Music Day - Somebody's Gonna Praise His Name

In light of Girder Music's announcement today that they will be reissuing Petra's PHENOMENAL On Fire! album for the first time EVER since its 1988 release, I decided to feature one of the best cuts from that album (and believe me, it is not an easy choice. The whole album is -- as the kids say -- fire). Petra had some 15 years of songwriting experience by this point, plus they were coming off their mega-hit album This Means War! the previous year. They knew exactly how to write a hard-hitting, high-energy song with well-crafted dynamics.

On Fire! was very much the musical and spiritual successor to This Means War! The theme of spiritual warfare continues as well as the guitar-heavy arena rock sound. John Schlitt was really settling into his role as lead vocalist, and songwriter Bob Hartman and the rest of the band had fully gelled with his no-holds-barred vocal style.

This song in particular seems to flown under the radar, which is where all the very best songs seem to go. It is hard arena rock at its absolute zenith. Big shining keyboards, bombastic drums, growling guitars, and thundering bass -- all were in full force on this entire album, and on this track in particular. This is probably one of the (musically) hardest worship songs you will ever hear in your entire life (a theme Petra brought to bear the very next year with their The Rock Cries Out album, whose title was probably inspired by this song), but it starts out deceptively calm. A soft, leisurely synth builds and Schlitt sings a simple praise chorus, backed by an angelic choir of '80s band harmonies (which Petra was no slouch at).

After forty seconds of Baptist-church-worthy solemnity, the drums kick open the door and you're hit with a wall of Bob Hartman's very crunchiest guitars as Petra cranks church up to eleven. The music would absolutely have gotten any church-going fifteen-year-old grounded for a month, but the lyrics come either straight from the pages of scripture (mostly the psalms, but the song does take as its refrain the words of Jesus from Luke 19), or as a direct response to said scriptures. They even take the song down a notch at the end with a gentle acoustic guitar and what almost sounds like waves on the beach (although it could just be cassette noise from my imported copy. I guess we'll all have to buy the CD to find out for sure).

Title: Somebody's Gonna Praise His Name

Artist: Petra

Album: On Fire!

Year: 1988

Pre-order the album here (special sale price for the next four days!), YouTube here, live version here.

As long as I draw breath my lips will praise You

As long as I have strength I want to praise Your name...

ADHD

Originally written 13 September 2021, 11.40pm.

Two days before our first anniversary, I was diagnosed with ADHD and officially told I am on the autism spectrum. This is not a self-diagnosis for attention; this information came from a licensed neuropsychiatrist following an hour-and-a-half assessment and screening.

I was fully prepared for an autism diagnosis. I was not prepared, however, for ADHD.

This has rocked my world -- it explains SO MUCH. I’ve been reading through the NaNoWriMo Adult ADHD thread all day (13 September) and literally crying because all of it is me. Time blindness/underestimating how much time things will take, inability to switch tasks, hyperfocus, inability to focus on anything boring (including sleeping, which is why I will 100% stay up till 4am if no-one actively stops me), inability to just sit still, constantly being busy, brain constantly going a million miles an hour (turns out this is why my brain always feels like it's being eaten by acid), self-teaching myself everything under the sun, millions of brilliant and unfinished creative projects in my wake, constantly interrupting people, executive dysfunction…

I’ve been a dancer for 22 years, I routinely overloaded myself in college and mostly managed to get almost every assignment done hours before it was due (a famous example is when I wrote four papers and two final exams in 36 hours), all while still dancing 12-20 hours a week and keeping up a theatre career on the side (I’m also usually in three shows concurrently, and the only reason I still get away with this is because I’m always on top of things – if I miss a rehearsal for another rehearsal for a different show, I study my butt off and show up next rehearsal looking like I didn’t miss a thing). Twice I wrote two 50k novels in a month for NaNoWriMo because doing only one was too easy and I had enough plot ideas to sustain it. My mother was CONSTANTLY on my case for forgetting my chores and knew that if I was reading or engrossed in a project that nothing short of an atomic bomb under my seat could get my attention (and even then, it would take me a minute to realise where I was and that something was happening). I once choreographed an entire 4.5-minute dance piece for seventeen dancers start-to-finish in one single eight-hour sitting (during which I did not eat, drink, or go to the bathroom), and also recently finished a far less complicated five-minute dance for four people that took me seven years. There’s really no in between. I notoriously learn entire dance pieces three days before I perform them and then perform them better than everyone else in the piece (none of my teachers have ever known what to do with me).

