Why is it so hard to accept the party is over!?
Creative non-fiction...how do I over share without over sharing. It's almost poetic, you know, building a story around your worst and best days, your friends' experiences, the nostalgia from your favourite songs.
I can’t remember when I first heard this song but the lyrics popped into my head some days ago (as at September when I first started writing this piece)
"But you keep thundering thundering, I’m wondering wondering why you keep thundering won’t you just fucken rain, and get it over with"
Shamelessly typed that into google cause I couldn't remember the name, I knew it was on the Unapologetic album...such an amazing project by the way.
"It's dark in the day
And I'll say now don't complain
Look up the sun is just a cloud away
You're so afraid to cry
But your heart is feeling dry
It's time to change
But you keep thundering thundering,
I'm wondering wondering why you keep thundering won't you just rain, and get it over with"
There's always been something about the melancholy of this song, the way the piano serenades you at the beginning...
for me it's never been much about what the song meant but how it made me feel.
Oh, I've cried to it so many times but on my best days it's made me feel...hopeful. The guy who sings the undertone melody, there's just something about the texture of his voice supporting Rih that always made me feel at peace
I struggle with surrender. Letting go of things, people, memories and for me this song is just that...a call for surrender.
In my little twenty something years, I've found myself to be so fixated on history and potential, that it has blinded me a lot from seeing what's in front of me. So I try, I try so hard, too hard to control things to fit into that mould based on what was or what could be.
I'm very pessimistic, I would often see how things could go wrong first before I see all the reasons they could go right and that's another thing that pushes me to always want to be in control, in control of feelings, in control of situations and when I'm not, everything blows over and I feel...defeated and some sort of self betrayal that my abilities weren't enough to carry us (me, myself and I) through.
This year, I suffered a type of grief that pushed me to a place where I wasn't in control of anything. My emotions were all over the place, I felt things that I had never felt before and that inability to control where those feelings took me fucked with my self esteem and I wore shame like a second skin...I kind of still do. Situations were out of my control, all my relationships got threatened, I also had no control over that and I just generally felt defeated. I could have just allowed things to take shape, and this led to an over extension of myself, trying to salvage everything and
that caused me some dignity, questioning everything I've ever known about myself and has left me...exhausted.
I wanted everything to go my way so bad, one way or the other, I got some things I wanted out of certain situations but at what cost?
I ask myself, why couldn't I just accept the party was over?( why is it so hard to accept the party is over...in Sza's voice)
"When I feel the pain now babe I won't complain.
I hear you say, look up the sun is just a cloud away
And I was so afraid to cry
But when you need a way to ride, that's the way."
There's this part of the song where all Rih is saying is "...get it over with, I see you rolling in,
Let's get it over with
Get high and float again
Roll up and go again..." and it just keeps going, and it's just like she's telling me "relaxxx, relaxxxx, blow trees and relaxxxx" and I hear it and all it's saying to me is
You do not have to be in control of this situation
"It's alright we can roll in the clouds"
You do not have to know why you were treated this way
"Getting high we can float in the clouds"
You do not have to figure out this problem now
"It's alright we can roll in the clouds"
You do not have to be sure of this decision right now
"Getting high we can float in the clouds"
relaxxxxx, surrender, surrender.
It's a constant battle, surrendering, and maybe my fear comes from the letting your guard down of it, that's a scary thing to do especially in our time where everyone is trying to have the last laugh instead of working on not getting to a place where we need to laugh, I don't know if you get me.
But that's the thing about surrender, accepting that disappointment will come, acknowledging that things being out of your control sometimes is okay, allowing yourself to...fall.
Quick story, I was watching Firefly lane, that episode where the girls were hitchhiking to find Tully's dad and they got in a car with a stranger who had a tattoo of 'The Fool' tarot card and he said something about how it took being a fool in some way to make any sort of journey, first steps, driving a car, falling in love, he said "there's always a risk you'll fall flat on your face."
I've found that there's a lot that can be found and achieved, unlearned and learned in the calm that comes with letting go. On the other side of surrendering could be healing, forgive yourself. On the other side of surrendering could be love, open your heart again. On the other side could also be nothing...peaceful nothing and maybe just a lesson on being still, but it's okay, it's okay.
....so just stop thundering, holding on, thundering
and get it over it.
