The Lorde and Savior

Hey!

OK, just a fair warning: this post may seem slightly melodramatic. I really don't want to sound like a drama queen, but let's be honest: I probably will. That's sort of just the way I am. I don't mean to be, though and I just want to say that I am writing this post with complete and utter sincerity.

If you know me at all, you know that I'm passionate about music. You also know that I can get pretty obsessed with specific bands/songs/etc. I could talk for hours about many of my musical obsessions, but today I am focusing on the most influential musical and writing idol in my life.

Lorde, or Ella Yelich-O'Connor, debuted at her first album in 2013, when she was only 16 years old. The album was entitled "Pure Heroine,"and it didn't take long for the world to take notice of it. In the fall of 2013, I began, myself, listening to this album and became obsessed. I was 12. As a young child, pretty much all of the music that I listened to was stuff that my parents played for me, usually '80s pop, soul, and rock stuff. As much as I loved that music and their enthusiasm to share it with me, I had never really had the experience of bonding with music, and really connecting to it. I first heard Royals the way I listened to so much of my music as a little kid: in the car with my dad. I don't remember the specifics, but I was struck by the song, and quickly found the rest of the album to listen to. I think one of the main things that appealed to me about Ella's music was its unapologetic honesty. It wasn't even that the subject matter of Pure Heroine was particularly happy, but the words and content themselves felt uncensored. So much of modern music I had heard on the radio felt fake, like it was being produced for the sake of making more money – but these songs were natural.

So, when I heard the Lorde was coming to Austin for the first stop on her Pure Heroine tour, I basically lost my shit. Luckily I have an amazing father who is more than willing to take me, and was also fortunate enough to afford it. That was my first concert, and was honestly one of the happiest nights of my life. This is going to sound kinda emo, and I'm sorry, but I don't have a lot of happy memories for my teen and preteen years. It was kind of an out of body experience for me. I had never even after years of doing musical theater, felt this much adrenaline. I remember her coming onstage and how my heart leapt into my throat, even though I reassured my dad that I wouldn't be a crazy fangirl. I remember screaming all the lyrics the top of my lungs.

Over the years, I've stayed connected to that album. I always listen to it when I feel overwhelmed or vulnerable, because for some reason, it brings me an incredible amount of comfort. To be honest, I've never gained a full understanding as to why connect to Ella's music so much as I do. I just do. Obviously, over the next years after the concert, my music taste shifted and grew. I went through a hideous emo phase and listen to more less – than – thoughtful music than I care to admit. I still stayed connected to Pure Heroine. As time went on, anticipation grew regarding the release of "Lorde's new album." What was it going to be like? Was it going to live up to everyone's expectations? And most of all: when was it going to drop? There were a lot of impatient fans out there. I tried to keep things in perspective. I felt sort of bad for all of the pressure Ella was under.

Okay, so this is when I lost my shit: I was browsing Twitter sometime at the end of February when I came across a post from the official Saturday Night Live Twitter account. It was the announcements for hosting musical guest for the upcoming month. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her name on there that must've meant that new music was coming. I know I must sound overdramatic at this point. It was literally one episode of a TV show with a cool musical guest. But you have to understand: this was my favorite TV show, a TV show that had changed my life and was the highlight of my week, with the absolute most inspiring artist in my life guest performing. In my less-than-extravagant life, this was a pretty big deal.

A few days later, Green Light was released. For those of you who don't know, Green Light is one of the two songs currently pre-released on Lorde's upcoming album. I listened, and I fell in love. The tone was different than the original album, but somehow it managed that exact same emotional depth and honesty I had come to know so well.

Then came Liability. Liability was released on one of the worst days in my recent memory. I had been in school all day, dodging in and out of classes to cry in the bathroom stalls. I had finished all of my work in 6th period when I was browsing YouTube and I saw it. I didn't expect it to hit me so intensely. I have never had lyrics speak to me the way they do in that song. And it was just what I needed on that day. It had been a day of feeling sick, almost throwing up, having panic attacks, and sobbing in rooms full of my peers. I felt like a burden. And so the words of the song hit me.

You would think that hearing the melancholy words would make me feel worse, like all of my negative thoughts about myself were being reinforced, but that wasn't the case at all. I felt understood. Even if the lyrics didn't have the intended meaning that I took from them, I felt like I wasn't alone. Again, cheesy. I know. But still. It's honestly true.

The unbelievably anticipated SNL Performance was two days later. It blew my mind. Ella's magnetism was contagious. As I sat on my parents bed, glued to the screen, I felt the smile spread across my face. I wasn't really entitled, but I felt proud that Ella had finally gotten to perform on SNL. 