I would never have known I had ADHD until the pandemic took all of my coping mechanisms away – theatre and dance had been giving me enough controlled chaos to keep me sane, and then when it was all taken away, my symptoms (both ADHD and autism) finally presented, big-time. At first I thought it was just depression, brought on by the stress of the pandemic and my first real romantic relationship/marriage, but luckily I follow a few autistic performers on Instagram who regularly post autism/ADHD memes, and I began to see myself in a few too many of these posts. I took my autism suspicions to my therapist, who told me how to go about getting assessed. The process happened very quickly, and it was at my autism assessment that I was screened for and diagnosed with ADHD.

I am not medicated yet, pending a more detailed autism assessment, and also because they want to put me on Wellbutrin and I've shied away because I am TERRIFIED of Wellbutrin. I have not met a single person who has had a positive experience with Wellbutrin. Everyone I know who has been on it has had severe side effects that were ten times worse than the issue that they were trying to treat. Plus, it only comes in pill form, and I can't swallow pills (thanks, autism-related/hereditary texture issues).

As difficult as life is with ADHD, I'm glad to have a diagnosis. Not only does it explain things that I honestly thought meant I was just a no-good failure and a waste of skin/God's punching bag, it also saved our marriage. My husband was constantly on my case for forgetting to do things and he would get extremely frustrated and accuse me of doing it on purpose and I would get angry because I was angry at myself for forgetting (again) and angry at him for not believing me whenever I tried to explain that I didn’t mean to forget things (that's literally what 'forgetting' means...?). Since my diagnosis, we went from screaming matches every other day to I think maybe one or two in the past month. It’s helped me understand myself and make a conscious effort to be more attentive to the things I forget that annoy him the most and it’s helped him understand me and be more patient with me.

There is still a lot to learn and a very, very long way to go. I've borrowed some books from the library to try to understand myself and how to function as an adult human in a world that I never did feel I belonged in. It's a lot to catch up on, and right now I'm feeling rather overwhelmed by it all... but I'll keep trying.

Stay tuned...

I May Have Found An Answer...

Originally written in March 2021.

Lately I've started to wonder if I am autistic.

It would explain SO much... my lifelong texture issues with nearly every 'normal' food on the planet, my inability to get over stuff quickly, why everyone complains that I'm too honest and wants nothing to do with me, why I literally cannot even feign interest in something I just don't care about, why I can't tell apart characters in films (which also explains why I hate watching them)... so much.

This is something that's been brewing for a while. I happen to follow a few autistic performers on Instagram, and the more autism-life memes they posted, the more I found myself relating to them. I started to research a little. At first I thought, 'oh, most of these don't apply to me,' but then I began to remember/notice things. Like how I have legitimately bought clothing purely because I liked the texture. Like how I NEED to either bounce my leg or move my feet at all times. Like how I made a massive scene (meltdown?) in front of my in-laws in my late twenties because there was too much conflict and I just couldn't hold it together anymore. Like the fact that my sister has taken over my old bedroom at my parents' house has left me completely, entirely lost. Like how I know almost literally everything there is to know about Christian music up till the year 1995, but could not tell you one single fact about Michael Jackson or Madonna, even though they were huge artists in the same era. Like how my one and only dream has only ever been choreography, and I literally get suicidal at the mere thought that it might not happen. Like how I struggle SO MUCH to understand the vague phrases my profs and teachers would use.  Like how I shut down at the tiniest provocation. Like how, if someone says, 'just be yourself,' I have literally no idea what to do because I do not, and have never, known who I 'truly' am -- my entire life I have quite consciously taken on the characters of people around me (for better or for worse). Like the fact that I am so cold I am in physical pain 90% of the time. Like the fact that I overexplain literally EVERYTHING. Or the fact that I often will get so engrossed in something (usually reading, writing, or choreographing) that I get 'stuck' in it and literally can't get out -- not even to eat or use the washroom -- until either the task is done or some extremely strong outside force absolutely demands I shift my attention. Or the fact that almost everyone I've ever met is quick to say how smart and quick I am, yet refuses to associate with me because I'm rude/negative/mean/annoying (*cough* HONEST and willing to call out people's crap). Or the fact that I absolutely LOATHE talking to people out loud, but have no problem writing them 800-word texts.

