So, that. It's cheery sunshiney time with Serena again. Believe me?
Let's just get into it. There's this one song by Elliott Smith that haunts me. "Waltz #2 (XO)"
I want to say it's my favorite Smith song, but that honestly changes hourly. "Twilight" and the early version of "Miss Misery" are often outranking it but It's certainly right up there with any of them. But Waltz #2 is the song to which I most relate. In all of life, I think..
And in that song there is a line where he says he's tired. He is tired.
And I get it, I think. I get it on a higher level of just getting it, I feel it. He didn't just want to go take a little nap. Or go to bed early. Or take a vacation. He was tired of life. Like, everything. He must have been. If you know how he died, then you know. If you don't know how he died, look it up. I won't go into that here, but it was devastatingly horrific. A tragedy. The man should still be here.
His voice kills me. It destroys me in this unbelievably magical way. He is, by far, the most melancholy singer I have ever heard in my life. THE saddest voice. EVER. And when I watch his live videos, I realize that he's even more obviously dark. In interviews even when he laughs he looks like he would rather be sinking down into a dark cave or something.
In this first video (above) I am sharing, there is a section near the end where he is singing and he just disappears into his own song, he closes his eyes for 13 seconds. That's a long time to completely close yourself off from the world when an adoring audience is sitting directly in front of you.
In an interview in another video ( directly below) he explains that he tends to look down when he sings in front of an audience because he's usually sitting in a chair, which puts him at eye level with the crowd and it reminds him that he is there to entertain people. He also said that he had played "Miss Misery" like a million times and he was tired of playing it and so he just didn't play it anymore. He said he would play it again when he wasn't that weird guy from the Oscars anymore.
Anyway, I can understand not enjoying people staring at you like they expect you to be better than you probably are. I've never looked at an audience when performing. Maybe a quick glance long enough to make me realize that I don't want to see anyone staring at me.
Not that I even play anymore nor do I ever want to again nor ever did I perform much at all. Just coffeehouses and small gatherings back when I had this idea that I wanted to be a professional songwriter. I wanted people to hear my words, not really so much did I want them to hear me sing them. But you can't really just go up to someone on the street and hold out a piece of paper with a crap ton of words on them and say, "Hey, read this would ya? Tell me if you relate."
I played at the Bluebird Cafe more than anywhere. That's a pretty place. There's a movie about it actually, "The Thing Called Love." It starred River Phoenix and Samantha Mathis. Sandra Bullock is in it. The movie is not actually about it, but it's about playing at it. Here's the movie poster. I show you because Samantha Mathis is super hot and so maybe you will enjoy the view. River Phoenix died of a heroin overdose. I don't know why I feel the need to tell you that, but yeah. That was truly a loss for the film industry because he was SO talented.
Anyway, I've forgotten my damn point, let me read back up.
Okay, I'm back. I'm telling you that I had to stop and look stuff up because I want you to understand that it's not as easy as you think to babble on and on like this and actually convey some kind of logical train of thought that anyone would even want to ride. Trains are nice, but not my kind. And it's 10:43 right now and I want to go to sleep because I need to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get to work early because I am very behind. I work in a photography studio and it's our busiest season of the year right now. I love it, actually. I am grateful for my job.
I am sad nearly all of the time. If you have gotten this far down reading, this is where I will get real with you. People who already stopped reading don't get to hear my real me thoughts. Not that the above me wasn't the real me. It was. It is. I am fucking literally obsessed with Elliott Smith. That's true. It is a problem and a joy. But I really just wanted to say that I understand how he was feeling when he said he was tired. I am tired, too.
So here is sad me. I am sad. It's okay, it's actually fine, but I do truly want to die, like nearly all of the time. Except when I'm with my daughter. She is my light and my love. She IS my life. I couldn't live without her. She makes me happy. When I am happy, it is usually 100 percent because of something that she has done, or maybe she just sat down next to me and I was aware that she existed and was breathing and is so beautiful and perfect. But when she's not around, everything goes gray again.
Something is wrong in my brain that makes me not want to live. I guess. I hate my brain. I want to be normal so badly. And yeah, I get it.. what is normal??? But I just mean that I would like to have a brain that isn't chemically unbalanced. I'd like to have a brain that doesn't need help to not be sad. It would be nice to not look up at the moon and wish that I was jumping off of it. (That's actually impossible unless you could run and jump quickly enough to float away, which you can't.)
I don't think I'd ever kill myself. I can't say it for sure because I am pretty dramatic at times and I lately get into these moods where I kind of don't even know what I'm doing or saying.
Sometimes, I will find myself standing in the middle of a room, or in the back yard, or driving down the road, and I don't know why I'm there or how I got there or what time it is. This has only been a thing that's been happening in the past couple of months. It's new and it's legitimately scary.
I will be honest. The only reason I've never killed myself yet is because I'm quite certain I would fuck up the attempt and just be deformed or go into a coma or something and have weird dreams until they took me off of the machines and I died.
I'm not asking for replies or "It's okay" comments. Please don't do that. It isn't okay. I mean, it is, but it isn't. I mean I am fine, but I am not really. But it's not like it's a problem, except that it is. Oh, my God. Every time I try to make a point I argue with myself. I can't even agree with myself about anything. What is wrong with me????
I don't know what to do. I don't actually want to die. Except for these times when I do.