Brand New – Millstone (Alternate Version)

Click play.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

“I used to be such a burning example, I used to be so original…”

Start counting breaths. That’s what I do when things get really fucked up; for a long time, that’s exactly what my life was. Always counting breaths.

The year I turned 28 was the darkest year of my adult life.

My birthday, August 27th, went off without a hitch. There was a sizable party at my apartment. Friends and friends of friends littered the kitchen, as did dozens of bottles and glasses. Glasses clinked, people laughed, drinks were spilled, it was the end of summer and I got a year older. What followed was a fall out in almost every way imaginable, at least for me.

See the thing about me is that I’m incredibly good at hiding the hard shit. I won’t tell you what’s wrong, there will be no tears, there will be no scene. Instead, I’ll get busier. I’ll back away quietly. I’ll get silent.

But it all comes out in the end doesn’t it?

During that year, I spent days and days in my studio.
I wrote everything down.
I painted.
I dropped out of classes.
I drank too much whiskey.
I got tattooed.
I dated recklessly.
I wondered if any of the people that filled that room on my birthday were really my friends. Not because they’d done something horrible or seemed disingenuous, but only because I never let anyone of them actually know anything about me.
I asked myself what the hell I was doing in this place that I was living.
I got on a plane to get away, to shut life off for a while. It didn’t work. 
I asked myself a lot of questions.
I listened to this song.

“I used to know the name of every person I kissed, now I’ve made this bed and I can’t fall asleep in it…”

More accurately, I listened to this album. For me, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me was the album to narrate the passage of time between a breakdown and finding my way back. The process took longer than fifty-six minutes. I listened on repeat.

“Never hit the brakes, there’s no time to save him…”

In retrospect, I was looking for anything that could distract me from what I never wanted to tell anyone, from what I never thought I could say aloud.

The year I turned 28 was the year I stopped hiding.

“Throw me that lifeline, the ship of fools I’m on will sink…”

I realized that asking myself really difficult questions and finding out the answers is the only way to heal, the way to get better. And in doing that, I learned I had to speak.  There was a road to pave, creatively, and it was the only way I could beat the world back when it seemed like it might swallow me whole.

I came to that understanding through listening to these songs and listening to someone else, someone like me, question everything, acknowledge mistakes, admit to pain, admit to abuse.

I learned.

Take apart your head. 

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