There is autism in the family. It was a cousin who was quite a bit younger than me who I rarely interacted with. My first real experience with autism was when I befriended two fellow theatre performers on the spectrum. I got on extremely (in my case, abnormally) well with both, and it wasn't until MUCH later that I began to wonder if this was because we were more alike than I thought.

I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to get assessed, especially since the people I've shared my concerns with have outright dismissed them.

I'm not afraid of being diagnosed autistic -- in fact, I'm excited about the possibility. For nearly 25 years I have wondered what was wrong with me, why nobody wanted me and (it seemed) nobody loved me, and maybe now I've found it. Maybe it wasn't my fault like I thought all those years. Maybe all my failings weren't because I wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe my entire lack of a social life has all been based on misunderstanding rather than hate. And because I lacked the concept, the vocabulary, to explain why I couldn't connect with anybody, I thought it was all my fault and I was a failure. I spent YEARS of my life being suicidal for this reason... and maybe I didn't have to be. I'm more worried about NOT being autistic, because if I'm not, I have to start from square one all over again.

I am afraid, however, of posting this.

I have said some pretty bold things on this blog and didn't flinch when posting them, but this one scares me. I am in my late twenties... 'too late' for an autism diagnosis in a lot of people's minds. I know it's common for people (especially women) to go undiagnosed into adulthood, but that doesn't mean the stigma isn't there. I have only shared this suspicion with a handful of people, but every. single. one of them dismissed me immediately. I think they were trying to make me feel better, but it really only made me feel more alone. I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried that the few friends I've managed to make will treat me differently if the term 'autistic' is attached to me. I'm still the same Kate -- I always was. If I'm autistic now, that means I've been autistic from the start -- we just finally have a name for it now; a reason why I have struggled so much with so many things that 'should have' come easily to me. All my life, I wondered why -- why can they make friends so easily and I can't? why do I make the exact same jokes they do and get told off for being 'rude,' when you laughed at the same joke when someone else made it? why do I still carry SO MUCH pain and such a sickening feeling of un-resolution from all those deaths going on six years ago now? why do I feel so different and so unwanted and so 'weird'? why do people get SO angry with me for not understanding the vague new age positive phrases they keep giving me when I ask for genuine, detailed help? why do people call me smart but treat me like I'm stupid? why do I feel like such a failure? why can't I understand what people are saying when they're literally speaking the same language as me and yelling to be heard?

I just don't know where to start.

Music Day - Song In My Soul

Here's another song I inherited from my dad's music library. As far as I know, this is the only not-Christmas album he had from this band.

They were an a cappella band, but without the pretentiousness of Pentatonix. These are clean, simple, refreshing songs with no unnecessary virtuosity. There's nothing in this track that doesn't directly contribute to the pure richness of the song. These guys also write their own songs, so if you love a cappella music but you're tired of Pentatonix butchering perfectly good hymns and Christmas songs with overdone, overdramatic flourishes, this is the artist for you.

My dad listened to this song all the time when I was a kid, and now all it takes is that ascending bass intro to put a smile on my face. I still have a hard time believing that this is all done with the human voice. There's even some beatboxing in other songs on this album (keep in mind, this is 1989 in CCM -- we still don't have beatboxing in mainstream Christian music in 2021). The songs are so rich and full of backing harmonies that one doesn't even miss the band.

This song in particular is a song of unabashed joy, something I don't think any of us has seen in a good long time. It's a worship song that you'll never hear in a church. Parts of the lyric hearken back to the Psalms themselves. It's a pure, simple declaration of joy in God's handiwork. It all clips along at a very danceable, grooveable pace, and they make their point and get out of the way in less than three and a half minutes. It's cheerful and energetic and fun. If you need a quick little pick-me-up, here's a song that'll keep a spring in your step for the rest of the day.

