Ke$ha, love really is a drug

Well, I've been tossing around the idea of writing on my blog again. A wonderful girl named Nicole who writes The Girl Mama inspires me daily with her candid yet concise words on life. Though she lives a much different life than me, her words find a way to echo inside of me no matter the topic. So, today I'm writing and maybe I won't write tomorrow, but I think the point is to just do it.

I recently ended a four year relationship. It's all of the things you expect. Heartbreaking, angering and devastating. I feel like a walking bruise most of the time, like my emotions are dangling from the tip of my nose. The relationship and the reason that it ended could fill a lengthy and angsty blog all on their own. But what I've found so intriguing about this whole process is that I feel wonderfully alive.

Relationships, or maybe just the ones that I've been in, help to soothe and sometimes numb me. My life has always had its share of drama. Being the daughter of an alcoholic/addict predisposes me to it. So I've learned ways to cope, as all humans do I'm sure. My most precious coping tool is my music. Hands down the best gift I've ever received is my ability to write and play music. So I use my piano to play through a lot of tough stuff. Writing is another one of my ways. But a more troublesome mechanism that I found is love. The first time I really learned of my dad's addiction was when I was 15. You know, just a slightly formative time in a girl's life. And that event also coincided with my first relationship and first love. It was so blissful, as first loves go, but I think it also started a pattern for me. Love is a drug. Love is a crutch. Love is food. Kind of like that Ke$ha song.

I definitely lean on a relationship when I have one. And I'm learning that I lean too much sometimes, when really I could power through a tough emotion alone, if I let it happen. Which brings me to the current moment. Me, boyfriend-less. Father-less (he's in jail for a bit, and more or less out of my life which brings it's own special brand of grief). And I'm at home with all the pain and anger and sadness. Just sitting. Just feeling. It's the most alive I've ever felt. I wake up slightly in awe that I'm still breathing. I wake up feeling like I'm in survival mode. And I'm fully aware, that this is an incredible life period for me. There's clarity in the sense that all I can do is focus on myself. I am my most important project right now. Forced selfishness.

And my next question will be, once I'm mended enough to think about the L word again, is how do I stay with myself, even when I'm with someone. Because as awful as some of these emotions feel, they are so precious and invigorating. I don't know who has the answer or if there's a true "how to" out there. I think there is an awareness that maybe I'm acquiring that I can take into my next foray into the battlefield of boyfriends.

New Music

Well, I've got a new CD on the way. I've chosen a producer and I've got the track listing sort of set. I'm trying to maintain my focus on the music without it feeling like work. The last time I went through the album process, I lost some of the joy I had for playing. I want to be careful this time around, to love the process, and not put heavy expectations on myself. It's going to be a balancing act but I am really hopeful that this album will get the exposure it deserves. I know so much more now about how to promote the music, especially online. My day job is Online Marketing Specialist, which I love, and basically means I can promote things through web, social and digital media. I'm ready...but not TOOO eager, to get this music out. I want this to feel better than the last time.

here's to the new year and my new music.

Quote for Impatient Hearts

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer.

R.M. Rilke

no secret

It's funny how I have all these mediums where I participate socially. Twitter for work, twitter for personal use, twitter for my makeup business, twitter for my writing. It's exhausting partitioning myself into each channel, but the alternative, is to be wholeheartedly exactly who I am all in one place.... Which doesn't work so well for business, and is pretty boring on the personal front. Like, no one wants to read about my marketing clients on this blog. And no one wants to see me Tweet about Gossip Girl on my business feed.

But what I've realized is that with music (my ultimate passion)...If I had a Twitter account or Facebook page or anything like it for my musical self - I would write anything, and I would feel okay with it. Music is the culmination of all things for me - the mundane to the heart-wrenching. Or, at least that's the goal when I write music. To be authentic.

Let's hope I can continue to write as authentically as possible.

Explosions in the Sky

At work. Listening to Explosions in the Sky which is an instrumental band from Austin Texas. It's the kind of music that breaks your heart in a good way.

www.explosionsinthesky.com

Halloween success

Our celebration was a success. My Pocahontas costume was a hit, and bonus - it's so short I can use it as a figure skating costume should I decide to make a foray into that sport. My roommates and I were going to have a party but no one could really show up, which bruised my ego a bit. But Halloween is a busy night, and many a party was being thrown, so I don't feel too sad. Plus, I had all the friends I needed. Sister, friends, Lane and I.

Colors of the Wind

It has been decided. I will be Pocahontas for Halloween. But not just your old, run of the mill Pocahottie, with short fringed dress and feather atop the head. I will do some bad-ass makeup and hair styling.

Look, it's my favorite, Tori Amos, as Pocahontas.

Love.