Songs for Waking Up

Sometime around the end of grade school I started to get angry. And it was good.

My new state of mind was the product of a few things, including, but not limited to, an Ani Difranco record my brother slipped me, saying, "I thought you might like it." Who knows if that was before or after I stopped wearing a bra to school in protest of dress code regulations; the songs might have influenced me, or my emerging rebelliousness might have directed my brother.

I listened to that album over and over, soaking in the sound of angry fists clenched against a patronizing pat on the back. It felt like waking up. Suddenly the world seemed bigger and my problems much smaller. I felt like fighting, like I had a reason to. So what that I was a feminist who'd never really experienced sexism, except maybe in an Ani D song, and I felt like the solution was talking about it.

Complex issues boiled down to black and white: World peace was possible; we just all had to be nice to each other; once I got to high school, I would be happier than I was in grade school. I don't remember thinking that I wanted to be anything in particular when I grew up, but I had a fool's sense that I could do anything -- and everything -- that I had on my ever-expanding list of ambitions.

Skip to now. Skip to college graduation. Skip to any moment when the realization that I am in the world and not just observing it has paralyzed me. Because now that it's my turn to make something happen, I find my hands are tied by fear. That's what it boils down to now. I may as well be afraid of my own shadow. There are so many things broken in the world, so many people suffering, so many people fighting their neighbors. What could I possibly do that would make a dent in the centuries of disparity and decay? (And secretly I wonder: What would I have to give up to make it possible?)

So I find solace in trying to control my life. I am the same, everyday. It's not an obsession; it's a way of life. I am unhappy and unfulfilled, but I am afraid to give it up because then what would I have?

There's no sense in placing blame or tracking my steady descent to here; I've been doing that pretty consistently for the past year and a half. But I have hope that I'm not alone, that everyone reaches this spot at some point, when he or she assumes going nowhere = stability = success.

I have a destructive habit of clinging too tightly to things that aren't working for fear of losing control. Once, a few years ago, I had a defiant sense of adventure, but it was stolen from me or I dropped it somewhere along the way, and I've had a hard time recovering it.

Lately, though, miraculously, I feel like I'm waking up again. I've opened up a trapdoor in my heart, swept out the dust and let the sun filter through. I start each day at the beginning, greeting it with open arms, awaiting whatever comes my way. And the world is spilling wisdom at my feet, telling me that everything I want is just outside my comfort zone, that I should be content with what I have but never with who I am, that I should do what scares me... And so I intend to. I miss being a righteous babe, and there's no reason I can't be again.

Like Ani says, "I've got better things to do than survive."

Good morning.