The smile on my face comes from the smile in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

You put a song in my soul and I want to let it out

Your Spirit in my life, well it makes me want to shout

I'm moved to sing with every beat in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

Title: Song In My Soul

Artist: AVB

Album: Song In My Soul

Year: 1989

Label: Clifty Records

iTunes here; YouTube here (live version here -- caution, mullets abound).

The Return Of Royalty

ABBA's back.

Yes, this is old news by now, but it happened the week my grandfather died and I wanted time to process it properly.

I was the biggest ABBA fangirl in the world in my early/mid-teens. That phase ended right around the time I started this blog, actually. I still listened to ABBA songs once in a while, but they were WAY behind artists like Daniel Amos, Crumbächer, and White Heart on my most-played lists.

Then the Instagram announcement came. And fifteen-year-old Kate The ABBA Nut has returned in all of her glory.

If you haven't heard this song yet, do so. I Have Faith In You has somehow become the song of the movement, but Don't Shut Me Down is many times more upbeat and danceable. This is more the ABBA that we knew. I Have Faith In You hearkens back to endlessly slow songs like I Have A Dream, and really, that wasn't who ABBA was. Don't Shut Me Down is what ABBA was -- big and bombastic and dance-inducing. Don't let the melancholy and frail-sounding opening lines fool you -- you just wait for that piano gliss and then tell me that's not ABBA.

This is what pop music needs to be. That rich, lush instrumentation (the warm strings, the plump bass, the glorious keyboard) has been sorely lacking in pop music since the early 2000s when people decided the acoustic guitar was the only instrument that existed anymore. Everyone's talking about the harmonies (and they do sound just as clear and glorious as they did in 1982), but I challenge you to listen to the music. You simply can't make music that soars like that with a solo voice and one (1) acoustic guitar.

Even in the height of my fangirling in my teen years, I always gravitated to the 1980s output. There were only two '80s albums, but both were pure, solid gold. Up till Super Trouper, their albums usually had at least one 'filler' track. But Super Trouper (1980) and The Visitors (1981) both demonstrated a marked growth in their songwriting (possibly due to their increasing familiarity with the English language as well as increased maturity in general as the band members settled into their 30s), as well as increased richness and depth in their instrumentation. I always thought they were just beginning to hit their artistic stride in The Visitors, but of course, true art does not go over well with the masses, so ABBA called it quits.

With all that being said, this song would have fit right in on the overall glittering, shimmering album Super Trouper, perhaps right after Lay All Your Love On Me. Literally nobody in 1980 would have batted an eye. Even vocally, nothing has changed. It's as if they never stopped. It literally feels like The Visitors came out a year ago, rather than 40 years ago. That's how little their skills deteriorated. These people transcend time and trends. Don't mess with them. Even the subject matter of the song hints at this... I'm now and then combined...

It's been a rough two years, friends. Put this on and go dance a bit.

Title: Don't Shut Me Down

Artist: ABBA

Album: Voyage

Year: 2021

Pre-order on their website or iTunes, YouTube here.

Music Day - Secret To Love

Possibly one of the funnest and catchiest songs on my iPod (even counting Crumbächer's incredible contribution to the 'fun and catchy' section of my collection).

This thing starts out with bombastic drums, a head-bobbing rhythm, and a high-spirited keyboard melody before taking it down exactly enough notches for the verse to contrast with the big soaring celebratory (and above all singable) chorus. This is exactly the song you blast in your car with the windows down on a sweltering August day in the city. It's dated in all the right ways (the slightly raspy vocal, the existence of both a keyboard and band harmonies, the big drum production), and timeless in its energy and fun.

Title: Secret To Love

Artist: Halo

Album: Heaven Calling

Year: 1991

Official remastered CD available here. YouTube here.

Listen 2-3 times daily until you feel happier.

Music Day - Ashes Of Eden

I know the new ABBA songs dropped today, but I'm currently traveling due to my grandfather's funeral and haven't got time to properly do those songs justice this week. I already had this post 95% written so this is today's offering. Enjoy!

I'd heard of Breaking Benjamin before. My best friend has gone on about them for years. I always planned to look them up, but never remembered to do so.

