There is a simple urgency in the voice that fills my speakers as I cruise the highway tonight, the strings jangling against the breathy cello and the delicate piano while my dry eyes search for an opening between the fast moving cars. \”Never could panic alone,\” the woman sings. I never could.
I listen to the feminine simplicity of Kristin Hersh, perhaps made all the more genius because of her schizophrenia, and I curse aloud every man who has ever stood in the way of me and myself, of every man with whom my infatuation with has led me to somehow hurt some aspect of my life at one point or another, no matter how minimal. Don, Mark, Mark, Randy, Brandon, Mark, Aaron, Josh, Chris, Mike, Arvin, James, Paul, Reno, Jamie, Matt, George, Jimmy, Chuck, Adam, Paul, Brian, Jamie… I think I have forgotten more than a few. Sometimes I wish I could forget the rest.
This is not to say it was all bad. This is not to say I had a relationship with every one of those people. God help me.
But mostly, mostly I listen to this music, these strong, haunting melodies from this woman that I can see trapped in the strings of codependency and lost to the monster that is mental illness, and I say fuck you to myself first and foremost for continuing to put myself in positions where I lose myself. Then I say fuck you to everyone else for not saving me from myself, and then fuck you to myself again for wanting someone other than me to save me. Occasionally I say fuck you to my mother for ingraining the process of victimization into my head when I was still so young, for not giving me a strong female role model, for being a push over and a martyr, so self sacrificing and eager to please everyone around her for fear of not being loved otherwise. But that does not last long, because why place the blame elsewhere, especially when it is not her fault, it is too late now, and she picked it up from someone herself?
Somehow I will get out of this cycle.
