on being lost

when you spend so much life trying to prove that you’re not lost, you’re very likely quite lost.

when you come back to your hometown and there’s a slight bitterness and bitchiness following you around, and you tell yourself that it’s not a defense mechanism and you just deserve to see your old friends from school be wrong about things. be wrong about music, about dreams, about moving to other countries and exploring the world; you’ll soon realise that you were too distracted trying to seem cool to people who are perfectly happy with their nine to fives nursing jobs, and evenings having ice creams with their friends at the exact same square they used to go when they were little.

when you stop listening to the person you love because you’re constantly in your head, too distracted hyperanalyzing everything because you learnt that’s the way to be safe. making seventy percent of conversations about the love your family never gave, journaling for hours about what love is and what attachment is and about how trauma prevents us from loving people in a true way; you’ll soon realise you were too worried about the love you didn’t get, and weren’t present enough with the noodle soup your true love cooked for you, and their dreams that they shared with you. suddenly you’re aware that they were talking to themselves all that time. while you were trying to figure out why your family couldn’t hold your hand. why nurturing wasn’t on the table. why unconditional love wasn’t the bare minimum.

when you’re too busy defending past versions of yourself, not letting them go because too many people have wronged them and you don’t want to outgrow them; you’ll soon realise that you’re not becoming the person you want to be because you think that by staying small and comfortable, you’re protecting yourself. you’ll be too scared to step into a new self, because you don’t know what life is like when you don’t have to daydream your way out of everything. so you stay in what you know. daydreaming in your fifteen-year-old mind. twenty-three year old body. because that’s what gave you hope. because as far as you’re concerned, that’s what life is, dreaming about a future that never comes. hoping for a sense of peace that just about keeps you going. but never actually stepping into who you want to be.

when people who love you tell you they are so surprised that you’ve turned out so well considering your upbringing and you take pride in that too and you call yourself emotionally gifted and way too ahead for your age; you’ll soon realise that you’re sad that you’re ahead and you’re sad that you’re mature for your age. because you just want to be a kid again. because you just want to make sandcastles and take naps and write about grapefruits and palm trees. and you want it to be okay to make mistakes and to be a mess and to move to another city and come back because you made no friends. and because you know you’re not ahead. not ahead from your friend from high school who just graduated as a doctor. not ahead because she had great parents and you had to survive. not ahead because she’s making sourdough bread in her kitchen living the life and you are here being a hero by suffering and understanding what life is really about.

when you have to keep lying to your family and telling them that doing a music degree was a good idea because otherwise they would lose their shit but actually the best would have been to quit because it’s good to quit things when they are worth quitting; you’ll soon realise that your family doesn’t know who you are and it’s becoming exhausting to pretend to be someone else. every day you’re not yourself is one more hour in bed. every day you pretend everything’s okay is one more dinner where you’re not listening. every day you lie about how you feel, is one more blank page and one less poem and one less melody of a song.

And no I didn’t know what I was doing and yes I wish someone could have guided me and asked me if I was doing okay and whether I was actually liking this life in dublin and this degree I was doing.

I hated it. I hated it and I kept doing it. to prove a point so they didn’t lose their minds saying

I told you so, music wasnt really serious, I knew it was an immature random impulsive thing you did. I kept doing it so I could have silence for the first time in my life. And the irony is that it wasn’t impulsive. it really was my calling, it is my calling. but by the 3rd year of college, I was more disconnected from music than I ever was and maybe it would have been a good idea to study something that could actually make me money if I was gonna suffer that much. but then I realised finishing the degree or quitting would have both made me suffer just as much.

I have followed my dreams relentlessly and not even that brings me joy anymore and it’s probably because I have cut everything else out of my life because I’m scared of more people disappointing me.

I don’t go on walks in the woods anymore because I’m scared flowers will disappoint me. even the beach brings too many memories now of when I used to find meaning in the turquoise water and white sand. playing guitar reminds me of who I was going to be but could never be. when I sing I picture my mother shouting at me, telling me to stop and I don’t know how to tell my inner child that failing is safe, and that not being good at something is safe, and that actually the only way I can live the most aligned life is by being okay with failing and with embarrassment but I am so not okay with it.

I have dinner with the person who taught me how to play guitar and I know he’s probably wondering what I’m doing with my life now. and wondering how you can go from being the most talented student you’ve ever had to someone quite uninteresting who just went to another country to pay rent. I still don’t understand how I have spent years pretending he doesn’t mean a lot to me. being sentimental became quite out of reach for me. loving someone became dangerous because it hurts so much more when you care. so I just told myself I didn’t care. and I don’t blame myself for having taken the easy way out. but I don’t know how to show people that I care anymore. how to be open to them not caring. how to tell people that I love them.

