Happy New Year

Okay, so I wasn't going to go online tonight, because it's so late and I've been painting a kitchen and utility room most of the day (1st coat, so you can guess what I'll be doing tomorrow, right?)

Then I heard a song on the radio and it kind of resonated with me, so I went online to see who did it and what it was called. Something about the music set things up for a dark, dissonant place. And the song spoke of suicide and feeling like not belonging. That's not how I feel now, but sometimes I do. The song is called 'Never Too Late' by Three Days Grace, a Canadian band.

And then I watched the video (the embedding is disabled, sorry). At first, my mind didn't register what I was watching, because I have a high 'ignore uncomfortable things' ability. But the emotions I was feeling couldn't be ignored, so I watched it again. And I felt even more drawn into it.

The lead singer, Adam Gontier, described the song as 'about being in a very dark place, but being able to see a way out.' It was written for his wife, who has battled depression, whilst he himself was in rehab for oxycontin use. In the video, symbolic imagery suggests a young girl is molested by a man, her parents blind to the abuse, and as a young woman she is institutionalised for trying to kill herself. At the end she is freed from her inner daemons. The video is well done. It is on a list of controversial videos for tackling molestation.

I was molested as a child by someone I trusted with my life, someone who was my world. That has marked me in so many ways, and my entire life has been touched by it, leaving me emotionally and psychologically stunted and for some time, unable to trust again. It is part of an environment that led to poor and often bizarre coping mechanisms, the most successful one being the ability to forget to the point where it's hard for me to remember the good in life.

I am tired of pushing the world away. I do it emotionally and I do it physically (One of the reasons I am so fat to keep people at a distance, with the idea that no one will want to have sex with me if I'm grossly obese; I also tend to hoard things as if to build walls between my world inside and the world of reality). I'm so busy hiding from the world, I'm not really living. Granted, I'm much better than I was 10 or 20 years ago, but there's still a lot of work to do.

So here's a hope for 2008--that I learn to tear down some walls, take care of myself, and to connect with my fellow humans some. It's only sort of a resolution. I don't have a plan. When you want to change your outlook, that's about changing feelings as much as it is about changing thoughts. It starts with being a little more aware of what's going on around you. So that's where I'm going to begin--paying attention to the things I do and the people around me, and any interaction between myself and others. Here's to some positive changes in 2008.

What do you want to change? (And just in case you were like me and didn't get to see the ball drop in NYC at midnight, thanks to modern technology you can see it all over as much as you want.) :)

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2008 be a great one.