I didn't think I'd write this. I don't really even know how to enunciate what it is I'm trying to say, it's just a bunch of thoughts in my mind that have been there for a long time. I've always been an unfailing optimist. I've had my downs, sure, but I always wake up with a new determination and a new hope for some dream that has always been there, waiting for me. If I knew what that dream was, I wonder if I'd go after it, or if I don't know what it is yet on purpose, because I'm not ready for it yet. Maybe it will unveil itself in its own time, when I have the clarity to reach out and take it.
I've been re-watching my favorite TV show, One Tree Hill lately and a flood of emotions came rushing over me as I watched the character I identified with most go through a similar experience. This show was such an important part of my life, in such a hard time in my life. I fell in love with the quotes, with the characters, and with the music. Some of my favorite songs came from that show and inevitably some of my favorite moments occurred listening to those songs. I've always had a very personal, indescribable relationship with music. I watch in the show as Peyton starts a record label, and lives her dream of creating and promoting music and I watch documentaries about record label owners and A&R reps and I'm seized with this incredible jealousy and urgent longing to be a part of that world.
So what is stopping me from pursuing this dream? Fear. Not of the work, or the possible lack of money, or the stress, but of losing this perfect love that I have for music. I am very idealistic and I am so afraid that the lyrics that make me cry and the music that finds me wherever I am will be tarnished. I know that in life, having high expectations always brings disappointment because crap happens and people aren't perfect. But in a world with so many disappointments and things that don't live up to your dream of them, how often can someone say they hold something that is perfect, unchanging, and untarnishable? What a rare find, what a gem, why ruin that?
I remember going to warped tour and seeing a band that I liked in high school, not one of my favorites, but they had a couple of songs that were special to me. I was so excited and while I watched them set up, I entered this other place where it was me and them and no one else was there. My favorite part of a concert, is that every person there opens up their heart for a little while and lets the performer into their world. I have felt that at every concert I've been to. Every time, my heart opens and lets some music in and silently tells the world of my secret desires. But it's there and other there that this can happen, because everyone else is doing the same thing. It's an unspoken agreement between me, the band, and everyone else there that everything that is spoken is okay, and that what is spoken is spoken through music, and cannot be spoken in words, or all would be lost. So when this band came out and were slobbering drunk and were blabbering about stupid things, then started playing their music half-assed, my heart broke a little bit. And this wasn't even one of my favorite bands. Imagine if it were. The lyrics and the music that I imagine means so much to the person who wrote it, don't mean as much as I thought.
Imagine you have a favorite song, and everything about it makes you shiver because it's so perfect in every way. It's not just the lyrics, it's not just the music, it's the feeling, it's the inflection, the meaning. You idolize this song for years, it helps you through some really tough times. Then you go to a concert and hear this song live. You meet the singer who wrote this wonderful song and you're barely holding it together. Well, when you meet the singer, he's a jerk. He's slobbering drunk, he's yelling at everyone, and when you ask what inspired the song, he said he was drunk when he wrote it and was thinking about the Brady Bunch. This perfect thing is ruined. One more perfect thing is ruined.
Well, I would love to work in the music industry, I would be in heaven, I would never think of it as work and I would work 12 hour days, but I don't know if I'm ready to give up the one perfect thing that I have. I wonder what other people do. I wonder if this is how people feel when they begin working in the music industry and I wonder if they would go back and change their minds if they could, because they lost that wonder that music brought into their lives. But I also wonder if this rabbit hole of uncertainty is much like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland (which is my favorite Disney movie), there are scary things, but there are also wonderful things that you'd never experience had you not been curious enough to venture out of the safe, untarnishable world you live in. It's scary, I don't know if I'm ready, but I hope that I gain the clarity to know which will bring me more happiness; holding something perfect, or being apart of something imperfect, but incredible. I have to hope that there is wonder and beauty in the music industry, and not just politics, money, sex, and partying. There just has to be, because those songs couldn't be written without it. Maybe someday I'll be a part of it, and not just a spectator.
What are your dreams? What is standing in your way? Maybe we can help each other.
