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.