With guts out honesty comes clarity and ease.
I’ve wanted it so much, so like a sponge I took every advice and comment and nurtured them as my precious garden. I believed in the goodness of people to the point I drank every poison I was given without hesitation. I gave my all and even more. I pushed, pushed, and pushed until I was exhausted and lost, because that was the only story I was told. The story of toughness, overwork, and endless need to excel as a gentle reminder that you will never be the right fit.
You’re too technical.
You’re not good enough.
You’re too marginal.
You’re not unique enough.
You should be more.
You should be less.
You’re too much.
You’re not enough.
I know there’s nothing exceptional about my story. I’m (at least trying to be) fine with the situation where I have ended up. I know I’m responsible for my own choices, even the poor ones. But with the willingness to take that responsibility I also allow myself now to choose differently.
I am giving myself 9 months to think this through. My first and biggest love of my life, slowly turned into something so utterly and painfully complicated.
So many hopes and wishes.
So many regrets and disappointments.
I have tried so hard, so why am I not worthy?
Because — and it’s already dawning on me — I already am worthy, without any trying.
I need to go back to when I didn’t have any expectations. To a time when I was a creator out of necessity. When music was like breathing, as natural and as vital.
When did I forget how to breathe?
When did something so natural become so…rigid?
When did I allow all those opinions and other people’s attitudes become my truth?
This guts out honesty hurts. And it wakes me up.
It’s a swim in the ice. A broken heart after traveling all the way to the other side of the world. The sound of a closing door behind you. Freedom.
It’s scary to drop your ego. And to allow your creativity to find its own ways.
But if I don’t do this…I don’t know. I guess I’ll just fade away. Slowly lose my power, suffocate myself with sad dreams.
So now I quit trying.
And I will simply start inhaling inspiration,
and exhaling music again.
I will write an album before the end on May 2018.
It might not be a good album.
It might not be a successful album.
But it’s going to be an album that 80-years-old me would still be excited and joyful about. That’s it. Afterwards, I can decide what I want to do with my life: continue with music or happily endeavour another path. At least I won’t fade away.
