I don’t mean that in a physical sense, although that’s not unrealistic, but I’m speaking about how the free and imaginative part of me seems to fade away with each tax form, car payment, utility bill and license renewal.  

I remember when the only bill I worried about was my cell phone-a mere $50/month at the time. I wish things were that simple again. There is always a price to pay and now that I’m wiser with a few more years of life experience, I know that my goals are easier to reach than they seem. However, just knowing that burdens me with more responsibility. Most people just pass this off as the entering adulthood and they deal with it. However I, for some nonsensical reason, resist this with every pump of my heart. I fight a war that does not exist. I can’t not have these responsibilities. I can’t not join the rest of society or help to keep our economy afloat because that would be selfish. I would ostracize myself from every single person I now know. Of course, there is a family found in every lifestyle, but it would be terribly selfish for me to give up on those in my life now because somehow, every single one of those people have aided me or guided me in some humongous or tiny way. 

So I’ll keep rowing my boat through a sea of bullshit…hop from island to island and do whatever I can to keep myself satiated. 

But thankfully I don’t have a mortgage payment, because then I might as well dig my grave right here in Michigan.

I’m not sure what they reflect, but my distress is alarming. I don’t remember details, but I do remember the devastation. The feeling in the pit of your stomach, the trembling of your hands, the rush of cold winds and fuming flames that wage a war in your neurons…

…the loss. 

I’m not sure what these dreams are made of. How long they will continue, how they will affect my moods or my sleep. It’s slightly frightening but also inspiring.

Maybe my mind is resisting my heart’s urge to fall into darkness again. I often wonder if this is a form of depression of just the skin that we all live in.

Perhaps I’ve always taken heartbreak too passionately. Perhaps I’ve always loved too deeply while keeping a tenacious disconnection between the people I love and myself. Maybe the only reason I am so obsessed with my love for music and my desire to write and perform is because I know that my art will never give up on me. So what happens when I give up on it? I mean, really, isn’t that what I am best at? Leaving?

And that’s a formidable problem-I’m so hung up on nothing working out the way that I envisioned for the future that I’m terrified to live in the now. Because if I focus on today, I might lose sight of later.

But that’s how I used to live-like I could die tomorrow and next week didn’t matter. I used to love with full desire. Fearless, careless, not too serious.

But something changed in me. I don’t know how, when or why, but I do know that my back has never carried so much stress and regret.

I am not unhappy with my life but I do wonder where the time went. And if truth is lost in those hours, how will I ever know if I’m headed in the right direction? Maybe the only direction is clockwise and I need to follow the compass of my heart instead of my eyes.

It’s the 10th day of April and it’s snowing. Much like how on the 10th day of March it was 80 degrees and stunning. It’s no wonder everything feels inside out - our nervous system’s respond to Mother Nature and she’s trying to set something straight. Bending us over backwards to righten our wrongs and fix our mistakes. 

I need to re-wire my brain so that I can let Mother Nature do the work from now on. I’m trying too hard.

“You may have an uncontrollable urge to shout your message from the top of a mountain, but you would be better off just getting on with the work that needs to be done. Your efforts aren’t necessarily in creating something new; instead, do whatever you can to heal your current situation. Build a solid foundation right where you are standing, even if opportunity opens a door to someplace else.”

I haven’t kept up with astrology in a long time. So when I felt inspired to search for some today, I expected only to find some vague dialogue that couldn’t even half satisfy me. The first and only horoscope I found, however, sank like a rock deep in my gut. Lately, I’ve been feeling so terribly discouraged with my ability in music, in writing, in performing and all the work around the band, it would be a lie if I said that I didn’t have thoughts of searching for a new route. Recording in the past had been fun and helped to strengthen my connection with the band and hear my vocals in a positive light…made me excited to release and share with the world something that I value the most: my dreams. However, this time the road is darker. The road is rockier and somewhere in my travels, I lost my fire. And suddenly, I hate everything that I’m doing.

So this weak mindset only makes me weaker and scares the hell out of me…all I want to do is start over in a new place; create a new face. But that’s not what should be done. I need to lace up my bootstraps and get back to work.

That’s the worst thing about always believing that you’re right…when you don’t like something about yourself or what you do, you’re certain that no one else will either.

Just get it done.

I’ve been misplacing my anger. Instead of taking it out on my notebook, I’ve been battling in other ways. Instead of letting my boiling blood fuel my pen, I’ve been taking it out on everything else or trying to hold it in.

I can’t do that. I have to embrace my anger and utilize it. 

I don’t believe in “this too shall pass” because the only way to get through something is to push yourself. Perhaps if I believed in God, I would let the outside world guide me - but that’s a false sense of security. Because the world will only guide you to where you will end up naturally - six feet underground. I can’t just let the world lead me to death because as long as I’m breathing, I’m going to reach for something. Complacency and faith are one in the same and I refuse to live lifeless in my body before the earth claims me permanently. 

The only thing we can do is fight. Fight for justice, for freedom, for liberty, equality and for the fucking choice to fight.

