Things are evening out. They aren’t done, they’ll be happening for a long time, but I’m officially only working 50-60 hours a week and that seems somehow much more sustainable than what was happening before. What that also means is that I’ve gotten to fall back in love with music. There were a couple of weeks in the last few months when I thought I was going to come out of this crustier and a lot more bitter than I was before. But I got some sleep, I got a little time off, and I realized that though I’ve likely changed, I haven’t locked myself up completely. Those little moments in a good song can still work their way through the cracks of my hardened exterior and make me cry.
And crying is cathartic.
As has been mentioned on the site previously, many of us have been pulling together top 50 favorite songs lists each year for a few years. We make these playlists on iTunes and YouTube and share with our friends to both see what we’ve liked over the previous 365 and to consolidate the intense emotions of an amazing collection of moments into a single place so we can relive and re-love everything we felt that year. As I’ve started to carve out periods of time between intense meetings to breathe and begin to catch up, I’ve also started to look back at those playlists and listen to songs to remember what it was like to just be a person with plans, hopes, desires, and interests outside of the present moment. Gurus are always telling us to live in the moment and, to put it frankly, I call bull shit. I don’t want to always live in the moment, I want to have a well thought out future with adventures and experiences outside of taking a deep breath and gratitude for what I have right here and right now. I want a rich past that tells the story of someone that has made an attempt at making at the very least a tiny mark on the fabric of what once was. I want a future and I need my past.
I’m a greedy cuss.
The playlists are all like little fantasies for me. The styling, MV storylines, and emotions are all like lovely little inspirational gems that help me to build whole worlds in my mind. Those worlds are what see me through shitty times and inspire me when I’m feeling good about things. Revisiting those playlists has allowed me the space to fall back in love with things that I’ve put on the shelf because I’m a too cool for school jerk sometimes. And while I will always love an underdog and while my bias group and my bias wrecker group are pretty firmly set at the moment, it’s still nice to remember that my little love particles once fed the idols that became huge global stars.
Since we all need a little bit of saving right now, I’m going to fondly remember a time when BTS was there for me and I was all in for them.
Thank you to Stephanie and Alix for covering for me for a few months. And thank you to Alix for letting me back in just as she hit her stride. I look forward to sharing my thoughts again and to mixing it up a bit with her fab suggestions and fun ideas.
Save Me, BTS
2 Comments
BTS always brings back the memories of that first year of #klife. Sitting in the basement until 1 or 2am watching BTS Bombs, working hard to memorize everyone before our first KCON. Those were the days!
It was the best of times….and the best of times