2015, well, like the end of 2014… It’s been a weird year so far. Here we are, nearing the end of February, and unlike how I ambitiously pounced onto soundtracking 2013 and 2014… This year has been much different. It’s like I started the year in either seven different directions, or none at all, and I still have no idea where I’m even attempting to go. Which feels pretty uncharacteristic for me, and I am not sure I really like it.

Which I suppose is why, we start the list of contenders here… with courage and control…

Courage and Control – Brandon Boyd.

I thought I’d be on track again by the beginning of January. After the first couple weeks into the year, I found myself growing kind of despondent. I’d left 2014 with two of my descriptors—student and childcare assistant—lingering within it. It was a weird feeling, and not having a proper go-to-work job (or have “jobs”, but little/no work), left little to distract from those feelings as I often would do, also not having school to bury myself into.

The boulevard is bustling
A vast and wrinkled muselin
To hold over my eyes and
I know I don’t belong.
There is a noise inside of me
That bustles asymmetrically
Oh, how have I to balance
Those sounds into a song?

It’s time to let your hair down
and give yourself permission
It takes courage and control…
but you start by letting go.

Letting go is hard. Especially when your life is so absorbed in certain things/places/people, and suddenly, they are gone—basically fully, completely gone—and you’re left with thoughts rivalling both the moving part of a massive freeway and a gridlock.

The city’s an analogy
For things building inside of me
This chaos and this discourse
Still we move along.
But chaos sings of symmetry
And all her words are poetry
And that’s the kind of city
Which I want to belong

I know there are better places, things, opportunities ahead. Accepting that the present is what it is, though, and there is little I can do about it. Letting go is very much active, not passive. In January, I finally let go of many things.

All i think,
I feel,
I see.
Oh, that this place
it’s not me.
I want to belong,
but be wild and free
Oh, he who asks
receives. 

And gained others.

Of Men and Angels – The Rocket Summer

Around the time I met with Richard in January, this song was rather constantly buzzing its way around my head.

Stop the press, everything a mess
You can look alive, but you are not at rest
and i-ideas, are flowing through your head
a million miles an hour while lying in your bed
A lucid life you never thought you’d lead
Are you working every day, are you working just to bleed?
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

Right here, this can be what ADHD feels like. I’ve continued to embrace and grow in my ADHD diagnosis so far this year, and it’s been interesting (another post for another day :].)
This next part, of course, echoes back to the leaving bit of 2014… Because as much as we try, our past is part of us (and, I wouldn’t want that any other way, either).

[…] And feeling you deserve what you heard
But it doesn’t go that way

The rest… Enjoy the ride:

Oh, the tongues of men and angels
I speak like, love, oh love, will I stab you in the back?
Working every day, I forgot to show
What’s most important
—Love.

Here I am, dear Lord,
Tasting hints of fame
I don’t want it anymore
If it’s not You that I gain
Wanna fall at Your feet
Don’t wanna fall from Your peace
I understand.

Have you ever been the man that just ran
When you knew that God was talking?
Have you ever heard His voice through the noise
But just let it get away?

Oh, the tongues of men and angels
I speak like, love, oh love, will I stab you in the back?
How come I go with mine instead of Yours
when Yours is always right,
I’m sorry, just pour into me
—Love.

A heart at rest is harder now
Don’t let it go away
Hard earn pay, or hard earned pain
Right now they’re just the same
What’s the use, why work so hard
When it’s not what you crave?
When what you need is love.

I also was part of a discussion where I watched a friend lose a friend just by the fact that the friend didn’t believe in accepting love in all forms. And, when discussing love and acceptance, and writing questions on what church is… well, it’s a hard dose of reality to swallow that this becomes the outcome far too often.
 

Blankest Year – Nada Surf.

What do you do when you’ve liberated yourself from thoughts that were dragging you down?

Oh, fuck it.
I’m gonna have a party.

might be a pretty appropriate response. I reflected on the shit—‘cause as unfortunate as it is, it’s part of me—

I had the blankest year,
I saw life turn into a TV show
It was totally weird
The person knew, I didn’t really know.

Time don’t move,
We’re the only ones who do.
Bending reason
‘Cause it’s all we hold on to.

And… I choose how to respond to it.
And grow. 

[…] But you don’t own me, I’d like to return this spell
‘Cause it’s not my size—
And your lies are so much bigger than my lies
And your ties are made of things that shouldn’t make ties

Oh fuck it,
I’m gonna have a party.

Crashin’ – Jack’s Mannequin.

I wanna hear some music,
Now that they’re driving us all underground
Not the radio music
Or their satellites singing this
In this town…
I wanna hear some music,
And with the rock stars, all flicker and fade
Pop radio music,
I’m a ghost overground on, on parade

Crashin’ is a song that really comes down to finding/losing/gaining/discovering identity. 

And even if your voice comes back again
Maybe there’ll be no one listening
And even if I find the strength to stand
It doesn’t mean I won’t go missing
And my world will come crashin’…

And maybe that’s what 2015 is supposed to teach me. That I am not the things I do, I am the things that I am. And even if I am able to do all those things, it doesn’t mean the world will give a shit. I am the reason that I will stay alive (The Energy, AudioVent). The people around me aren’t who I am—I am.

Wanna hear some music
I have been waiting down here for so long
Trying to write this big music
With your breath in my face
But now… but now you’re gone

And my whole world comes down, down
And the words, and all the water on this broken town
The freeway’s just like veins without a heart.
[…]

And even if my voice comes back again
Maybe there’ll be no one listening
And even if I find the strength to stand
It doesn’t mean I won’t go on
And even if your voice comes back again
Maybe there’ll be no one listening
And even if you find the strength to stand
It doesn’t mean you won’t go missing
And the world will come crashin’
And the words will come crashin’
And music comes crashin’
Down on me…
And the words will come crashin’
Down on me. So down on me.
Down on you. 

I’ll get down on myself. I’ll get down on the people around me. But eventually I’ll find my words, my voice, my meaning, my place… again.

As it’s only February… I struggle to anticipate how the rest of this year will take shape. And I’m excited about that, that for once, this blank slate can be a gift… because for once, I have a blank slate and can choose to expect nothing. All of these songs might not be in the final soundtrack of 2015… but they’re part of the now. Of course, telling myself that I can expect nothing and actually doing so are two different things… because society, this world, expects different of me, too.