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Rose-Ingrid Gracia
Singer, songwriter, poet// Learning, unlearning, and picking up the pieces

I Wanna Run With The Wild Horses: On love, fear, and taking back my life

I 
just had moment. More like a flash. A memory of a melody. It’s actually been happening more often lately.

Let me explain. I have recently discovered that for pretty much all my life I have used books, movies, TV and music as a way to hide and cope with my emotions. For example, when I feel sad or in need of a good cry, I watch RENT. I cry for Angel, for Collins, for Mimi, and Roger. I cry for Maureen and Joanne. The tragedy, the fear, the hope, the joy, the loss. All of it. I get lost in it every time, and no matter how many times I’ve seen the movie I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be crying at the end. This has allowed me to emote in a safe way without ever really being vulnerable or honest with myself. Imagine the shock it was to me that what I thought was nerdy 6 year old Rose’s love for learning and reading was really a coping mechanism for dealing with her painful world. (In hindsight it makes sense. Like what 6/7 year old reads a book a day really?)

So with this new found understanding I have started reflecting on my musical choices over the years, the songs I’ve loved and particularly the ones I played on repeat. I figure they might mean more than they seemed to. I started a list of songs that I have played more times than I can think of. Going as far back as my preteen years. Let’s just say there’s a lot of angsty pop involved. haha More than that, a lot of songs about love and brokenness, about loneliness and heartache and mostly a whole lot of vulnerability. If you know anything about me, vulnerability isn’t my forte. But if you were to look at my most played songs of the last 20 years you’d think it was my favourite thing. The irony isn’t lost on me.

So back to that moment, that melodic memory.

I have been slowly eliminating the noise in my life. Forcing myself to sit still. To listen. To meditate. To pray. To lean in to my emotions rather than to distract myself. And sometimes while I’m thinking or writing or just sitting there, a song will just come to mind. It is wild what is stored in that memory bank we call our brain. Tonight, the words “Wild horses, I want to be like you…” came to mind.

I paused and pressed in to the memory. As I remembered, I teared up a bit. It’s an older Natasha Bedingfield track. I think the first time I heard it, someone was singing it on Canadian Idol or something like that. But it stuck. I found it online, listened to it often, even found the chords and taught myself to clumsily strum it on the guitar. I remember loving the minor chords in the pre-chorus.

“All I want is the wind in my hair, to face the fear but not feel scared.”

As I listened to the song again tonight, I realised that this was more than a pretty pop track. But for me, then, this was a cry, a plea, that I never had the courage to make myself. A hope I never had the strength to hold on to. Sitting here all these years later, this song still rings so true. The second verse sings as if I had just read it from my journal yesterday.

“I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare back, care free along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head first headlong without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free”

This time is different though. This time, I am willing to see myself in those words. To admit that fear has been my longest, most faithful companion and that it really hasn’t delivered on its promises. I am no safer, no freer, no happier for having hidden behind my fears all these years. No. I have started to see it for the deception that it is. And sitting here listing to Natasha Bedingfield’s four chord musings, I am so aware that that girl, the one on the horse, the one that’s living free. She isn’t special. She just chose to be free. She chose life. She chose light. She knows that the risks she takes in being honest and whole are so worth it in comparison to sitting alone in fear, regret and anxiety. She simply loves herself. I don’t have to wish to be her. She’s already here. I just need to choose to put her first. I just need to choose to love her enough to step past the fear.

Love.

I’m beginning to realise that I know very little about it truly. I have intentionally skipped most of the classes on love in the school of life. Cause love, the good stuff, the real stuff, the gritty stuff, love comes at a cost. Vulnerability. Honesty. Transparency. Being known. Risk. Hurt. Disappointment. That 6 year old book worm knew this all too well, and she wasn’t having any of it. She chose the safety fear offered. She decided against the gamble. And I don’t knock her for it. I don’t even knock 10, 16. 21, or 25 year old me for it. But, if I wake up in 10 years with the same fears running my life, I will knock 29 year old Rose for it. And she’d deserve it.

Cause I know better. I know that I am not choosing safety in fear. I am not choosing life. 1 John 1:5 says that God is light and in God there is no darkness. Verse six goes on to say, that those who claim fellowship with God but choose to walk in darkness lie and do not practice the truth. The truth is I am liar. The darkness for me has always been the obvious choice because it’s known and it’s comfortable. But it doesn’t negate that it is a lie. A lie that I no longer want any part of.

I have decided this week that I will no longer live in fear. I have decided that I am going to choose life. I am going to choose love. I am going to choose light. Above all else I am going to choose to see and treat myself as if I have value. Because I do! I really, really, do! It isn’t enough to say it, but living it is the key. I am going to learn to love Rose-Ingrid for all that she is. Strengths and weaknesses, joys and fears, victories and failures. I am going to choose to not be defined by the negative voices in my head that daily whisper: “You’re not enough. You’re not worthy of love. If you were known, you would be abandoned. No one stays. No one is trustworthy. You have to be hard. You have to be strong. You have to go it alone.”

I am going to say no to the darkness. No to those words. No to the lie. Cause I want better. I deserve better. I owe it to myself. To those I love. To those I have yet to have the opportunity to love. Tonight, as I reflect on the words of a song once forgotten, they are not a cry or a plea. They are a declaration. Foreshadowing of what is to come.