No Pretense

“He always assumed their friendship was contextual. He wasn’t sure how real their offer was, so he declined”

“No matter what gets damaged, life has a way of rearranging itself to compensate for your loss” - A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Leaning into love. In a way that has impact. I know the words, but the actions aren’t present. I know the idea, but the feeling has no spirit. What does it mean to remove yourself from a pedestal and sit eye to eye with people. Not an exaggerated, outstretched fantasy of a person. Built by context clues, social status, and local story. But for who they genuinely are. To say, “I’m going to listen to you without reflection on myself, and with deep intent to see you”.

I was messaged by an old friend today. They let me know they desired a more profound and deep connection. And to reignite what was lost in years of focusing on goals, career, and creation. This made me nervous. I don’t love that my initial reaction was nervous. But the first quote above from A Little Life made me realize. I’ve always believed that everyone who knows me, knows me contextually, and that context is my only value. If I wasn’t offering something more than myself, it couldn’t be enough. If we aren’t creating, if we aren’t challenging, if we aren’t engaging in anything, then I am nothing. Once the well is dry, I won’t be of use anymore. My function is purpose. And without purpose, I am disposable. I do not seek kinship where I can exist as myself. To sit and do nothing, to have no goal, to have no plan. What would it look like to sit and enjoy the presence of another, with zero pretense? 

2025 (pt 2)

year in review part 2. presented unfiltered and unedited, uploaded immediately upon finishing writing.

Moving into the next pieces of the year. I think a shield duplicitously reflects my safety and my downfall. It stops the bad from getting in, but it blocks everything. I also then inherently have to believe that what is being blocked is bad. Rather than acknowledging the beauty and growth of humanity through failing and learning, even in its deepest and most unnerving spaces. This year, I believe I touched some places that few get to.

I wrote that I feel overwhelmed almost all of the time. Despite having more time than I know what to do with. It feels clearer to me, that my desire to be liked and operating at 100% eats away at my ability to relax and feel like enough for just being me. What is my worth on this earth if I’m not creating anything of value for myself, my community, and my culture. If my life fails by not achieving my self defined success, that produces a weight that is becoming harder to carry. I’m not certain what happiness genuinely looks like for me because I shift that goal post over and over again. 

In February, I started to see the inklings of believing that weakness is strength, and to embrace weakness and fallibility. Sitting here in the first week of January, I think I have lost touch with the importance of that. In the early months of last year, I was my weakest and messiest. It felt invigorating even if it wasn’t the best behaviour I’ve exhibited. But I dropped the shield for the first time that kept me hidden away from the world. A shield I could drop again if I want to feel part of something again.

Another shield of mine is dissociation and humour. I need to be careful where those feelings are coming from and how they’re being utilized in my life. While humour is crucial to joy and companionship, it can be weaponized. Understanding where you come from within while being funny is paramount to actually conveying joy. It’s not funny if it causes unwelcome pain and grief.

But dissociation is my greater enemy. I have an ability to retreat that needs to be kept in check. “not now”, “Tomorrow”, “it’ll pass”. Do these leave space to actually feel what’s happening in my life? Do these simply leave space to disengage. So much of my time is spent looking forward to disengaging and not participating in the world. It’s become a cliche this year, but it hurt me in my heart. “How you spend your days is how you spend your life”. So why do I calculate all my time based on when I get to do nothing? I used to relish the filled calendar. Isn’t that why I chose the life I have? To have the space and time to be part of things I genuinely enjoy and love?

Reality says to me, that if I embraced myself and the things I love and put myself out there even further, that I would be accepted. But 2025 was a year of deep hurt from sources that I deserved a better love from. Namely, my sets of adoptive and birth parents. I am a child ignored, and I am a child with no place to send my pain and hurt. My wounds are unattended to by the only people who should be unconditional. But it’s not what I was granted, and the rift grows and grows. I used to believe I could do more, and if I continued pushing and pushing, it would be reciprocated. But at some point, you must acknowledge that your parents have moved on and don’t see you as child, and possibly never did. What to do with that information is still a mystery to me.

Can I reclaim my spirit and desire to live in the coming year, and can I hold true to the things that provide me respite and joy? It has not been an easy time. But I do need to remind myself that I’m alive and there’s love in the world to be had. And that returning to creation in a lens outside of business or success will ultimately serve me best. I finish this sentence while waiting on the phone to talk to 988, in an effort the begin speaking honestly with more than my writing.

2025 (pt 1)

Presented entirely unedited and without rereading upon finishing.

