Forward (The spelling is intentional, jerk)

The last thing I was expecting when I woke up this morning was to have an epiphany driving to work. I'm not talking about one of those, near death or see something beautiful and suddenly see god type of things. But it was an epiphany nonetheless.

I started my morning off like I do any morning with a shower and music to get ready for work. I just got a puppy and he is the best thing ever and I let him out this morning as well which will become part of my normal routine.

The main goal of my drive to work today was to start working on a very specific and meaningful playlist. This reason this was a specific and meaningful playlist is because it was an assigned task. My therapist wants me to make him a playlist for my next session. Talk about an effective way to psychoanalyze someone, especially me. I am the crowned head of over analyzing lyrics and music. Just ask A. I think it is one of the main reasons that she quit on me.

The first song I could think of is called, The Intervention, by The Color Fred. The only reason I bring the name of the song up is because I think there is some sort of synchronism there. The lyrics are:

He had a hungry hollow holler.
He was hell in seventh gear.
He was slowing down for no one.
It had always been his year.

Confidence was never sweeter, 
Just as sweet as it could get.
But his earning every penny,
His heart harbors heavy debt.

And I say
“I can’t keep up anymore.
I can’t keep up.”

We’re all dying; he’ll die younger
While he’s still a pretty man.
Cause there’s nothing after thirty.
That has always been his plan.

When your heroes fell in glory,
And you’re tracing every move.
Well, you gotta have that story
Like you didn’t even choose.

And I say
“I can’t keep up.”
But you think that I was wrong.
Were my words misunderstood?

I can’t keep up anymore.
I can’t keep up.

When we look back,
Weren’t we ever friends?
Could you understand?

Well, I’m not one to write in fiction.
Others, they may make predictions.
I think you know I did all I could.
Well, I think you know I did all I could.
Well, I think you know I did all I could.
All I could…

I can’t keep up,
But you think that I gave in.
Were my promises not made good?

I can’t keep up anymore.
I can’t keep up anymore.
I can’t keep up anymore.
(Well, I think you know I did all I could.)

I can’t keep up anymore. 

If you know me you would realize that this song has all sorts of personal meaning. Mostly having to do with my partiality to self-destruction and wanting to die. I normally wouldn't be that blunt but in getting better I've realized I need to accept my situation as well as start writing things down. My mind works at as fast as the electrons in my brain will let them; which science tells us is around 200 miles per hour. And it just. never. stops. My therapist tells me that if I start writing down my thoughts that keep me up/drive me crazy then maybe things will slow down a bit and I think they have. Although keeping an anxiety and depression journal is a bit embarrassing but I think it could be good for me. This little side symposium is just a little taste of how my mind won't stop (I thought this was about an epiphany?!)

This song just spoke to me. There’s an old cliché about hearing something but not listening. I’ve heard this song probably fifty times and had listened before, but I never really had purpose. I never planned on living to be an old man (being this honest is difficult) and I didn't know what that meant to me. Any writer that I really relate to couldn't, I wouldn't say, handle, the world, but the world just didn't get them back. Hemingway shot himself in the face with a shotgun, John Kennedy Toole breathed his car exhaust from a hose into his cabin, Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in the head, Kerouac drank himself to death, Salinger should have died but he was too in love with himself to go through with it. The song also spoke to me because there are people in my life who have tried to help but it's always a half-hearted as hell effort. Which I think I am partly to blame because I can get intense and overbearing in a flash and usually end up leaving people feel like s**t. Just ask A or my brother or my therapist. 

And then the epiphany happened, as I was listening and thinking of what other songs I want to make for my assigned mix tape I saw an absolutely brutal accident up ahead on the road. I live in a rural area and you can see for miles. The reason I knew it was brutal because there were about a dozen cop cars, 4 ambulances, and 4 fire trucks in the distance and when there is an accident on the rural highways they are always absolutely terrible in every sense of the word. I wish “terrible” was a word that hadn’t lost its meaning through overuse. This accident was “extremely bad, exciting extreme alarm or intense fear”; terrible.

I couldn't bring myself to drive near it so I took a long detour around and then this sudden realization f*****g floored me. I used to keep giving myself reasons to not be here; a release from my mind endlessly overtaking rational thought, but this morning I realized that for the first time in quite a while that I didn't want to be in that accident.

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[Marie]

I don't do books, because I don't have time, but I thought I'd look at this. I'm not sure where you're gong with it, but the journey seems interesting.