The other day was a very difficult day for my family, for personal reasons. The only reason I feel the need to say this is that my sensitivity that day was heightened, which should probably be taken into account. Anyhoo, I don't know if you guys have heard of Rookie Mag, but it's a fabulous website and book series started by Tavi Gevinson, who started the site when she was only 15 (like me, only I'm not getting anywhere with this…) The concept was for it to be for teens, by teens, and they feature all of this great artwork by teens. (This is not an ad, I swear, I'm not that known.) Back to the point: the other day I saw on Twitter that Rookie had put out it's first podcast. And the guest interviewee? Yep. That's right. Ella Yelich-O'Connor. Lorde. I knew Lorde had done work with Tavi in the past, and that they were friends, but I was still shocked that they had made a podcast!

Now, throughout this long post I've talked about how much I love Ella and how her lyrics speak to me, but let me tell you, this podcast erased any doubt in my mind that this woman was (is) anything but motivated, thoughtful, and brilliant.

 Without giving you a synopsis of the entire podcast, I want to mention something Ella said about her songwriting process that really stood out to me. She addressed allegations that her new song, Green Light, was a pop song and that therefore she herself had "turned pop." Obviously, she said no, that wasn't true, but her reasoning was interesting to me. In the middle of her interview with Tavi on the podcast, she ran to grab a recording of Jack Antonoff and herself hashing out the song. He was playing choppy bits of piano inspired by motions the two of them saw at the Florence and the Machine concert, and she was humming out a bit of melody with the words that she had worked out.

When the Recording stopped, Ella explained that there was no way she "turned Pop," because the song was only ever that: bits of lyrics, piano movements, and notes, straight from her imagination. There was no conscious decision. The art was what it was. And, as she said, it needed to be made. She said, and I'm really paraphrasing bits and pieces of this from memory here, that some creative people need to create these things. They need to.

And this is what speaks to me: I need to write. I need to draw. I need to create. It's what keeps me going. It's what makes me want to stay alive.( Any tøp fans out there? Lmao.) But at the same time, I'm getting caught up in what other people will think about my creative work. Will it seem to pop – y? Too dramatic? Not intellectual enough? But why should it matter? Aren't I doing this work because it needs to be made? What would happen if I stopped hyper analyzing my process, and just let the words, music, lines, notes, etc. come out? That's what I'm going to work on. In fact, I'm working on it just by writing this.

I'm sorry that this was a long post today, but I really felt as though all of those things needed to be said. If Ella could see this, I would tell her a cheesy-ass thank you. Thank you for being an unintentional role model for me. Thank you for being true to yourself. Thank you for making music.

This was a long one, guys, but I hope you enjoyed it, or could take something out of it. No matter what kind of work (artistic or not) you do, stay true to yourself through it, and keep doing it.

Until Next Time,

Shira

Call Me Out

Call me out: I’m overbearing

An oversharing, constantly embarrassing myself

I’m not, like, trying to

Not trying rude to you, not trying to be crude to you

I’m constantly being excused.

Reusing old devices and vices

Never being alluded to and I’m constantly confused,.

Because my mind doesn’t work the same as yours, friend,

I break and bend

I always forget to to hit send

Like, literally too: I leave things hanging: Dangling over my head

Am I gonna catch this one?

Or am I gonna leave this metaphorical record broken?

Also

I always blame myself in a self deprecating style

I’ll cut my leg off in style before running the mile

Add this to the pile:

Of things I’ll blame on myself

‘Cause I would hate to be selfish, friend

But, no, just you wait a while

Until someone comes along and blames me

Just you see: I have no vulnerabilities

When I’m blaming myself, but when someone calls me out on my shit

I’m as vulnerable as a fucking baby left crying in the middle of a crowded shopping mall

You see, I’ll mold to society’s casting call

“Calling all teenage girls who feel

Like they’ve become way too damn small”

But don’t blame society, we’ve been chained up against our own sobriety

Forcing ourselves to realize that we’re not the innocent standers by

But it’s not like we’re gonna do anything about it

Also

I’m one of those hip to it

I’ll look over it while I take a sip of this overcaffeinated shit

Teenagers who preaches and teaches

About the notion of change in the world

I get angry at my elders when they don’t understand us millennials

Because people are born this way and all of us in this world are created equal

And America throws out one third of their food

But won’t stop to give a homeless immigrant a dollar

And stop stereotyping sexuality

And gender is a fucking spectrum and all that shit

And yet

It’s not like I’ve got a plan to change the way the earth rotates

And I know I don’t create change, I buy it

I don’t stop to give that homeless person a dollar: I’m too shy

And guilty because I haven’t stopped in a while

And I’ve been put on this trial of sorts

Because if I don’t stereotype sexuality

Why do I lie in bed at night, wondering why I liked that boy in elementary school for four years

But all of my crushes have been girls for the past two?

