nothing to do with what really matters.
Music has no timeframe.
Music has no jealousy or anger or resentment or insecurities.
Music is what saves lives, and I’ve been lucky enough to have the gift of making it and giving it to people in hopes that I can help them in some way. That’s what artists are made to do, help, make life more bearable, to transcend the pain of a ****** up life into a song that you can listen to and say: “****, this song sums it up, man!”
It’s a gift.
It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to me.
So just eat some humble pie and get over yourself for one ******* minute because your criticism doesn’t change the ******* facts and I will be going at my own pace whether you like it or not, thank you very much.
The only thing I can do to make myself feel less insane is to write about it.
But as soon as you create something, it’s like “Well what the **** do I do now?”
Normal people would get a grant, make a record, go on tour.
Well guess what? I’m not a ******* normal person.
I have to deal with voices in my head 24/7 telling me I’m a failure, I’m a waste of space, that nobody cares about what I sing or do or make, that I would be doing myself a favour if I just ******* died already.
I have to deal with memories from my ****** up childhood that haunt me every day because my parents were too busy being addicted to alcohol and drugs to actually parent me.
Well guess what? I know that was unfair and sad etc, etc. I don’t want your pity. I know what my mind tells me are straight up lies. Depression is a mental illness and it doesn’t just go away because you’re intelligent enough to know that what your mind is telling you is not true.
But it’s the hardest thing anyone will ever have to live with and it makes it ten times more difficult to muster up enough confidence & self esteem to pursue being a musician, or writer or artist of any kind. Because being alone can be dangerous. I often feel so misunderstood and misheard by other people that I choose to be alone to do both them and myself a favour.
But that’s also *******. Because when you create something, no matter if it’s good or bad, you are giving something to the world that has never existed before.
Do you know how ******* beautiful that is?
What people don’t realize about artists is that the majority of them already are extremely insecure and feel like failures and ****-ups.
The last thing I need from someone is for them to say:
“Oh, you have over 100 songs, how come you haven’t put out a record yet?”
“Here comes the girl who’s been saying the same thing for the past two years - that she’s ‘working on it.’”
Well you know what? I AM working on it. I don’t have to ******* defend myself to other people when they criticize me by saying things like this. You don’t have to sit hear and listen to me sing. No one is making you stay. They have no idea what I’ve been through, how I’ve changed, how I’m trying to heal, how healing does not come naturally to me. I was never taught how to heal. I was never taught how to live. And what I’m learning is that it is never too late to start trying.
I realize I’m getting older and time is passing but for someone to make some snide remark by commenting on how I seem like a failure is unacceptable, especially when I feel like one already.
My songs are a gift. I know that. I have given them away for free, to many people who, now that I think back on it, never even deserved to have them. Whether they’re jealous or mad or sad or whatever themselves, they don’t ******* need to put their insecurities on me when I clearly have enough of my own to begin with. We’re all human, how about we have some ******* compassion for each other?
There are a lot of things I’m not proud of. I have made many mistakes. I have wanted to die many times, and struggle with finding a reason to keep living daily. But music has always been the thing that has kept me alive. Music is what flows through my veins, and whether or not I “make a record” in the timeframe that people expect me to has nothing to do with what really matters.
Music has no timeframe.
Music has no jealousy or anger or resentment or insecurities.
Music is what saves lives, and I’ve been lucky enough to have the gift of making it and giving it to people in hopes that I can help them in some way. That’s what artists are made to do, help, make life more bearable, to transcend the pain of a ****** up life into a song that you can listen to and say: “****, this song sums it up, man!”
It’s a gift.
It doesn’t belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to me.
So just eat some humble pie and get over yourself for one ******* minute because your criticism doesn’t change the ******* facts and I will be going at my own pace whether you like it or not, thank you very much.