Year in review. I’m going to use my old journal entries as a vessel to open myself up as much as possible. I’ve been feeling very inside myself to an unhealthy degree. And I’ve been feeling afraid of myself. Do I really speak from desire, curiosity, and free will? Or do I speak from fear and a need for stability that I’m not providing myself. Why do I place the onus on others to provide a feeling I can’t provide myself? I think largely due to an absence of unconditional love. But it’s unconditional love that I crave beyond anything. I’m not certain there’s room for a different type of bond while that lacks.

But why do I feel that I don’t have unconditional love? I know some of the best people on earth. They remind me that they are with me and stand beside me no matter what. I could rely on the heavily. Maybe I’m ashamed that they can’t rely on me in the same way, because I’m still figuring out my own puzzle. But I wonder if I also consistently seek something new from people beyond the immediate circle. Maybe it’s some broken invention of “it can always be better” and striving. That’s not something to be proud of, but I do it with music, exercise, food, and gear. And when it doesn’t satiate, I don’t necessarily learn my lesson. Make do with what you have.

In this moment, that constant strive feels like a blessing and a curse. There’s never an easy answer, and I also feel that with everything, there’s not a binary method of proceeding that encapsulates the nuance of being alive and trying. But whether I am adequately trying and focusing on the right things, that’s where I remain unsure.

I know that I desire a spiritual reconnection to music. Music has been the most transformative and amazing vessel for expression that I’ve ever held. I am curious about the visual arts, and I’m curious about writing, but those have always been curiousities compared the monstrosity that music provides. The feeling of a literal soul touching connection with the people you play with when everything meshes. I watched a short about A Love Supreme last night, and hearing them talk about their methods and creations was amazing. It reminded me of the holiest performances I got to partake in with my projects. When everything disappears and you’re part of something larger and more meaningful. I think it’s the closest I’ve come to touching god, and getting back there feels deeply integral. Unmarred by the realities of an outside audience or perspective. I’m excited at the idea of becoming more active in my local scene, especially towards the more avant-garde.

The first journal entry I open, I notice that within the first paragraph I write “Mainly, I think being a vessel for learning and investigating and being authentic is tantamount. I want to begin exploring old journal entries to see what thoughts I had and where I sit with them now.” And here I sit today, doing that reflecting that I hoped to do. This is from Jan 2025.

The next day, January 21st 2025, I write the following. “Today, I feel a little out of sorts in a couple ways. I messaged people I’ve wanted to message forever. What was I waiting for? I think I believed it would be disrespectful if my intentions were not pure. But if these relationships are something important to me, are the pure intentions not an intrinsic machination of the complex identities of both parties. I also rob them of the ability to be a piece of the dialogue that I’m building. I have a world in my head that doesn’t necessarily reflect reality, and by letting it go unchecked, I can continue to believe it. “

Hard to read this with the knowledge that I’m now in that same headspace. Before the time of this revelation. I have cut myself off and told myself uncharitable stories that I can’t be certain reflect reality. I notice with a year behind me now that I continue to pursue some warped and unkind idea of purity. I don’t believe we can hold people to purity. But I strictly enforce it on myself, and when I deviate, I self-flagellate into a waking coma. Why do I have so much distaste for the parts of myself that are crass? Do they not make up the whole? I know that I am more than those feelings, but why do I let them undermine my worth as a friend, partner, or even acquaintance? 

The other piece that stings. Relates to the problem of not letting people in on a dialogue we’re not having. But I also realize that I have so much discomfort around not “cementing the unknown”. To sit in uncertainty feels like death. That’s something to look at moving forward. How can I sit in uncertainty without overwhelm? Can I be excited by uncertainty? Can I leave things lying on the ground without an intense inspection? It’s difficult for me to know what is a positive or negative attribute. As I wrote above, it’s likely another manifestation of the intense desire to have things known, categorized, and understood in some binary way. If only it were that simple.

My next entry on January 27th is right before my separation from a relationship of 13 years. Although for myself, the relationship ended mentally in October 2024 with a devastating blow that we survived past in name and proximity. But things were altered in a fundamental way that drove a need for change, even if that change ended up introducing more extreme hardship through the remainder of the year.

I wrote about my therapist realizing that even though I claimed to speak freely, I did have a method of constantly softening the edges and always considering the other and how they might react. Is that honesty then? Or is it a padded form of identity protection to keep things copascetic? As a form of self-protection, being agreeable but able to diplomatically speak certainly has its place. But was I even considering the others around me? Or was I purely focused on self-preservation?

