And let me crawl inside your veins I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain It's not like me to be so mean You're all I wanted Just let me hold you
Like a hostage
Billie Eilish - Hostage
I used to keep secret journals all over the place. It was equal parts an obsession with fresh notebooks and a need to put down the weight I carried, sometimes. I have all these pages with little cryptic notes scribbled in them from times my life was feeling dark and heavy. I'm the only one who could tell you what half of them mean. The other half, even I don't know for sure anymore. There's just a feeling, a common thread of sadness. But most times, I wouldn't spell it out plainly. Even in my journals, I kept my feelings bottled up.
Someone asked me what the point of art is. And I think the point is that it's different for everyone. And within each person, art has different purposes at different points in our lives. I think sometimes, art is my secret journal. It's where I tell the stories I don't know how to say out loud. It's where I let my heart speak. Where I let pain and beauty and all of the things I've learned to be afraid to express escape into the ether and hope that somewhere, someone will find them and understand.
Because most of us know what pain feels like, even if the way we got there was different. Most of us know how it feels to soar above the clouds with joy, even just for a moment. And we understand loss, even if what we have lost is not the same. And so to me, art is about connection. It's about understanding our commonality in the way that we all relate to the same emotions, regardless of what experiences led us there. In this way, art is subjective. But it's also universal. It's what we're brought back to in our minds, which only we can fully understand. But it's also knowing we're not alone. Art connects us each along the common threads of our humanity.
And so, when there are weeks like the one I've had, and it all feels too much... sometimes art is the only way to get it off my chest. Thank you for listening. Thank you for reminding me I'm not alone.