I am

I am

I cheated. Already. I wrote a post and removed it after only a few hours. I felt too seen. Too much shame.

And instead I posted this. A song. I called it “I am” which isn’t, in fact, what the singer says at all. I should know this as the title explains that the refrain throughout is actually “I ran”. Which is kind of perfect don’t you think? There is a deep part of me as I am which is the me who ran, the one that hides and runs away. Perhaps more on that later.

Below is what I wrote when I originally posted this song (on Tumblr, of course!) on 22 July 2015. The photo is of me on 19 July 2015. It’s important that I include it for two reasons. The first is that I really don’t do photos of myself. I mean this in as straightforward a way possible when I say that I’ve always struggled with pathological self-hatred. The second is at the time that photo was taken I had been signed off with depression for almost a year. I was in a toxic relationship. I was utterly alone. I was rigidly controlling my relationship with food and my body so in some way I could bear my reflection more than is usual. But that never lasts. Suffice to say it was not a happy time in my life. But I look at that girl now and wish I hadn’t spent so much time questioning her, hating her, blaming her, berating her, putting her down.

Perhaps more on that later too.

This song is one I am currently obsessed with. I listen to it loud, it’s best on headphones so the sounds covers you. I like the noises. This feels like me as a song. I like the buzzing best, just before the main track comes in. The buzzing is how my head feels. Then the keyboard notes that float above the voice become a song, a circle, a wheel. I go round and round. It is beautiful, it is not a script that follows any route. The words are just repetition. I can listen to it over and over. Just like I am with myself, over and over and over and on and on.