Then, on a late night trip down a lonely highway last year, this song came up on my husband's phone. We had been making light conversation, but this song happened to pierce a lull and pique my interest. I listened in silence, hanging onto every word. The man was singing everything I had been feeling since 2015 when my entire world fell apart. I had never heard my feelings put into words so succinctly (even Terry Scott Taylor had to make a whole career out of encapsulating my feelings). The comfort that came from the intimate familiarity quite literally made me cry. My bewildered husband tried to comfort me, but the tears were tears of joy -- the sort of joy that comes when after YEARS of wasted effort and futile attempts, somebody finally understands you and your pain. They were tears of joy in the camaraderie. The man in the song was finally putting into words the questions and the longing and the prayer that my deeply wounded soul had never been able to articulate...

Will the faithful be rewarded

When we come to the end?

Will I miss the final warning

From the life that I have lived?

Is there anybody calling?

I can see the soul within

And I am not worthy

I am not worthy of this

Are You with me after all?

Why can't I hear You?

Are You with me through it all?

Then why can't I feel You?

Stay with me; don't let me go

Because there's nothing left at all

Stay with me; don't let me go

Until the ashes of Eden fall...

The song is MUCH slower than my usual pace, and I would have completely missed it in literally any other context. That song was meant for that exact moment in time, otherwise I would never have heard it.

At the same time, the release date of this album is not lost on me. 2015. The year that everything fell apart. The year that everyone and everything I ever loved died, at least in a spiritual sense. The year that broke my heart into so many pieces that I will never be able to repair it. The year that caused my permanent mental and emotional limp. This album was right there, existing in the world at the same time as my shattered shell, and I missed it when I needed it the most. In a way, that makes me angry. I wonder what kind of person I would have been had I heard that album the year it was first released. Yes, it provided a healing balm for me in 2020, but how much more effective would it have been in 2015, when the wound was still raw and pouring blood?

There's no way to know. If we're being perfectly honest, I probably would have snubbed it at the time, as I generally do with 99% of new music. Heck, I hated even some of my favourite albums that year. I had been a massive ABBA fangirl for well over five years and I found myself literally skipping past my favourite ABBA songs in 2015 because it was too much to process music over the immense amount of pain. I could only manage to listen to three albums (Crumbächer's Escape From The Fallen Planet, Terry Scott Taylor's A Briefing For The Ascent, and Russ Taff's self-titled 1987 album), and it stayed that way for nearly a year.

I just have to accept the little bit of healing this song can offer me now. I suppose it's better than nothing. And it is a beautiful arrangement. Sparse strings and light drums add to the big loneliness of the song and keep the lyrics -- the true star -- front and centre.

Song: Ashes Of Eden

Artist: Breaking Benjamin

Album: The Dark Before The Dawn

Year: 2015

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Music Day - Celebrate This Heartbeat

Now that college isn't eating my life and soul and the very blood from my veins, I can attempt to re-instate this once-proud feature of the blog. Since I'm not paying for college and by some miracle managed to find a job, I can actually kind of afford music again, so now I've also got actual material for these posts again.

I actually had a different post all written and lined up for today, but then this afternoon I finally decided to check out Randy Stonehill's gold mine I mean Bandcamp store. I've been eyeing up this album since they first opened the store (last month). It's so rare you can't even find a 'fair' version on Discogs. All I had was a TERRIBLE crackly noisy vinyl rip I bootlegged from somewhere years ago. I'm no audio snob (as you can probably tell from the average production values of my genre of choice), but even I cringed at the audio quality of that bootleg. I knew I wanted to replace that copy with a clean copy the first chance I got. It's a beautifully orchestrated and written album, and it deserved better than to be drowned out by surface noise.

This song was always my favourite, even marred as it was by the cracks and pops. I can't think of any other artist in this genre that does a legitimate overture to their album, and if they all could be as beautifully done as this one, I would say that more people should do this on their albums.

I can't think of any other time I have reacted this viscerally to an instrumental piece of music. Lyrics, sure, but never raw music. I cried. I had never heard this song other than on that atrocious bootleg, and to hear the orchestra (and it is an orchestra) in all its purity gave me chills.

