Baby lion goes
Where the islands go
I've had this line by Arthur Russell playing on a constant loop in my head for the past few days. More importantly, it's the version Kanye West used on 30 Hours as a sample.
I don't really know why it's stuck with me so much but the way it sounds in his song, the almost haunting nature of it has stuck firmly in my brain and I can't help being drawn back to it every time. I don't know if my mind is trying to build a mystique around it, maybe I'm trying to find more in it than already exists but I really do love it and something about it resonates within me.
The last few weeks, no, the last few months have been a really dark time for me. Things I thought were set in stone, experiences I've felt and people I've come to love and hold dear have all seemed to just crumble before me and I've been left feeling quite lost and alone.
For the last two years I've been struggling with who I am and my place in the world. I'm usually the type of person who is very self-assured and I thought I was someone who was extremely capable and able to handle anything that came my way but lately it's been a struggle to shake away my feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. Some mornings I wake up feeling on top of the world, like I'm untouchable and nothing could possibly get me down but lately I've been feeling like I don't quite have everything together. I've been feeling like everything I do has no purpose and mostly I've been feeling like I have no purpose and don't matter and I've got to say, it's tough man, it really is.
I'll often sit and think, trying to find the root of the issue and more often than not, I draw a blank. It niggles at me like a loose tooth and I keep playing with it with my tongue and some days I can ignore it and be fine but other times it really hurts and leaves me unable to do anything. In times like these, I find myself reaching for my earphones and trying to find music that helps me drown out the noise in my head, in hopes that it'll fix whatever it is that's going on and I'll be fine again. There's been a lot of controversy surrounding Kanye West over the last few years. There's been a lot of controversy surrounding Kanye West pretty much his whole career if we're being honest. I've often been able to separate the man from the music and it's always worked really well for me.
There's no doubting that he's made musical gems over the years. Whether you love him or hate him, there's no denying the man is a musical genius. "I am flawed as a human. I am flawed as a person. As a man I am flawed... ... but my music is perfect!" That's a direct quote from him and aptly put. He has many, many flaws and there's always something new surrounding him that has people divided but his music is the one thing no one can fault him on. I've been listening to a lot of his stuff recently, just trying to reconcile my thoughts and it has helped me a lot.
Music is one of the best healers I know.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes I slip out of the funk and the fog in my head clears up and I'm back in fighting shape and the small knocks that life throws at me are easily deflected and I can continue on. Other times, I get set back even further and it feels like I'm down even deeper than before. I'm trying to work out where it is I often go wrong and what it is that leads me down these dark corridors I find myself sometimes. I know the stresses of work often get to me. The constant fight to do good by myself and those around me by being the best I can be in my professional field often weighs heavy on me and that's a struggle I'm trying to win but it proves tough. I also struggle a lot with my relationships with people and that has been my biggest challenge recently. I feel as if I have no real set support around me and that is tough sometimes. I know everyone has their own struggles to deal with in life and I can't rightfully expect anyone to put my feelings and fears in pride of place over theirs and that hurts. Often times I will do just that for them, I will almost always push back whatever it is I'm facing and focus on what it is that's bothering those around me because I do truly want to see them happy and at peace but lately I've realised that steals huge chunks of my own peace and I end up feeling lower than before but I just can't stop myself. When it comes to the problems of others, I'm quickly there to offer myself up and be an ear and a shoulder to cry on but when it comes to my own issues, I tend to push them back for another day. I wouldn't dream of bothering another with what troubles me and so I'm often left trying to deal with things on my own and lately I've been struggling.
I've made islands of people. I treat someone as a small oasis where I can try find my ground again and build myself up. I'm realising now that that's not really a good thing for me to do. People do not exist as a recess from the elements that are in my head. I can't try and use them to replenish me as if they exist solely for the purpose of making me feel like my old self again. Oftimes I feel like I've outgrown a person or a situation and I will set off in search of something new and then I'm back out in the water. I leave feeling like I can make it to the next place, in search of a place where I will find home but along the way I start flagging and I realise that I wasn't quite ready for this voyage and I'm out adrift, wading water and trying to keep my afloat.
The fault lies with me. Instead of trying to work on what it is that bothers me, that makes me feel the way I've often been feeling lately, I allow myself to be distracted by the excitement of a new island and in doing so, I forget what it is that brought me there in the first place and trick myself into thinking nothing is wrong until I set off again and I'm out in the middle of the ocean where all my issues surround me again and I'm back out there feeling lost.
I'm trying to work on that and fix that in myself. It's not easy but I owe it to myself to put my issues first and focus on that. I can't expect to be a good person to those around me if I'm not being good to myself. This has been a ramble with no real direction, I've just been writing as thoughts come to mind but it's really helped, I feel a bit better for it.