I’m tired of sitting still while the wrong people fight the right battles. Or worse, the right people fight the wrong battles. My hands are going to eventually freeze up and all I will have left is my voice. When that is gone, I will be dead. Until then, I have to use every chance that I’ve got to fight the good fight.

…I let my passion get the best of me.

Sometimes, my frustrations build a wall so tall, so strong, I can’t seem to conger up a bulldozer sturdy enough to knock it down myself.

It’s difficult for me to understand that people have other priorities. My head can’t wrap itself around the idea that not everyone has the same vision, the same goal, the same dream as I do. Am I the one that is stuck inside of a box? Unable to stretch outside of my walls to consider another viewpoint? Maybe from below the box, to the far left of the box or light years beyond it, floating around in a sphere instead. I just can’t grasp that. 

And I preach about communication, communication, communication consistently, and mostly for my own selfish desire to understand, but I’m the one who writes everything down. I’m the one who keeps everything locked away onto millions of sheets of lined paper. If we’re lucky, those words and phrases will reach my microphone or some frail excuse for a blog, but those people who need to hear or see it the most will be the least likely to. So what the fuck am I doing? 

What we can’t do, we teach, right?

I don’t know. What makes humanity so beautiful is that we’re all vastly different or something. I just think that it would be a lot easier if everyone agreed with me.

This already went on Instagram but I don’t think my hair will ever look this good again for a long time. So I’m going to eat it all up.

My hair is not green. Or is it?

My writing has not suited my needs as of late, so instead I turn to my camera. Vanity strikes in my mid-winter slump.

I am immovable.
I am immortal.
I am elevated by love
and destroyed by silence.
I am focused.
I am in flight
but I am sorrowed by the sight
of our hearts crumbling.
I question everything
but I am certain of my purpose.
We breathe for a reason and I will not
accept that my breathing is fruitless.
I have found weightlessness
in the demolition of resistance.
My soul is a vessel to carry my voice.
My body, a creation to make that possible.
The only choice I have ever had
was to enlist my talents and
give my destiny a heartbeat,
or to sell out to a disillusioned mass
and join a fear-stricken middle class
and let my soul die of irony.
But I choose to be free
and that choice is mine to keep.
With my pen and paper,
microphone and speaker,
I am a vehicle
for this visionary.
I am everything that they feared in me.

For my new followers. Thought I would put a face to my text and share some love at the same time!

let’s take a trip back to 2006. so trendy and so full of shit.

or something like that.

How often do you listen to your intuition? How does it effect you?

For me, I know immediately what my instincts are trying to tell me. Usually it’s “get the fuck out of here” or “this is exactly where you need to be right now.” Of course, I do not believe in coincidences and I feel very strongly that we are all put somewhere for a reason. However, it’s what we do after we get there that we have to take the wheel out of destiny’s hands. It’s what we decide to do inside of our travels that really shapes the direction that our next step will take. 

I learned something last night. I learned that sometimes you have to step out of your comfort level and shock yourself to appreciate what it is that you have and you love. I’ve learned this many of times, but sometimes that reminder feels like the initial moment and your hit with a slug to the stomach and a slap to the face…reality shouting at you to wake up. 

I thought I was starting out the new year in a different way…one that would offer more means to money and a slight change of schedule with a second job. Instead, I started out the new year on a much more significant level. One where I realize that I have absolutely everything that I need to succeed, I just have to utilize it more creatively and effectively. I learned an important lesson about time management, appreciation for my talent, skill, education and intuition, but mostly, I learned that I could not have a more supportive and understanding teammate. 

Come on, 2012. I knew it was going to be good, but now I’m ready to kick your ass.

Stacking hearts like bones in a prison cell.
Keep your ear to the wall and wait for the sound.
Her ghost may be calling, you wait every night
for that same falling feeling you felt in flight.
I waited for you and hoped that you would fly for me
but you claimed that you were afraid of heights.
Those lies that slide through your teeth may be
enough to set you free this time,
but in your sleep, they’ll be counting your infidelities
to hold you accountable for your crimes.

Red hands, red hands,
you’ve mastered a plan to get clean.
(your dirty hands wont catch me)
Disguise the blood with smoke and mirrors,
their eyes will never see the side of you that I’ve seen.

Flash back to her and the hallucinations you’ve seen.
Flash back to when you climbed that mountain for
just a taste of rain.
Rewind to a time that you crossed black terrains
just to whisper her name.
What changed? What changed?
Keep stacking those hearts and stuff them in your closet.
At least pretend as if nothing ever happened.
My time may not be coming but your’s is soon to end.
Because they’ve been counting…
I’ve been counting…

Red hands, red hands,
you’ve mastered a plan to get clean.
(your dirty hands wont catch me)
Disguise the blood with smoke and mirrors,
their eyes will never see the side of you that I’ve seen.

Raise you glass, you’ve only got a few more left.
You can only hide behind your mask for so long.

©Jennifer Bartlett 2011

Oh ya know…just living my dream.