Reluctantly, I found a silver lining
dearest diary vol. 8
I have a complicated relationship with silver linings. My mom’s favorite thing to say to me after a break-up, or a bad day, or a shitty date is “well, you need material to write about it!" Which is true. I often wonder if I purposefully put myself in uncomfortable and absurd situations because I know I’ll be able to pull from it later. Probably. I swear it’s not at the forefront of my mind but I do think there’s a part of me that says “yes” way more often than I should because of it. I’m usually grateful I did the idiotic thing a few months later when I’m in a session or out with friends trying to make someone laugh.
In August, I went through a break-up that prompted me to start this whole sub-stack in the first place. Writing, whether in song or essay, has always helped me to process my thoughts and emotions better than anything else. And that experience started me on a road to thinking about how we express grief, how we comfort people, how we look at that shitty things in our life and force ourselves to see a glass empty or one half-full.
Listen to my latest single Liar Liar
Stream Good Material
My mother came to take care of me when I wasn’t doing well over the summer. She forced me to go outside, to get out of bed. She made sure I was eating. I tend to lose a lot of weight under stress because my anxiety makes me really nauseous all the time. I don’t know how she did it. I must have been absolutely terrible company.
But the truth is, I’ve had a long friendship with depression. In my adulthood it comes on in spurts, from a trigger or a break-up or sometimes it just comes out of the blue. I’ll be in rough shape for a week or two and then the fog lifts. But in high-school, the fog didn’t lift that often. I was pretty much consistently depressed for all of my sophomore and junior year. There were reasons - I attended an emotionally abusive ballet school for most of my childhood, my self-confidence was non-existent, I had a really hard time making friends, I felt extremely alone. But I was also pre-disposed to this type of depression. My dad’s side of the family, though not openly talked about, has a long history of depressive disorder.
On top of that, I didn’t exactly know what was going on in those years. I just thought I was a weird loser. That was my vocabulary to describe it. I didn’t know what emotional abuse was. I knew I was depressed but I didn’t understand why or see any explanation for the darkness I felt myself in. Adulthood was a bright light shining in the distance, something that would lead me out of the awkwardness, out of the humiliation I felt just being myself.
So in my adulthood, when I have spurts of that old depression creeping in, I don’t take it very while. I’m supposed to be better. This is supposed to be the light. Instead, I’m 16 again. The feeling is visceral, transporting me back to a time in my life where I hated almost everything about myself. That’s probably why when my mom came to stay with me, I didn’t take it well when she said there was a “silver lining” to all of this.
It made me really angry actually. Angry in a way only a daughter can be mad at her mom, which is rudely and unapologetically. But after she left, and I finally felt inclined to pick up my guitar again, I wrote “Good Material.” It’s about the end of a relationship not giving you what you want, only giving you material. Whether that’s a song, a lesson, glimpses of what the right relationship could look like… it’s not what you wanted but it’s something. A silver lining, if you will.
GOOD MATERIAL LYRICS:
Dizzy like a circus ride
I’m all consumed I watch for signs
Tell me I look nice tonight
You beg me, let you come inside, I do (I do)
Watch a movie on the plane
The ones I don’t let myself play
Call you, tell you we’re delayed
We taxi while I believe in love again, till it ends
I’m a cynic to my core
But you came breaking down my door and had me believing in miracles
I want to hate you but I can’t
‘Cause now I finally understand that you were only good material
Looked at me your eyes so weak
A coward’s such a thing to see
Know you’ll never marry me
Then why’d you tell me I made you complete
I’d like to see you crash and burn
But I can’t wish you any harm
Cause when I say I love someone I mean it
With my whole damn heart
You wouldn’t get that part
I’m a cynic to my core
But you came breaking down my door and had me believing in miracles
I want to hate you but I can’t
‘Cause now I finally understand that you were only good material
No, you were only good material
But I don’t want a silver lining
I could finally see it all
Thought I’d done my time
Oh don’t I have enough material?
I don’t want these melodies
Could care less if it’s worth the fall
I don’t want this pain
God don’t I have enough material?
God don’t I have enough material?
And I’m still grappling with that ending, that thought that comes up every-time my depression creeps back or my heart gets broken or I feel like I’m failing. Don’t I have enough material? But then again, don’t we all? The older I get, the more I realize that bright light of adulthood, that promise of happiness I used to cling to, was less a promise of sustained joy and more a promise of resilience. I haven’t mastered being happy. Quite the opposite. I’ve just learned how to bounce back, even when it’s hard. Even when I have to ask for help. Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the material keeps on coming.
“Good Material” is the beginning of my next EP, which explores a lot of the confusion and disillusionment of my early adulthood. Why do bad things happen? How do we find happiness? Is there a purpose to any of this? What do we get out of our suffering?
I don’t really have any of those answers but I’m doing my best to find peace with not knowing. And if you’ve ever hated trying to find a silver lining, you might find some comfort in this music.
Love,
dearest aka Emma
P.S. “Liar Liar” is also out now because this substack is coming out a teensy bit late (whoopsies). More on that in my next post!!