Dear Delacey,
Today, I cried. I watched your video. The song. The visuals. The rawness behind “Everything You Need To Know About Me Today”. It struck me, and I needed to tell you why.
As a music journalist, I’m compelled to write about how the song, a haunting search through past and present for true purpose, is an anthem for those of us who feel lost. I’d write about how visually stunning the accompanying short film is and how beautiful it is to include your family and home. Instead, today I write as a kindred spirit.
Your voice came in soft with that familiar shake, just as mine does when I begin to falter in the idea of who I’m supposed to be in this world. All the questions you ask came rushing back into my heart. Why am I here? What am I doing with my life and is it amounting to anything worthwhile at all? “And you’d look at me and think I got my dreams, but I can’t tell you for the life of me, [what] I even wanted”.
And sometimes that’s how it is for people like us. We don’t fit into the shape of our old life anymore. The spaces and faces feel like a fading memory. At times, we can’t seem to figure out how to comfortably wear this present life either. We start to feel old, but we’re still so young when it comes to transcending old pain. Our once innocent eyes are forever changed by the things they’ve seen and the grief we’ve outrun, yet youth still clings in the form of the emotional scars that haven’t seemed to have enough time to heal. A heart old enough to be broken but still too young to know how to be fixed.
When you looked in the mirror, it was a part of me you saw, too. Wavering between confidence and insecurity. That push and pull we all feel in wanting to look different, while simultaneously wanting to fiercely love yourself as who you are. How do we pull through that? I suppose you may be right in the idea of removing your tattoos. Maybe there is a way to start over and remove the permanency of who we once so boldly believed we were. Or maybe we can begin to rebuild ourselves, even as the memories still live on our sleeves. Maybe we can embrace the beauty of who we are and what we look like after all, even if it is just one step at a time.
I will never stop giving thanks for the power that music has. The ways a song can awake in us the things we secretly yearn for. Your song was therapy for me today. Thank you for admitting the things we’re all afraid to say out loud. For reminding those who listen that there is still hope. Your song, while striking every tender wound I carry, still spoke to the beauty of family, love, new life, and carrying on through the strife. Yes, every song has been sung, every word written, and every story told — but not in our way. You sang it yourself. “Life is what you make it”. Everything we’ve ever been through and all that lies ahead is what we will make of it. It’s time we decide what it is we wanted.
x
For the lost ones, and those who have ears to hear — youtube.com/watch?v=4EzSp4dr7DE&feature=youtu.be