Woodwinds feature heavily in this overture, and I think that's very apropos. Randy is a lighthearted soul (and voice), but can fit right in with the likes of Terry Scott Taylor or Mark Heard, lyrically, just as the flute is playful and light but still is a crucial part of any 'serious' orchestra. The lighter woodwinds also embody the idea that life is fleeting -- an idea that's also found in the title song and recurs throughout the album. Celebrate This Heartbeat -- as the next one is not promised to us.

Maybe it's more poignant just today. My grandfather's heart beat its last very early this morning. This brings up conflicting emotions, as he was not a good man by almost any standard. I think that in itself is sadder than anything else about his death -- any chance he may have had to redeem himself is well and truly gone now. He was a bitter man, deeply shaped and wounded by Nazi ideologies that he never did truly shake in all his ninety-two years -- even after spending more than seventy of those years on the other side of the world, both physically and culturally. When I think of celebrating this heartbeat, he is probably one of the last people I would think of. That itself is what saddens me most, I think. He had a long life and could have done so much... but he left behind a legacy of brokenness and pain because he was never healed from his own brokenness and pain eighty years ago. And now it's too late.

Don't be like this (I preach this to myself as well). It's so quietly, deeply tragic. I suggest using this song to kick off your own celebration of your own heartbeat.

Title: Overture - Celebrate This Heartbeat

Artist: Randy Stonehill

Album: Celebrate This Heartbeat

Year: 1984

Listen and purchase on Bandcamp here.

(Keep in mind today is Bandcamp Friday, which is when the Bandcamp site waives their own fees so ALL the money from purchases made on Fridays goes directly to the artist.)

(Also, if you're in the market for more Randy Stonehill, there are other older gems on his Bandcamp store that have been out of print since before The Simpsons was on the air -- plus you can check out his brand-new album The Lost Art Of Listening, which should be arriving in my mailbox next week.)

Why I Make Art, Part II

Written 2 July 2021, 12.26am.

This past month, I took Andrew Nemr's online course, 'The Encounter,' and while some of it went over my head (as I suspected it might; this was a course marketed to professional dancers and I'm at best an intermediate-level tap dancer), the last two lessons opened up a window into my own soul that I never knew existed.

He talked about establishing trust with the audience -- how one must start with the common knowledge that the audience has (in terms of music, rhythm, body language... anything) and said that from here, you lead them across the bridge to the meaning that you want to convey. He went on to explain that you know you've succeeded if the comments you get afterwards are less along the lines of 'wow, I could never do that,' 'how many years have you been dancing?' 'I used to dance when I was younger,' and more along the lines of 'what were you thinking about while you were dancing that? it was so intense.' He gave several examples of the former and I related to every single one of them -- so intimately that I heard them in the voices of the people closest to me as he spoke them. Those are the exact phrases that annoy me so, so much and make me angry that they're clearly just trying to make conversation and weren't impressed at all with me or my work. They're just stock phrases, and if there is one thing on this planet that I hate (besides Hillsong music), it's stock sympathy/caring phrases. It would be almost better if they would just come out and say they hated my performance.

And in a flash, I understood what I had really been after.

It wasn't love -- as I thought it had been in Part I -- or at least not exclusively. It was understanding.

That's what I've been chasing after all these years. All I wanted was to be understood. Not just brushed aside or given a flippant 'yeah, I hear ya' -- understood.

That's what I've been missing this whole time.

That's why I always feel so unfulfilled whenever I leave the theatre after a show with the stock phrases of my friends and family ringing in my ears. This is why I've been suicidal for most of my life. This is why, when Brittney and my cousin died, I repeated the story and rehashed how I was feeling over and over and over, probably literally millions of times, like a stuck record, for YEARS until I was mentally abused into silence and a deeper self-hatred for 'not getting over it' immediately. This is why I wasted my entire life bending over backwards, allowing myself to be manipulated by directors and churches in hopes that if I could just be subservient enough then they would love me and I would finally have what I wanted... except I wouldn't have.

I had love, at least in an imperfect and patchy way. I look back on my life and I can see moments where my parents and maybe even a couple of friends really did care about me. But I cannot think of even one single moment where I felt understood. Not by my parents. Not by my friends. Not by my husband. Not. Anybody.