I have surface-level conversations with people because I don’t want to admit to anyone that I care. that I care what they think of me. if they think I’m directionless because I chose music as a career. if they think I’m antisocial because I haven’t made one true friend in the past four years. if they think I’ve let my self-doubt get the best of me and that I’m a loser for staying at home on weekends and for not having enough energy to plan hikes in the beautiful mountains that surround me and roadtrips around the north of Spain.

but yeah. then you realise there’s something missing. and when there’s something missing you think about moving. And you wonder what place on earth could make your soul alive and you wonder if something inside just isn’t working properly and it’s the sixth time you move house now and the sixth time you won’t decorate it and make it like home because you‘re too scared of leaving something good. because you’re too scared of the price you have to pay for a joyful life, which is grief, and sour memories, and losing versions of who you are.

but I don’t want to lose myself again. I am not ready to let her go. she’s everything I have. letting go feels like too much. but then you wonder how long feeling like too much will be. and how many more pizzas and ice creams you’ll have to eat. and how many more conversations you’ll need to have. and how many more letters you’ll have to write to your younger self, to finally take the risk of grief again. to swim in its waters. to open your heart again, to be okay with it being ripped, like really okay with it. to not have memories of a bitter time resurface when love fades, or when you change. to know that you’re always loved. you’re loved when you fail. you’re loved when you’re not being productive. you’re loved when you call rest productive because otherwise you would feel too guilty about having it. you’re loved when you’ve let the pumpkin go off. you’re loved when you haven’t spoken to a good friend in years because you’re too scared of connection. you’re loved when you don’t wash the dishes. you’re loved when you wear pyjamas all day. you’re loved when you want to sleep until late. you’re loved when you’ve procrastinated playing guitar because you feel too hopeless to do anything. you’re loved even when you’re not yourself because it’s too scary to be so vulnerable. and you’re loved when you overeat because you don’t know how else to deal with loneliness. and you’re loved when you can’t tell how loved you are.

I keep thinking about the version of me that was lost around 2017. maybe even earlier. there was a version of me that was simple, happy, driven, and full of energy. there is a version of me that would have spent hours sitting next to a guitar amp practising scales. there is a version of me that would have explored the world with wonder and not with so much crippling fear.

but it’s gone. I want to reach out to her. bring her back. I want her energy. her spark. I want her to take away this feeling of emptiness I feel sometimes.

When I play my songs, sometimes I imagine people I used to know and they finally accept me and they finally love me and they stop thinking I was silly and delusional and dumb. everything I do has become about them. about them not thinking I’m unlovable. even the thing I love the most has been corrupted by my need for love and validation. or in my worst days, my need for people to see me as better than them, as more talented, more intelligent than them. sometimes I fantasize about so many “she was right all along”. sadly this is not enough fuel to get me off the couch.

so you start getting resentful. you wish people saw the real you but they don’t. so you start telling yourself that you’re special, and better than them. and then at some point in the process, you understand that you’re using art to isolate yourself and alienate yourself and that is not what art is for. art was always a way to understand the world when things got too ugly or when things got too beautiful. And it was a way for you to validate yourself. And to turn pain into something meaningful. But it was never meant to turn you into the tortured artist of the movie who’s just in the house writing in bed until very late because they have so much vision and creativity and they are so much better than all those other boring people who barely have any feelings or had any real problems.

and no, my theories on my family and my resentment toward old friends, is not helping me get close to what I desire most. maybe I have to stop thinking that it’s in my control. that there’s something I can do about my family’s lack of love and affection. that yeah sure I know they wouldn’t accept me even if I was perfect, but then I think, really? maybe if I was perfect, we would actually be a beautiful happy family and we would go out for dinner and to the park and feed the ducks and we would go to the beach and play cards and we would watch movies together and compliment each other’s cute dresses. I just can’t let go. I can’t accept that I have no control. I can’t accept that I can’t make my aunt happy. I can’t accept that my presence does nothing to them.

so I go around in circles.

more getting skinny. less reacting. more do what they want. less do what I want. more let’s try and find something in this city that i like so that I don’t have to leave so that they don’t have to be unhappy, and less let’s actually go somewhere that makes my fucking skin glow.

I don’t know what game I’m playing. but this is not how life is. this is not the essence of life. the essence of life is little brown leaves, and daffodils and clouds making weird shapes. it’s not this. it’s not crying every second day because your family doesn’t love you for you. it’s not pursuing your dreams to prove something to the people who didn’t believe in you. it’s not about convincing yourself that closing a chapter is the only way to move forward, sometimes chapters never close. it’s not about whether you’re right or wrong, or whether you stick with music forever even when it’s not the thing you love anymore so that no one can say you’ve quit, and it’s not about staying in a safe job so people can stop misunderstanding you and questioning you.

what matters is if you’re happy with the life you’ve built and if you’re excited about the life you’re building. and if that life looks simple. if that life looks like staying. and eating ice creams in the same neighbourhood you grew up in, then so be it.

but if that life looks like swimming in different seas, living in a house with chickens, playing electric guitar really loud, eating tomatoes with tuna, going on a never ending roadtrip around france, and making art about the beauty and the ugly in this world,

then so be it.

and it would be so mean to demand perfection of my fifteen-year-old self. to demand wisdom when the only thing she knew was seeing her mum in bed and her dad saying her hips were getting too wide.

so I give her the kindest hug. and I tell her

I’ve never met someone more brave, with more courage, audacity, and thirst for life than you. please go back to playing guitar. please go back to singing. please go back to trying. to disappointing people. to trusting that things will be okay. to failing. to making art with no end goal. to playing. go back to being.

you are so loved.

my previous poem about my family being really weird and unfair, and how I just wish we were more like the kind of families who play cards at the beach and cook pasta salad. and how hard it is to let go of that idea, and accept that it might never happen.