There is a Vampire Weekend song from a few years ago that I just absolutely love. Anytime it comes on, it consumes me. Therefore it is on my running playlist, workout playlist, chilling out playlist, and party playlist. So when it came on in my car on a long drive to Minnesota a few weeks ago, I took the moment, turned up the volume and of course karaoked it, loud. Imagine my surprise when at 7 am, having driven 2.5 hours already, I came to the realization that I was getting the point of that song totally wrong all these years. In this time period in my life, when 2016 just keeps knocking me down, I realized that Giving Up the Gun isn't about fading glory but trying to reclaim a piece of yourself that you may have forgotten or gave up along the way. It is about forgetting who we are in this world and about who we become in order to survive, thrive, or claw our way up. I hit repeat and sure enough, "Your sword's grown old and rusty, Burnt beneath the rising sun, It's locked up like a trophy, Forgetting all the things it's done."
After months of not only outright rejection, but of also not even being acknowledged, it is hard to not feel like the person in the song. "And though it's been a long time, You're right back where you started from." How can my eyes not get a little watery? Despite it being a lot teenager-esque in nature, here it felt like Ezra Koenig was singing right into my soul. But once this realization came, so did a lot more, mainly I just do what I am doing anymore. I metaphorically cannot play this game like everyone else does, with a gun. I need a different tool, something I am good at, something I have had success with in the past. Whatever my "sword" is, it must be very corroded. I also can't figure it out or find it, like our fireproof safe key when I hid it in the sub woofer and forgot that is where I put it. So despite the helpful comments from friends and family, you know those pesky things I need to work on that I can't seem to drop like bad habits no matter how hard I try because I think they are just a part of me. Like, needing to be lest honest, less outspoken, swear less, sell myself better, "use my network," work harder, and societies general screw you to women, you know prettier, thinner, quieter, and soft-spoken and despite years of trying to be different, it just is not me.
I tried at age 19 to be better, to be awesome, to be the thing that was needed and I failed miserably. I spent the rest of my early twenties proving that the failure was fine and I could just do everything on my own and I was really good at that. I never missed rent, or tuition payments, and I was always able to buy my books. I did that for a majority of my twenties, until the crazed maniac I ended up working for finally got to me. Then I spent the rest of my twenties trying to prove that I was smart, despite being a loud mouthed blonde. And I did it again by getting a masters degree while still working, though I had a safety net called Ed to fall back on. Ever since then, because I am what I am (unappealing to the professional world), I just do what people have been expecting. Work. Jobs, any jobs. And for what? So, now here I am back at square one and I am ready to give up the gun, because in truth, it is not what I am good at and I want that to be OK.
Because, this whole time I have done so many cool things most people will never get to do, nor want to do (and that is also OK, we have choices). I learned, and am still learning, to sail. Subsequently I have traversed Lake Michigan the long way 6 and a half times, with a few storms. I have sailed in Key West, Lake Dillon, CO during a "micro-burst", the Chesapeake Bay in a hurricane, and most recently amazing Antigua. I have been trying to explore the world one place at a time and have been lucky enough to even repeat visits to some of my favorite places. I have met people from all over the world. I can make friends in so many places I go, it is not for lack of emotional intelligence (or my fatal flaws according to American and the puritanical midwest) on my part, nor survival skills. I have gotten to go to some awesome music festivals, with some awesome people, and have been included in some pretty cool events. There is this whole giant world out there that turns and goes through the same hours and minutes as our day. While I am eating lunch at 1 pm here, someone in Sydney, Australia is sleeping or just getting up for a really early morning at work tomorrow. In Amsterdam someone is putting their kids to bed and in Reykjavik someone is just sitting down for dinner.
These experiences and thoughts are of such insignificant nature in our society, that it is clear that not only am I using the wrong tool, I am probably using it improperly, and more so my wiring is not apparently not right. And I get it, it is where all the well intended advice comes from. My friends and family want me to succeed, they want me to use the tool that they have been successfully wielding, it is just I am expected to start all over again, again, and again. We are supposed to grateful for any opportunity no matter what it is and that we get what we deserve, and deserve what we get good or bad. But, the world turns and it just feels like it does not have to be that way. We have agency but our system makes it so that we are mostly dependent on other people's actions or inaction's and superficial judgements. So I just want to take a step in the opposite direction. It is probably the wrong thing to do, because of my nature I seem to do the wrong thing anyway. I am too honest, but I can't play games because I am too competitive and that also hasn't worked well for me so...... I need to find my own tool, the thing I can use to find my place in this world. Then and only then can I hopefully "shine" in my way.