This would have been a crushing blow -- maybe nobody will ever understand me -- except that Nemr had already paved the way by saying that you start with the common knowledge that everybody has before you lead them across the bridge to what you actually want to say. It's the exact opposite of what I usually do -- I usually just jump right into the deep end because I honestly prefer other people to do that as well. I hate small talk and pre-amble (big words for somebody who's spent a full eleven years posting rambly drivel on this very blog). But Nemr not only showed me what was wrong, he gave me a solution to try. It may be very much against my entire personality, but clearly the personality I have wasn't working anyway. I can handle being something I'm not if it's only temporary. If I have to fake something for ten minutes onstage before becoming my true self in order to make people understand, that's something I'm willing to try. At least there's hope of being understood. That's something that I've never had before.

(TW: suicide.)

I always had this daydream that if I killed myself, those who truly loved me would sift through every one of my documents and papers -- a huge undertaking to say the least -- and finally, finally know and understand me and what I needed. That daydream has actually fueled some suicidal episodes -- being understood only after death was better than never being understood at all. Hastening my death would hasten understanding. I was literally willing to kill for it.

I kept saying I don't feel love; I must be broken because I literally can't feel it. Maybe that's at least partly true. Maybe it's not true at all. Maybe I just mistook love for understanding and it was almost a fatal misunderstanding. Maybe there is a way out and maybe I can learn it. I don't really know where to start, but at least there is an option.

Thank you, Andrew Nemr. Maybe this isn't what you intended for your course to do, but I'm glad this is what it did.

Sources: Nemr, Andrew. 'Lesson 16 - Communicating Meaning.' In The Encounter (online video course). 2021. https://andrewnemr.teachable.com/p/the-encounter

Why I Make Art

Originally written 9 June 2021, 11.40am.

(Part I)

This is a sobering post to write, but I think in the back of my mind, I've known this for a while.

I'm realising with greater clarity that the reason I dance is for attention.

   

There. I said it.

And I've been doing it for attention for so long that I don't know anything else. I told myself I want to make people feel, but I could never clarify what exactly I wanted them to feel.

This also explains why, whenever my future in dance is threatened, I react SO strongly. I have literally attempted suicide after rough practice days, just because all I could see was my 'dream,' the thing I had built my life upon, slipping away from me.

As a child in a German Baptist community, dance was certainly a way to get attention... literally nobody else was doing it. And I guess that early attention stuck with me. I've been chasing that high ever since. As someone whose love language is words of affirmation, dance was the only way I found that could get me the words of affirmation I so desperately craved. I certainly wasn't getting it at home. The only time I got complimented was if someone saw me dance and happened to make an offhand comment in earshot -- which was not often.

These breadcrumbs fueled my love-starved spirit, and I threw myself deeper and deeper into dance, trying to top myself every single day in spectacular ways. Posting dance videos to Instagram only kicked open Pandora's box for good -- now whenever my family couldn't be bothered to toss a crumb of kindness my way, I always had the hope of a stranger on the internet happening by and filling in the gap. Of course, this isn't consistent either, but like a rat in a lab who knows that pushing a button might dispense food, I began going at it as if with a jackhammer. Even the tiniest hope of a compliment or recognition was enough to keep the wheel turning.

I've spent over twenty years of my life wholeheartedly devoting myself to this pursuit, this way of life...all just to get attention. Maybe even a spot of love. I built my entire identity around dance because that was the only thing people even noticed about me. I have sunk hundreds of thousands of my parents' dollars and my own into training and development for a passion that I don't know if I actually loved for itself in the first place. I spent over twenty years as the bad guy in a 'friends with benefits' relationship with the thing I swore I was created for and called to.

And now I don't know what to do. This is my entire identity. Every single decision I have ever made in my life has served dance in some way or another. A life built around dance is quite literally all I have ever known. And it's entirely on me. My parents weren't the kind to push us kids into their own secret dreams whether we liked them or not. I chose dance out of my own free will and allowed it to become my entire life. All because I wanted to be seen. Noticed. Loved. And even after nearly thirty years of life, I have found no other way to get the love and/or attention that I crave.