It’s the first year of my life that I’ve had to acknowledge being abused as a child. Not in a joking way, but to actually hold space for the constant environment of fear and pain that permeated my existence from a young age, and the implications that has moving into adulthood. Of course I do not want to upset you, to upset you is to invite the wrath of a mentally ill and unstable human. Someone who isn’t afraid to swat or remind you that you’re unloved and worthless. That know matter who you are or what you pursue, you will always be a failure, and never meet their needs and wants as a parent. Welcoming this reality without a harsh internal penalty, but rather an openness to try and see how it informed my dialogue and lifestyle, was still largely ignored. But it does feel like the initial cracks of getting myself back from a cowering child.

Dependent

So much has changed. I’m not sure where to begin. I’ve been through a lot of feeling. I’ve been sitting with feelings that I’ve pushed down. I’ve lost a lot of desire for feeling correct. I think my defense mechanisms that have “kept me independent” have done more to hurt me than to help me. I felt some strange relief to the be in the company of people who I’ve experienced hardship with and lost, and felt a comfort in weathering hardship with people who I love. It feels silly to wish for foresight and retroactive change, but I do. It provides relief to imagine that everyone experiences that desire to look back and fix.

I brought myself near to tears in therapy. I have yet to cry there. After a year of crying fairly willingly, I’m sensing it close back up. I’m realizing there’s a lot of work to do in making sure that valve stays open. But tears come from a true place, a place of reveal that displays our collective humanity without the veil of ego. I long to weep openly, but harder done than uttered. Reconciling with my childhood has not been simple.

I do not have many early memories of Saskatchewan. Breaking my nose comes to mind. A birthday party where my father joked about throwing my photo that he kept in his wallet. I think in retrospect that my father was not capable of closeness in any capacity. I think he taught me how to keep people at an arm’s length. That’s where we’re safest, when we’re unknown. But it’s an obtuse method to try feeling safe, because you aren’t safe at all. We’re safe in the arms of others and with dependence. With support, safe to explore ourselves. No manufacturing or performance, being as you are and accepted.

But my father never shared anything about his life in the first place, so how could I trace my ideas, lineage, feelings, and learning as a child? Only on this recent trip home did I learn my mother was married for nearly a decade before meeting my father. They simply did not talk about anything. There’s a quiet that sits over the entirety of my life before touring. Where I found family for the first time. But that doesn’t create healing by virtue of itself. I remain damaged to this day. I still perform, I still keep humans at arm’s length. I listen to my body but then refuse to act on its desires. It’s no wonder I’ve swallowed panic for decades, I don’t give it anywhere to go.

Texts to nathan

“I think for me, I’m beginning to fear an innate disconnect that I have from the beginning. It would be hard not to recognize someone, because I don’t remember feeling love and attachment for them in a profound way.”

“How can I know that misunderstanding if I’m unsure that I’ve ever felt it. I think about this these days, with the number of people who come and go in my life. Do I have an incapability to love genuinely and through hardship, because I have not experienced that?”

“I am quick to shut down if I feel misunderstood. I am quick to accept that someone will no longer be in my life, as though I acquiesce the ability of presence entirely to them. But my experience dictates that. The only letter I have from my biological father states, “when you’re ready, please reach out. Until then, I’ll never bother you”.

And he’s mostly been true to that word. But it’s odd, because you would think I want that effort put in and to form something more tangible. Whether anything parental can come to pass, I’m not certain. But I do think something is better than nothing in the case of your parents.”

“But I realize now that the hurt is so immense. Placing the desire for a relationship on the child. I could try and see it through his eyes, and maybe I’ll write about it someday. But my feeling is that it destroyed my ability to believe people wanted something deep and genuine with me. Not even my own biological father was willing to fight for a relationship with me, it was wholly my choice.”

“I now experience it with my birth mother as well. It simply evaporates. That love feels entirely ethereal to me and not physical at all. I think I have a complete and fundamental missing piece of what it feels like to be loved unconditionally.”

Memory

Today I had a memory that created unease. I walked with Alannah down the street, and we encountered a small dog. I brought up my adoptive mother’s dog Choco. I relayed that Donna more than once told me that she loved the dog more than she loved me, her son. It was her way of communicating disdain for a mentally ill and combative child. Not what she envisioned when adopting me.

I hadn’t considered the immensity of that sentiment. I hadn’t let myself feel hurt by it, at least consciously. I have built a shield that I imagined was impenetrable. How can I live with enthusiasm if I don’t let love in? How can I operate with clarity through the blur of shields.

Over the years, I started to feel I could let love in. At least in smaller ways. I learned communication, experiencing unease, and supporting yourself and others within the kinship of a band. People who travel and need to rely on each other to work towards a purpose they believe in. In that realm, I was safe. At least to the degree that I knew what safety was or could feel like.