And I like all the actresses more that the actors

See, I preach about freedom of speech and love

And I pretend I have this higher knowledge, I stand above

Obviously

But I’m no freer than anybody else, friend

And it’s not like I’m that quick to set trends or make amends

I mostly pretend, like I’m still that giddy six year old in pink tutus

I don’t know myself, but I claim to know you

So, you tell me: Who am I?

Call me out on it.

My Ooey Gooey Romance With Anxiety

Hi all!

I'm back agin. Appreciated the couple of comments that were left on my previous post! They really made my day, so thank you.

For my second post, today I'm going to dive into something that is very near and dear to my heart: anxiety. I've always had anxiety, and I can recall it's negative affects on my life for as long as I can remember. The thing about anxiety is that it's hard to identify in small children, which is why I wasn't actually diagnosed until I was eight or nine. One thing to understand is that everyone experiences anxiety at one point or another in their life. Part of being a human being is having that sense of danger and fear: that flight or fight mode. And from a practical perspective, a certain amount of anxiety is a natural thing. However, for some people, our brains get a little overactive, and we feel a heightened amount of that fear, when there's no real danger.

And so it goes for me. A little background: I started going to therapy when I was eight, then I switched therapists and was diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) by my psychiatrist when I was nine. My fears and obsessions have shifted over the years, but are mostly related to myself and my body, or "psycho somatic" obsessions. For all intents and purposes of my post today, the developing content of my obsessions is not relevant. I could probably go on and on about my different fears and the ways that I have challenged them over the years, but what good would that do?

There are many misconceptions about OCD and anxiety that need to be addressed. For one, OCD is not the "cute" mental disorder. It's not conveniently neat, and, although I might be, it's not quirky. It's also not a joke. Over the past many years, a certain culture has developed around poking fun at mental illnesses and the symptoms they usually entail. These include such hits as, "Omg dude you just triggered me," or, "She doesn't like when her binder is disorganized: she's so OCD."This such charming banter could perhaps be categorized with "that's so gay" jokes, but I'll save that rant for another time. I've been labeled as too sensitive and butthurt for getting offended by these remarks, but that doesn't necessarily bother me. I know I'm sensitive. In fact, that's part of my OCD.

Once someone told me that I was always talking about my mental illness. I defended the allegation at first, but then thought about it for a while. I realized that that person may have been onto something and that I did talk an unusual amount about my anxiety and depression. This lead to a stream of existential questions. Was I really as "damaged" as I made myself out to be, or was this some sort of self-centered attempt to convince others that I was special? The more I mulled it over, the more I started to spiral down into a world of self-pity. It took me a while to realize that there was nothing flawed about my, let's say, "obsession with obsession," and it made perfect sense. My mental health issues took up a lot of space in my life. I was in therapy 3-5 times a week, not to mention my constant anxiety was pretty much controlling my life.

This is a dumb analogy, I know, but bare with me. Imagine I was one of those really annoying, touchy-flirty theater girls who is constantly doing vocal scales in the bathroom and stretching her butt awkwardly near your face in line at a starbucks. (No offense, theater kids. I was one of you when I was a lot younger) I would probably talk about theater a lot. Why? Because I would be in rehearsal 3-5 times a week, all my friends would be theater nerds, and I'd spend any other "spare time" I had outside of rehearsal running lines. I would talk about theater a lot, because I would spend the majority of my time doing and thinking about it. Similarly it goes with anxiety. No wonder I, without perhaps realizing it, talk so frequently about my anxiety, when it's essentially my extra curricular of choice. (Just kidding. Not "of choice." Who would choose this?)

 And just like a theater kid is in love with theater and would never want to give up their undying dedication to it, I am hesitant to imagine a life where anxiety is not a predominant factor in determining everything I do. After all, anxiety is natural, isn't it? It's that fight or flight mode that's supposed to keep you from doing stupid shit like riding naked on your longboard around your cul-de-sac, or eating a two pint container of Ben and Jerrys right before a hot yoga class.

Now, in no way am I recommending that you let your anxiety become your entire life and let it completely absorb you. What I'm saying is: You're allowed to feel the way you feel. It took me a long time to understand that, and although I still struggle with accepting my thoughts for what they are: thoughts, I try every day to just let myself be. So, to the kid that once told me I was always talking about my mental illness:

I know.
I do.
I know it must get annoying sometimes, and I'm sorry
But that's the way it goes.
And if I'm going to be unapologetically myself,
I am going to do so, anxiety and all.
This is My Ooey Gooey Romance With Anxiety.

I'm sorry that I didn't go as far n depth with this article than I had hoped, but I had lot's of other things going on that unfortunately required my speedy attention. If you took the time to read this,  I really appreciate you and your patience with spelling and grammar errors. Thank you.

Until Next Time,

Shira.