Releasing the Notes

Music was extremely important to me through my high school years, as a refuge, an outlet, as a place to feel understood. One thing I used to love to do was show new music to my mom that I thought she would like.

I wasn’t usually successful.

My idea of mellow and her idea of mellow were very different. She always thought the music was too loud to hear the words, or the singers were too angry sounding.

Sometimes I would just have fun with it, one thing I loved doing was changing her ringtone to something ridiculous and then calling her during work meetings. I think the spider pig song from the Simpsons movie was the one she hated the most.

I once bought her a shirt from a concert for a band called Houston Calls, and she wore it quite a lot. I think that was mostly because it was Tetris themed, and she absolutely loved to play Tetris. On occasion we would come upstairs in the morning to find her sitting in the chair we left her in the night before playing Tetris on my Gameboy, or even catching her in the middle of the night under a blanket with a flashlight playing it. Organisation was her jam, Houston Calls, not so much.

When I first got my license we drove the same car. It had a six CD changer, and she took a few slots with her music and I took a few slots with mine. I had recently gone to a show where a band called The Hush Sound had opened, and I had really enjoyed them. My brother had given me their CD and I had put it in the car.

I started to notice that whenever I got in the car after my mom, that CD was playing. I assumed she was just being nice and switching back to my music for me before she turned the car off. She did small, thoughtful things like that for me quite often. One day I switched out The Hush Sound for a different album, and when my mom got home from work that night she asked, “Why did you change that CD? I liked that one.”

Turned out she hadn’t been switching me back to my music, she had been listening to that album for herself. I was excited about it, I had finally found something she liked! So I put the music back in, and that CD became a permanent fixture in that car.

It was nice to have searched for common ground with her on something that meant so much to me, and then finding it. I was willing to listen to that album eternally because of that connection.

Oddly enough, when I started dating my now wife, we found the same problem with music; the music I liked was too loud and yelly, or too sweary, and we have a hard time listening to much music together. She wore my t-shirt from an old The Early November concert until it wore out, even though she wasn’t a fan of the music. Then we started listening to Jack Johnson together, and that worked for a while, and now I show her songs every once in a while that I hope she will latch onto. It helps that my taste in music has broadened a lot since my high school days, so we have a lot more to choose from. We still have very different opinions on music, but we find enough middle ground to make road trips bearable.

And luckily we connect with many other aspects of our life, like values and life goals, the small stuff.

But I have realized recently that I really hang onto the things in my life that represent times I have connected with people.

And I think it is because my depression and anxiety tend to make me question those connections. I can remember sitting in a class with a group of friends in college and, mid-conversation, just having this intrusive thought say, “They don’t really like you, they are just being nice. You won’t talk to any of them after college.”

That happened, but was it true? Because we could have just grown apart. Or we could have lost contact in the years when I was so depressed I fell off the map, not a lot of friendships survived that. I am just as much to blame for losing touch as they are.

I have other relationships that were very important to me that have waxed and waned over the years, and so I keep little keepsakes or memories as protection against the moments when I no longer have them in my life. I don’t harbor bad feelings against any of the people who are gone, I get that there is a time and a season for everything, but certain songs can take me back in time to the ghosts of people I once knew, and friendships that I thought would last a lifetime.

It has made me realize that healing can sometimes be a really lonely experience.

I understood that for people who are healing from addiction, really putting in the effort to remove themselves from places and people that would cause them to return to using. I know that half of the battle with addiction is making new connections that are separate from the people and places that no longer serve you.

And I understand the loneliness in healing from broken relationships, where you and your partner had a set of friends that now feel split between the two of you. Some choose the other side, and some just split to avoid the choice altogether. I know friends that I lost to relationships, and the pain that caused me.

I never expected it with trying to heal mentally though. I didn’t predict that people wouldn’t stick around while you tried to get your mind right. It happens though. There are times when my journey has gotten rough, and I haven’t had the time to keep up with everyone, and I lose them. Or times when I try to change behaviors that have caused others to feel like I’m not the same person. That was the goal all along, to become healthier, but I didn’t realize the relationships it would cost.

It is hard when I am fighting this internal feeling of being unworthy of love, and while trying to challenge that feeling I am losing people I love. It reinforces the very feelings I am trying to challenge.

And I know there are plenty of trite sayings about how the real friends are the ones who stay even when times are hard, or whatever.

And, while I appreciate and love those friends who have stayed, I still miss the ones I have lost. It still hurts.

Building new relationships can become difficult as well, because my brain will tell me that they aren’t going to stick around, and past experiences have reinforced that worry, and my anxiety looks for the worst possible outcome, so just trying can be exhausting.

It is a lot of work that goes unseen, and what is seen looks like I am not really making an effort in keeping relationships or growing new ones.

A few weeks ago my wife took my daughters to a water park while I stayed home with the boys. We had fun, but as they got tired and cranky, and bed time rolled around, they started saying things about how mean or bad I was. And while I know better than to take that to heart, I do anyway. My wife was out later than I expected, so while I was putting my kids down and my anxiety was starting to really kick in, I kept wondering if they were coming home, or if she had finally had enough of me and split with the girls.

We’ve talked about these thoughts before, and while my wife assures me that she doesn’t plan on going anywhere, and I know she wouldn’t leave half the kids behind if she did, I still get caught in that spiral.

I have coping strategies to deal with these thoughts, but it is hard. I am trying, I promise, but it is so exhausting at times.

And it is all inside work, and it get’s lonely.

When my mother passed away, my sister took all of the old shirts in her closet and used them to make blankets for us. The one she made for me she gave as a gift at Christmas time, and I cried so much. I still wrap myself in it when I am missing her, or when I just need to feel something. The Houston Calls shirt that I gave my mom, the one with the Tetris pieces on it, is featured right there in the middle. It is a perfect reminder to me that she wore that shirt even though she didn’t like the music, but because she liked Tetris, and, what I feel was more likely the case, because she liked me.

If you are trying to heal, and you are feeling lonely, know that I see you. I give you permission to mourn the lost relationships. I hope you can rekindle some of them, when you are ready. Don’t be afraid to cry when you need to, give yourself time to feel things. Sometimes to make it to happy, you have to work your way through sadness.

Even though the path is lonely, and tiring, and feels like it will never end, I hope you know that you are doing the right thing.

You are not alone.

I’m proud of you.

And I hope you are proud of yourself as well.