"So would you be depressed
If I attend that wedding, but only as a guest?
Such an unfaithful bride draped in dress
Spun with threads of my regret."
~From Autumn To Ashes

Reading random profiles, as I always do, I stumbled upon these lyrics in that of Chris something, I believe it was, some little green-haired fellow who has done well at hinting at his hidden inner depths, as overlooked by me when I knew him only threw the rides Jenn would give him from school. I could go on to talk about him and the unlikely relationship I would wish to have with him, but this post was supposed to be about music.

Anyways, those lyrics caught my eyes and hit pretty deep; there are all these suspiscions I have about myself, being someone who gets so lost in trying to uncover the truth under layers of, well, god knows what it is. Bullshit? Maybe. Assumptions. Probably. Expectations, I guess. I once asked Casey if he ever got confused, as I do, as to whether he felt something (guilt, I believe, in that instance) because he really genuinely felt it, or because he was expected to. I guess at the time he liked that I had asked that. It was one of those moments back when Casey and I were just starting to become "Casey and I" in all the splendor we are today--- why is it that the beginnings of things are always so much better than what they become? Is it because nothing would ever begin in the first place otherwise? Somewhere in there, I had a point, and I believe it was somewhat akin to this: I question myself. I fear that other people do. I get so caught up in figuring what parts of me are genuine and what parts of me are histrionics that I doubt everything, large and small. And one thing that hasn't escaped my web of doubt is my marraige.

It wouldn't be unfair to say that my marrying so young left my marraige open to certain problems that more mature ones would not have, problems of immaturity. At this point in my life, for instance, I have no learned how to completely let go of anyone or anything for my own good. I have no learned how to entirely get over people, I have not learned how to be truly unselfish. While my mom's advice has been worth so little to me throughout my life in other situations, I found one thing she's told me repeatedly before and since my marraige to be particularly useful in dealing with these realities: "You and Zack have time to grow up together," She's told me. This I find to be a profound truth and incredible relief-- while the common school of thought tends to be that, ideally, marraige would be a privelige of the adequately mature, my mother, who married young and enjoys and unbroken, if unappetizing, marraige thinks that I have time to grow into it. She's that's the difference between me and, for instance, my sister, who was forced to grow up by her child (now children) and was thusly stunted in her growth. And I believe my mother. I've heard so much prattle about what criteria a truly worthy couple would have that I had gotten to the point where I thought no one must be able to make a marraige truly work, and it was that philosophy that has so shaped my view of my own capabilities: If no one can do it, but everyone still does, why shouldn't I?

It's that kind of cynicism that one can really use as a life raft in this shit creek we're all in, that "I can't possibly be worse as all these assholes" mentality. Where optimism fails, the art of belittling others will always be there. And yet...

Doubt. Still doubt. Because I've made a career out of doubting everything. Because I have never really been shown anything solid enough to truly believe in, and even in the face of something as true as my love for Zack, even in this mind-altering state of elation, even in this place where strength could build a bed of faith for me, still! Still, there is ungodly pestilence.
It's these shortcomings in life, so cruelly juxtaposed with beauty otherwise unblemished, that redefine my lack of faith. Where once I was merely an Atheist, now I am wishing that there was a God just so I could kill him. Where once I was bloodless and cold, now my heart beats seemingly just so I can will it to stop. Where once I thought of suicidal youth as being an unevolved group of emotionally malnourished actors that I just happened to populate, now I think of suicide as the affirmation of the belief that life is wholly unfair.

There's almost no one to whom I've shown the reality of my feelings as of late. A hatred of life, I've found, fosters a hatred of people, and, when as advanced at this stuff as I seem to be, that tends to burn some bridges. My mind reels to think of the potential I've unleashed for ignorant encounters with ignorant people and their ignorant advice. Uninformed attempts to console and revitalize. People consider themselves above my contempt because I happen to love them: Be my affections for (you) as they may be, chances are that your opinion in this matter will spur on nothing more than my avoidance of you for weeks to come, should you choose to express them. It's only in this particular medium that I can be so blunt, so let me make no small point: If you're not either Casey, Zack, or someone in a position to offer monetary support so that I may seek treatment for my rather unfortunate circumstances, just don't fucking get into it.



It's odd what music can evoke. All I wanted to talk about was how those lines from that song-- though unfortunately performed by a band in which the lead singer has the voice of...well, an emotionally malnourished actor rather than the artist he just might truly be-- hit close to the part of me that doubts the validity of my marraige. The part of me that wonders if my love for other people in my life, a love that ironically I can only think to describe as "unbridled", takes away from what I share with Zack.

This post was supposed to be about music. Two songs, specifically, and the people who gave those songs meaning for me. The only ones I listened two, about five times each, as I wrote this. I never got to the second song, but part of it seems to have some relevance, so we'll end with that, without much context, if only because I understand it, if only because it's true, if only as tribute for the one person in my life it doesn't apply for at all and, ironically, the one who introduced the song to me in the first place.

"Someone tried to tell me something,
'Don't let the world get you down.'
Nothing will do me in before I do myself,
So save it for your own and the ones you can help."
~Soundgarden



On with it.