How safe could I really be in trying to project an image of security and knowing? I’m unsure of my ability to self-reflect, especially in notions of responsibility and love. Am I seeing nuance, or am I scared of being on the wrong side of a fence? What do I owe people who don’t always treat others kindly? Do I give the compassion I expect?

I am loved less than a dog, I am standing in my living room. I am being yelled at, I can’t remember why. When your entire memory of a decade is being admonished and yelled at by your guardians, it’s hard to parse how you could be so evil. I can now see complete codependency and mental illness permeating every nook of my guardians lives. Everything was also exacerbated by my own burgeoning mental health crisis.

I don’t remember the last time I yelled with anything other than joy in my heart. I love celebratory feelings. I love camaraderie. But I also have immense discomfort with anger, and am not compassionate towards it as a valid emotion. Is it an overcorrection from a childhood that steeped itself in anger almost exclusively? Sometimes I feel lucky I made it out alive.

Pedestal

The realization of choice. I have choice. Every day, I make choices. Reaction, decision, desired outcomes, wants, needs. To take care of myself, to not take care of myself. What do I spend my energy focusing on? What am I trying to control?

I am sitting upstairs in my office. I am writing down my thoughts as they come to me. I am attempting some form of clairvoyance with myself that takes me out of pattern. Why am I always worried? What is the obsession with perception? I have no control over perception. I can only try to be honest with myself and the world. But do I succeed in that? Lately, it feels like it's rare.

I don’t want to be in my head. I want to be in the world and in communication. I watch things vapidly. I occupy time and don’t take in media meaningfully. I am craving a feeling of connection and push. I am not tapped into the excited child that I was.

I remember being made fun of often. And sometimes brutally. For my affections and loves of trivial things. I can remember a point in my life when I felt completely alive while taking in art and media. I can remember watching others get made fun of for being excited and wanting interesting things to happen for themselves and their friends and their community. Coolness was the killer.

What has the desire for cool or niche culture done for me, when pitted against the larger cultural institutions? There’s good natured conversation to be had about engaging with art and culture that touch corporate entities, and feed into the hand of awful human decisions. But on an artistic level, I’m remiss that I’ve tried to couch my love for things that I worry might be too mainstream, or misunderstood. Because I’ve watched people be made fun of for their loves.

Why am I feeding into the hand of wanting to be accepted by people who do not accept others? Or elevate their taste as a form of superiority? The pedestal is the killer, always. I can only hope to get back in touch with the excited child. The idea that Michael Gira does not laugh at a fart once every so often is absurd. I feel we’ve created super villains out of our heroes when I watch young artists conduct themselves. Including myself. Can I free myself from the reigning oppression of coolness?

The Self

“For not all frankness is created equal. "Brutal honesty" is honesty that either aims to hurt someone or doesn't care if it does. ("No one wants to be friends with you," "You smell bad," "You've always been less attractive than your sister," "I never loved you.") While the two words often arrive sutured together, I think it worthwhile to breathe some space between them, so that one might see "brutal honesty" not as a more forceful version of honesty itself, but as one possible use of honesty. One that doesn't necessarily lay truth barer by dint of force, but that actually overlays something on top of it— something that can get in its way. That something is cruelty.” - Like Love, Maggie Nelson

I’m curious if I’m at the lowest emotional valley I’ve ever experienced. The months of this year have been tribulations like no other. Therapy, self-reflection, reading, and new experiences romantically and platonically. I find myself questioning my place within existence writ large. What is the purpose or meaning of being part of a community? Especially when people are inevitably convoluted, messy, and imperfect.

What are my internal reflections? And what are the realities that exist? Insofar as unchangeable and impenetrable realities even can exist. Not something I’m sure I believe, because we are all so capable of constructing our meaning and world to our liking, regardless of the outside. Where does my perception of my value, purpose, and existence fall in between those two worlds? My best guess is that I’m overly critical of myself these days. But not without evidence or merit of my shortcomings. How do I dig myself out of that poor self-perception while acknowledging the hurt that exists because of me and around me?

The quote above is from “Like Love” by Maggie Nelson. I initially read it and felt so seen regarding my own experiences with “brutal honesty”. People can couch a lot of disdain and hurt of their own in the idea that they’re being brutally honest. But I realize I have used it too. I don’t like myself for it. I am struggling to forgive myself more than ever. It’s possible that deep down I don’t believe I’m owed any forgiveness. 

