I was emotional last week. I wrote about it a little bit last Monday but didn’t go into the details. Long story short, I was feeling this persistent, underlying current of pressure—or maybe panic—about what I’m doing (or not doing) in my life. I knew there was a full moon coming up on Sunday, 2/1, which also meant that my own moon cycle was about to show up. So while part of me knew that these emotions, insecurities, or whatever else was coming up was to be expected, it didn’t make it feel any easier. It wasn’t possible to just rationalize it away. Ideally I would’ve been like hey it’s all good, just go with it, it’s going to pass. But I couldn’t. And when I’m feeling that way, I go inward and find inspiration from the musicians I feel most connected to. The grunge artists from the ’90s I’ve never met and will never even see in person since the majority of them have passed. But I’ve felt connected to them since I was around seven or eight years old.
It’s hard to understand why, as a little girl growing up in Ohio, I saw and admired the rawness and pain and beauty in people who were so unapologetically themselves. Maybe it’s because I often felt alone, like I didn’t belong or fit in anywhere. I had family and friends around me, but never felt like I fully connected. I was always performing to perfection—making myself small, not expressing my own wants or needs or creativity. And these musicians? They were the opposite of that. While they were performing, they also weren’t. Not in the way I was. They weren’t making themselves digestible or appropriate. They were completely focused on communicating thoughts and feelings so important and layered to the entire world, with no consideration for anything but the truth. I think there was always a part of me that wanted (and still strives) to be that fearless too. I saw that quality in them, and wanted to nurture it in myself. Or maybe I just needed to see that it was even possible.
So this weekend I admittedly spent a lot of time on the couch and dove headfirst into music documentaries. I lost myself in—found inspiration in—Counting Crows, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and ended the weekend with Jeff Buckley. One thing Adam, Kurt, Scott, and Jeff all had in common: a history of mental illness. From what I understand, only Kurt and Scott struggled with addiction. But they all carried deep emotional scars, pain, shame. And music was the way to process it, let it out, share it with the world. They didn’t wait for permission. They didn’t wonder if it was the right time or let other people’s opinions change anything. They just did it.
Sometimes I feel like maybe that’s another thing I have in common with them. Not mental illness or addiction, but using creative expression—words instead of chords—as the way to thoroughly process and release residual scars, pain, and shame that haven’t quite made their way out yet. I write every morning in my journal, pen to paper, like a meditation. Just letting everything get out. And then I write here, on Vanilla Thought, sharing my experiences and feelings with whoever reads them. In hopes of helping them share their own pain, emotions, and experiences too. Even if it’s just one person.
But here’s the thing I’m still learning: they made their art because they had to. Because it was the only way to be real. And I think part of what was coming up for me last week was this tension around whether I’m allowed to do that too. Whether my path is allowed to look different. I’m in this transitory phase of life—career, city, everything—and I haven’t achieved enough or had enough of the experiences I told myself I should have by now. I’ve always told myself that I should settle down, that I should be following that life path most people follow: graduate, get a job, maybe go to grad school, meet a partner, pick a city, get married, buy a house, have kids. And I think there’s something so special and beautiful about all of that. But I wonder if I’ve always just thought I needed to follow it too, even when there’s tension and friction that says otherwise. I believe all of those things are for me too, but maybe the way everything falls into place will look different than it does for everyone else. Maybe I’m the only one putting any pressure on myself.
The people closest to me know I’m sensitive and feel things deeply. Somehow they always find the balance of being there and allowing me the space and time to do what I gotta do to get through it. I feel really lucky to have that.
I was good by Sunday morning. It was a combination of things—time passing, watching these documentaries, watching some live performances, sitting with all of it. And by the end of the weekend, I gave myself permission to let go of the assumption that I need to be like everybody or anybody else. To let me be me. Maybe the stress and pressure comes from telling myself that I need to do or be something or someone that I don’t actually need to do or be.
Because that’s the thing about it all—the emotions, the feelings, life’s general ups and downs. The cosmos and the world and everything else keeps moving despite the moments of grunge that we’re lucky enough to experience. Or maybe because of them. These moments aren’t interruptions, they’re the point of it all. The parts worth documenting, processing, releasing into the world.
Jeff Buckley’s documentary is called It’s Never Over. And it’s true. It’s never over, but it does keep moving. What matters is focusing on what feels right for me while the world keeps spinning. To stop performing. To stop making myself small. To follow the path that’s actually mine, even when it doesn’t look like anyone else’s.
That’s what grunge taught me, and it’s what I’m still learning.
