Fix You... (And Me)

For years, this song has always brought me back to center, back to a place of reflection. I'm sure some will roll their collective eyes and say, "Really, reaaaally, this song..." and the answer is always, "Yes, this song". It's amazing how music can lift you up or allow you remain in the dark; for me it's always the lyrics, the feel of the song(s), the way the artist present their message which allows me to process my feelings.

"When you try your best but you don't succeed

When you get what you want but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you can't sleep

Stuck in reverse"

I've sat within the above lyrics and felt lost, tired, and unfulfilled during certain times in my life. Maybe tonight is the night I speak of relationships, maybe tonight is the night I express that it's unhealthy not to be in love with yourself first, in a non egotistical sort of way of course. There are so many people who are going through the motions and failing themselves by not loving who they are and enabling others to dim their light; I'm unsure if I should be the person speaking on this due to the fact I lied to myself for far too long, in essence I was stuck in reverse, watching my own light fade.

The last nine months have been quite the adventure and I can't say that I would want it to be any different; the truth is I would tweak a few things here and there in order to bring certain things to a proper close. I walked into 2020 alone and a bit downtrodden because of a few factors, I knew I needed a change however, I didn't know how to truly orchestrate the change; I also had financial obligations which weren't an issue previously but then suddenly became a burden.

At some point, we all look into a mirror and ask ourselves if our happiness is tied to a feeling, a moment, a person, or us. For me, my joy was lost within what I thought I could handle, the daily rigors of life, and after many years of dishonesty with myself, and countless conversations with people who love me, it was time to begin the process of fixing me.

In February of this year, a close friend of mine and his girlfriend sat me down and placed their words around my mind and heart and told me that I had the capacity to succeed but in order to do so, I needed to do something which I hadn't done, up to this point, I needed to honest with myself. Here comes that mirror piece again (closes eyes and sighs). I took their advice and put some things into motion, their prodding moved me from a place of comfort into a place of uncertainty and in the end I've learned a great deal about myself and just how much patience I have within my core.

These words are meant to be delicate because in the end resentment leads to nothing but folly. I'm unsure as to why I've been spared from so much in life, like truly saved from myself and many of the choices I've lived through along the way. Does this read cryptic, it's really not meant to, it's meant to be open and honest.

For a few months now, I've stated that I do not know what love truly is because for so long I played a game of being grownup, when in reality I was still naive as to how I needed to perform as a boyfriend, a friend. I can't step forward, now, and say that I have things mastered or truly understood but I can say that I've assessed my actions and know that I'm not as broken as I once thought I was whilst in the throws of feeling helpless, feeling alone.

One of the lines of the year, for me as been, "I want to understand you..." Those words were told to me by a close friend during a conversation when I was afraid to share, say, express what was on my heart/mind. How powerful are we when we're allowed to share without retribution without fear of rebuke, looking or sounding stupid?

I was smitten by a girl during my high school years, we were best friends and we liked each other in a way that reminds me, still to this day, of Kevin and Winnie in The Wonder Years (IF you know, you know). During the summer of my junior year of high school, I found out that said girl had hung out with another guy from my school during that summer. I was always instructed to never ask questions to things I already knew the answer to, so I did what any high school kid would do, I asked her what had taken place. I remember the conversation to this day and only recently have I learned to let go of the hurt her actions seemingly caused me, the mark her words left on my heart that summer.

She was open, she was honest, it was me who wasn't ready to hear and meet her at her place of honesty. Well, to be fair, she wasn't honest initially but then the truth eventually came out after she knew that I knew she was lying and then I had to figure out a way to graduate and not cry myself through the rest of my high school days.

"When the tears come streaming down your face

'Cause you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

What could it be worse?"

This was the moment when the fixing should've started and the understanding of self should've followed as well. The truth is some twenty seven years later, I looked into the mirror and noticed something, I noticed myself still lost and still afraid of losing, still afraid of failing, still afraid of... not being healed. People will forever lie to us, even people we love, shoot, I lie, I've lied, I've known others are lying when all I've wanted to hear was the truth, a truth which I already knew, because IF I'm asking I already know.

The something I can't replace is time, there are no likes that have gone to waste, everything is a lesson and for that I'm starting to heal; instead of holding feelings of resentment, I'm home, I'm in a place where I never thought I would be at this point in life, a place of peace.

My buddy and his girlfriend expressed a few things to me in February and between the two of them, he has held me to task and repeatedly told me how proud he is of me, bandaids and all. Last week, I told him that I was a little lonely, a little scared of this next phase of life and he listened and said he knew this already and that I would be full of crap if I'd told him anything other than this.

Some people add to our lives, some people take away from our time, some remind you what it is to feel your heart race, some cause you to question if you have a heart, however, in the end it's up to us to fix us or keep us running smoothly, on the road of life.

Thank you for making it this far, I hope this rambling made sense. I'm not broken, I have a few tiny scraps, no dents, but they're currently being buffed out day by day.