The Grief of Growth
Death-Rebirth-Death
This is the way it is. Surrendering to the process is key to releasing oneself from the suffering of life. Def easier said than done, but needs doing anyway.
I am someone who has learned to enjoy a good goodbye. I like to walk away before things get bitter and resentful. I pick up red flags and hold onto them, when I’ve gathered enough, I see myself out. I used to resist the letting go, out of fear, out of conflict avoidance, out of not wanting to be disliked. I don’t really entertain worries like that anymore. It doesn’t matter if you stay or walk away, an abusive person holds contempt for you. I’d rather be hated and safe.
Lately I’ve been thinking about this Grief of Growth in the context of my art. I’m working on an album—which I am tentative about talking about, because I’ve become one of those insufferable move in silence people—its an album I have been wanting to make for, like, 7 years. It’s taken so long because I was very poor and I didn’t have any resource. Every time I would get access to a resource, it would quickly-but-not-quickly-enough-for-me-not-to-waste-a-bunch-of-time fall through. I cried, a lot.
Once, a couple years ago, I sat on the steps of the Grand Army Plaza Public Library and sobbed, audible, snotty, heaving sobs, after getting kicked out of their recording studio for singing to loud. The journey of a struggling artist is full of heartbreak.
I would worry that, if this album took too too long to make, that I would outgrow the material and all that great material would go to waste. And, well, tbqh with you, dear reader, like so many moments in my life, my worst fears absotutely came true.
As I sat down yesterday to record the idk 5th??? 6th??? draft of a cute love song I wrote about my married ex-boyfriend’s appreciation of my fat body (I wrote it 5 years ago lol), I just… couldn’t get my dick hard about it. I tried different arrangements, different styles of singing, different layers of things and nothing felt right.
Last night, while talking it over with my partner, I realized, I didn’t resonate with it anymore because it just doesn’t resonate period. To put out art where I am not a full blown “man-hating, angry as fuck, agenda of rage, bitter dyke” just doesn’t feel honest.
forum.dvdtalk.com (I’m the one on the bottom)
I don’t hate men, ya’ll. That’s a quote from the lesbophobic Kevin Smith film Chasing Amy, which, because I’ve always watched it from Alyssa’s perspective (the lesbian who briefly falls in love with Ben Affleck, who CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT handle it (fragile masculinity is a mother fucker)) its a movie I’ve watched and enjoyed at least 20 times. It’s just that, as a late bloomer and reformed straight bitch, reformed cis girl, reformed bisexual, I feel I have reached my final form of I’m-Never-Fucking-A-Cis-Man-Again.
autostraddle
I just can’t have people vibing out to my music and having even a doubt in their mind that I am a card-carrying, home depot hanging, strap wielding, obsessed with my dog, uhaul driving, fist-me-baby dykeasaurus rex.
This means I am going to leave a lot of art behind. There is some grief in that. There is grief in realizing I’m so different than I used to be. There is grief in so many songs and poems going unreleased/unpublished, so many “best I gots” of my past becoming just stepping stones to my Present as an artist. There is grief in a little bit of ‘back to the drawing board,’ too.
But also the feeling of growing is my favorite thing. Seeing proof of my self-actualization, realizing old versions of me could never contain my current vastness, seeing that I am also, simply, a better artist now, because I know myself better and am able to be more authentic… its all a blessing.
TLDR; don’t quit because you haven’t “made it” by 30, the best is yet to come. And, sometimes, in retrospect, you look back and think “thank GOD I didn’t get what I wanted.”
And you begin again.
Listen to my first EP here
