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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Please read THIS THREAD about a rebrand for SF.
Thinking of dad a lot lately. This song keeps playing in my head. It's melody is so soft and soothing. I wish I could be wrapped up in his arms again and bury my face into his chest. I miss his embrace, the love he showed me, the care he had for me.
"I see strokes of your energy
Painted on the canopy
Projected on the city streets
I’m moved by its insanity
I need it
All my secrets know
Call it emotional comfortability
‘Cause I keep you close
Though your body
Drifted away from me
Love is a frightening thing...
...It's not easy letting you go
With no grieving nothing will grow
Will I always, always love your ghost..."
"I see strokes of your energy
Painted on the canopy
Projected on the city streets
I’m moved by its insanity
I need it
All my secrets know
Call it emotional comfortability
‘Cause I keep you close
Though your body
Drifted away from me
Love is a frightening thing...
...It's not easy letting you go
With no grieving nothing will grow
Will I always, always love your ghost..."
For decades I've been cramming myself in a corner to fit in, denying myself happiness because it didn't fit with what society wanted. I tortured myself every day being someone else, pretending to be okay, pretending to be a man.
I listened to this song as teenager *a lot*. I always told myself the part of me that wanted to live and thrive, the part that was meant to be was pretending.
I was ten when I realised I wasn't normal, that I wasn't a boy. For 23 years I forced myself to be one and I failed so miserably. I never felt comfortable with my body, I externalised my self-hate by eating. Hide. Hide away. Hide under that layer. Shut everyone out. Every night I cried myself to sleep, I was plagued with nightmares and terrors and sometimes still am.
But, last year I gave up. I couldn't pretend. I couldn't act as if I was going to make it through life as a man. So, I came out. And I sat down and listened to this song again and I finally started to realise what was happening.
Whenever I looked in the mirror I saw the pain of the woman beneath.
The voice in the back of my head saying I'm making a mistake was her.
For decades I fought, clashing inside, breaking, shattering and reforming.
Now slowly I can see her in the mirror, she's not quite there yet but I can see it in my eyes. I stopped pretending. This song has become my own personal mantra. A declaration of war on who I tried to be. Be careful -deadname-, I'm coming for you.
