The unofficial CBO(bh) playlist
I've been listening to the 'This is Mike Shinoda' playlist a lot lately because I love his voice, and his music, the heart and emotion in his songs. He's brilliant. Naturally, I first came upon him back in the Linkin Park days because I was in my early twenties when they hit NZ hard and they spoke to my soul big time, in fact, ever since I first heard them, they've been on my playlist in one form or another.
Chester Bennington's death was tragic, and I took a couple of years off from listening to them, but then they came back in again, as all good music that's touched your life does. I even got the Linkin Park music pack for Beat Saber! (A VR game where you slash cubes with what are basically lightsabres to music and feel like a god doing it). I think Spotify kindly suggested Mike's playlist to me at some point and as soon as I started listening to it, I knew it was going to be on repeat.
At present it's my go to for doing admin or editing, or if I'm just kicking around reading emails etc on my computer (as an aside, I swear that the fact I'm barely writing and am thus hardly creating playlists for works in progress means that this year's Spotify wrapped is going to be Mike Shinoda, Hamilton the musical, Legally Blonde the musical, the Spiderman Into the Spider-verse soundtrack, and a few others like Chappell Roan - we can thank the kids for this as they keep using my phone despite having their own phones and Spotify accounts). Various songs do end up on specific lists for specific works, and have done for a while now, but at present Mike is my main squeeze.
His music is still speaking to me even after all of these years, and particularly right now. Here are just a few snippets.
What's the difference between a man and a monster
Is it somewhere between I can and I want to
Is it somewhere between the promises I made
And the fact I couldn't see something getting in the way
I used to think that I know what I want
Never saw it coming unglued
I used to think that I know what I want
Now it's time to see if it's true
I had so much certainty
'Til that moment I lost control
And I've tried but it never was up to me
I've got no worse enemy
Than the fear of what's still unknown
And the time's come to realize there will be
Promises I can't keep
- Promises I can't keep - Mike Shinoda
That last line. Oof. Yup. There will be promises I can't keep. This past couple of years I feel like I've been dropping the ball left right and centre. I WANT to do everything, to help all the people, to read, edit, critique, appear, speak, advocate, protest - and that's just the list for other people, not myself. Right now, I am at the point of accepting (actually, truly, some of you know I've been working on this for a loooong time) that I cannot do it all. I can't even do half of it. Maybe not even a quarter.
And that hurts. I hate it so much because I used to be a person who could do everything.
Recently I heard some really good wisdom that finally made me see things in a slightly different way: Don't glamourise the version of you that got you into burnout. This pearl came from Claire Taylor in her Burnout Recovery for Enneagram video, which was a perk of backing a recent Kickstarter, so I can't share the video with you, but I can share that wisdom. I'll say it again:
Don't glamourise the version of you that got you into burnout.
I didn't realize that's what I'd been doing. But it's true. That me that tried to do all the things all the time? She contributed to getting me where I am today, and I don't want to be her again. It's not just that I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of it. But I don't want to be her. That wasn't a healthy person for a host of reasons, primarily that she completely ignored her own needs.
I keep on running backwards
I keep on losing faith
I thought I had the answers
I thought I knew the way
My brother said be patient
My mother held my hand
I don't know what I'm chasing
I don't know who I am
So I make it up as I go
- Make it up as I go - Mike Shinoda and K.Flay
I'm not sure who I am right now either - but I'm really curious to find out. I love K.Flay as well as Mike, her stuff is also on several playlists, and she sings the lyrics above. She's got such a unique voice and I dig her energy. Anyway, I'm making this all up as I go too. And I'm feeling really good about that.
Sometimes, sometimes you don't say goodbye once
You say goodbye over and over and over again
Over and over and over again
This song is about grief, losing Chester, and damn, if I don't understand that.
Right now, I feel like I'm saying goodbye over and over again. Goodbye to past me. Goodbye to my ability to push through, my ability just get shit done. I'm in deep grief for a number of reasons which I know I'll write about later on, teasing each aspect out to wring the truth from it, process it, and move on. Some days the grief overwhelms me though, and I'll burst into tears at random times. When I hear a lyric to a song. Sitting at the library trying to write. While driving - I do a lot of my crying in the car (don't worry, I'm a pro at car-crying safely). In the shower, of course. I mean, I'll cry anywhere at this point, and I seem to have no freaking control over it. I no longer feel shame about it - the feelings have got to come out somewhere, and these ones want to pour out of my eyes, so I'll let them.
I've definitely had to say goodbye to my ability to pretend that I'm okay.
Hey, at least in my mind
I'm feeling like I'm the hero that saves me
There I hold my head high
Get everything right, delusional maybe
If I'm pretending, why not write happy endings?
Where I'm better than we both know I could be, oh
Still, at least in my mind
I'm feeling like I'm the hero that saves me
- Happy Endings - Mike Shinoda, iann dior, UPSAHL
Let's leave this on a slightly happier note, because I do like to feel like I'm the hero that saves me. Hell, I am the only hero that can. This life? This journey? It's happening inside my head, my body. It's mine to walk, to learn from, to become, to grow into.
I really do hope that along the way I can share some stuff that might help you as well though.
Is there a particular musician or group that's speaking to you right now?
Love you Cassie beautiful. So many revelations in this piece. Have you read the Mirror Book by Charlotte Grimshaw? It was the first book that I read after a couple of years of shutting down. It is scary when you can’t do the things you used to be able to do. I still love the old me - she survived - and I can forgive her and give her a cuddle and a fucken mighty high-five!! She did alright baby! Now I can do better for her and me, and be more honest and caring to honour us. ‘Car-crying’ god how many times have we women done that? 🤦🏾♀️ and I’m not good at it. I have to stop on the side of the road where at least over the years two complete strangers have stopped to ask if I’m okay, and I’ve ended up telling them my life story and they’ve ended up telling me theirs! Hmmm - might have to write about that… I didn’t like Demi Lovato, but at one particular time a few years ago I discovered her ‘Art of starting over’ and that album, I blasted it so loud and howled my eyes out - even in the car. I love the self-worth line she wrote ‘no more melon cakes on birthdays’ word xxx arohanui e hoa
I love Linkin Park & still listen to them often. They got me through some shitty times. So I'll have to look this up.
Sometimes a song catches me & I listen to it over and over on repeat. Apparently this is a normal autistic thing. The most recent one is Noah Khan's Stick Season. I don't know why! Something about the lyrics & the way he sings them. I'm not a Noah Khan fan, just this one song.
That "don't glamourise..." quote is so real. I was just thinking about that concept today, and how that person never actually existed without the cost of illness. There's a lot of grief to work through, losing the person I believed could do everything (even though she never really existed).
💖