I used to believe there were inherent harsh realities of living. I’m not sure that paradigm exists in any form now. If it does, it feels self-imposed and wholly unforgiving of the messiness that humans contain, endure, enact, and internalize. How can I better look people in the eyes and meet them with honest compassion towards commonality? Why do I struggle so much with pure honesty? Do I really believe people are incapable of hearing truths if vocalized compassionately, or am I protecting myself from having to confront myself? Do I even know how to provide pure honesty? I lived a life of protecting myself from immense rage until I was well into my late twenties. From people who were ostensibly my caregivers. I want to deconstruct how that built me into who I am.

I believed there was a time in my life when I spoke honestly. Upon reflection, I think I only spoke honestly for myself without regard for the larger contexts. I spent my childhood hurt and neglected. I don’t think I could entertain that I was a piece of something larger and complicated, rather than being above it or outside of it, without exposing that I was deeply hurt myself. I thought I had control. Today, I am certain I don’t. But in my past, I did not either. My hurt has control of me, and still does. I told myself that being touched did not matter. I told myself that nothing could hurt me because of my experiences growing up. I was a shell. I had built a shield. How can I look inwards and grow if I don’t know how to perceive myself with care and compassion? Neglect was ingrained in my bones. It is normalized and expected.

I have an immense cruelty towards myself that is masqueraded as toughness. I was on tour the first time I heard the lyrics “Everyone says to me, Missy, you’re so strong. Well, what if I don’t want to be?” and I held back tears. I no longer believe that shield I built was invisible. I would guess it’s clear from the outside looking in that I’m a mess.

Holding Another

I’m unsure how many times I’ve been able to leave myself and hold another completely. I only know the feeling when it’s present. The intangible link created between me and another. Without worry of our wounds or embarrassment. I speak to my insecurities openly, but it doesn’t reconcile anything in an actualized way. It’s a step on the path that I’ve stopped walking because I’ve made it further than others. And I let that be enough.

When I hear someone’s words with my ego out of the way. That is affirming. That is life. That is love in the way that I’ve grown to understand it. Why has that act grown so difficult? Possibly because I feel so wholly misunderstood that it becomes hard to understand others. How can you grasp someone else’s pain when you’re unwilling to grasp your own? I think of my first therapy session. Where I said I didn’t need to talk about family. What farce was I perpetuating and to what end?

Neglect was large. Maybe the largest part of my emotional framework while growing up. My birth parents were far too young to be a reliable and stable place. Through no fault of their own, they were teenagers. And then my adoptive parents. Possibly trying to use a child to fix their own problems that were growing slowly, and then retreating into themselves when it didn’t work. I hold them to no fault now. They’re human, like everyone else, and we don’t always get what is owed to us as children in the form of support, love, care, and stability. 

It’s pesky that the largest and most foundational emotional problems I experience grow quietly and slowly. It’s easy to know what’s needed in a moment of crisis or panic. I am hurt. I am alone. I am scared. Soothe me, hold me. But the existential thought and repetitions that are rehearsed almost subconsciously over time are what come to kill me. I have terrible self-narratives that are rarely verbalized to others. Maybe a glimpse, or a half joke. But what it would mean to sit down with someone and say “I am broken, please listen”.

Where do I fit? Am I liked enough to be included? Am I part of something? Do I need to be part of something? How has my time in the music industry enforced a tragic desire to be loved, admired, or approved of in all the wrong ways? How have I bestowed my own feelings of superiority into the world and what harm has it caused potential relationships? The pedestal is the enemy, whether looking up or down.

Loneliness

Is it self-imposed? I’m not sure where the line of responsibility lies between myself and others. I feel loneliness in a new way this year. Or I might be cognizant of it for the first time. I recently asked myself if I had a lonely childhood. I realized I don’t remember the majority of my childhood.

Recognizing the part I play in my loneliness has been difficult. Wondering if I speak truly, speak clearly. Do I leave space for the other? Can I create an environment of understanding and ease? Shyness and my desire for social ease dominate moments when I should speak more. Moments when I speak more, I could remember to dial back a bit. My barometer for successful interrogation and understanding seems calibrated poorly in both directions.

This has been a beyond difficult year for a myriad of reasons. Possibly the worst year of my life emotionally. The complexity of my upbringing, the ramifications of adoption on parent and child, separation romantically and platonically. A text from a friend said that they believed “love did not disappear”. The physical separation has no relief from love’s immensity. It’s placed in a new paradigm internally but it carries the same profound effect.

I am the loneliest I’ve ever been. I hold out hope for that to change. Because I also feel I’m finally looking at my loneliness in the face, and not as a spectre behind me with a hand on my shoulder. Can I acknowledge its presence and learn to live with it? Right now, I persist despite it.