(TW: Mental Health, Suicidal Ideation, Self-Harm)
The topics in this one might be kind of heavy, so if that’s something you can’t handle right now, I urge you to go get yourself a cup of tea, or coffee, and just be kind to yourself. This post may not be for you, and that’s okay, I’ll catch you again in the next one. I just want everyone to be safe and healthy.
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The first time I heard this song, part of me thought that I didn’t even hear the words. It was late at night, I heard it on TikTok, and something about it got to me, so I got out of bed, and I put my headphones in.
“Think I forgot how to be happy
Something I’m not, but something I can be
Something I wait for
Something I’m made for.”
That was it.
That’s all I needed to hear for my Goblin Brain to step in and say- “This will be the only song you want to listen to for weeks, until it drives everyone fucking crazy. Until you know every word, and it’s engraved in your bones.” Now you see, I listen to a lot of music, more than the average person I’m sure, to the point where if you ask me what five things I absolutely cannot live without, save food, water, and shelter, I will tell you music. Because when I do not have the words, or the energy to tell you what I’m feeling, I know that music can do it for me.
Like right now, for example, I am sitting here alone in my Pink Floyd hoodie with this song on repeat. Is it too hot to be doing this in Illinois during the summer, yes. Do I know what I’m feeling exactly? No. I’m not even fully sure what I want to say, both to myself, and in this post but, something is compelling me to do it anyways.
Because bad days happen. There are days where I want nothing more than to take a couple of pain pills, roll back over, and sleep but, I also know, with absolute certainty that, that is the Depression talking. Or Anxiety lifting up it’s head, and yawning, like some horned serpent ready to chase me back into the shadows.
Both should not be listened to. It is a bad day, not a bad life. It will get better, whether it feels that way or not. You will find the light at the end of that tunnel, you just have to walk through a few shadows to get there, I promise. I’ve been there, too.
At ten-years old, I decided for the first time that I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t know the name of the creature called Depression that lived under my bed at that age. All I knew was that there was something going on, a growing darkness in me, and it felt never-ending. I felt like I forgot how to be happy. Thoughts that a younger me, thankfully did not act on too harshly on…
That was the first time but, maybe not the last. I say that but, I know that the answer is that it was definitely not the last. At thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, all the way up until now at twenty-eight years old, I have decided on and off that I did not want to be here. My choices vary however, as to why. Some days, it’s the constant and debilitating pain that I’m in all the time, other times it was the alcoholic family members… or their friends. Not to speak ill of the dead but, some people may or may not deserve to rot for things that they’ve done that I will speak aloud to no one but my closest friend.
And what have I learned from all that but that, I think I would rather be here…
Because honestly, I want more. I want more of standing in the kitchen with the people I love, laughing about something stupid, even when being yelled at by someone who won’t apologize when they’re in the wrong. I want more of trying the new, strange Coke flavors, and making new recipes. I want more game nights where we’re yelling about how Pip keeps turning the color fucking yellow on Uno, and more of just driving around and listening to the music or taking the long way home when life just gets to be too much.
I want more.
More of the good days, that get me through the hard times, and the good days that I would not be here to see today if I had chosen to end my story a little too early. So, I guess it’s fair to say that for some people, music is a love language, or maybe just a way of life- and it speaks volumes.
So, when I sit and ask myself, “what was I made for?” The answer is simple. I was made for long days playing Fortune Street with my person and making lemonade to make my brother happy. Lots of cooking, whether I want to or not because, let’s face it, without me these people would full on starve. (If you could see the pan my brother makes scrambled eggs in, you would cry. Hell, I’m crying, my poor pan.)
Some people will tell you that five-years down the road, you’ll have a house, a husband/wife, and maybe some kids… but I’m here to tell you that, you do not need to live your life that way. Look at me, for example, at sixteen I would have told you that at twenty-eight I would have a husband, a kid, and maybe a house. Instead, I’m twenty-eight and I have a fat dog, a little brother, my grandmother, some rats, a snake, a pocket goblin, and someone who would cross what feels like the world for me.
We may not always get along, and life is a struggle sometimes but, we get by.
-Sky
Skyla N. Lambert
Author | Blogger | Bookworm |
E. skylanarissalambert@gmail.com
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