I want to tell a story about what this song means to me.
For a long time in my life, since I was 12 - perhaps even before that - I developed mental issues that I struggled my entire life to deal with. Anyone who knows me knows this.
Throughout the decades, I've had breakdowns. Literally torturing myself just for being me. Physically and mentally and emotionally. I will always have to deal with this, but I'm getting better with it.
It got serious sometimes. In the last few years in particular. I would be on an overpass on the road, looking down at the highway below, timing the cars that go by so I could jump at the right (wrong?) time. I've stared down at the riverbanks of the Petitcodiac River. I imagined running away into the woods and never coming back. Driving my car into the river. Walking in front of a speeding truck. Pills. I thought of a lot of ways. It's not a good thing to spend your time thinking of.
In March of this year, I had such a terrible meltdown that I cut off the hair I grew and loved for 15 years, out of spite for myself. I hate that I make Janice go through this when it happens to me. She's done nothing to deserve having to deal with it, but she always does, and makes it better in the end. But I've never quite figured out how to express myself; what's going on in my head and my heart. I can try. But I don't always succeed.
I left the house after I cut my hair off that evening, and walked for hours alone outside in the dark night, which is what I often do when I feel like I've got nowhere to turn to. I wind up leaving Janice behind worrying where I went, or what I'll do to myself. I never mean to hurt her. My intention is to hurt myself; punish myself for my own behavior... for just being me.
There are people I know who still don't get it. Family and friends included. Some of them seem to completely disregard what I'm dealing with and tell me to get a job. Go out to that social function. Meet all the folks at that gathering you're expected at. They have no clue how hard and emotionally draining that can be for me. I'm out for this long walk to nowhere realizing this song was written for ME. And many others like me, of course.
If you listen to this, you can hear it's me singing this to Janice as I'm out trying to recover from my last massive breakdown. "What if I run away to Mars? Would you find me in the stars? Would you miss me in the end if I run out of oxygen, when I run away to Mars?"
But it's at "3 2 1 I miss you. I'm sorry I got issues." that I lose it almost every time. You can hear his voice shake in that part, clearly singing it from a soft spot in his heart. It's at this point in the song that I realize even more how much pain Janice has endured through my own pain. I like singing this out loud, but when I get to this part I'm pretty much done because it hits me in my own heart. Now when Janice hears it, she cries too, for me, just as I do for her.
I'm thankful for this song because it gave me a new way to express what's in my head when these days happen. The video is rather artsy. The song and video are influenced by a couple of movies, "Interstellar" and "The Martian", because of their isolationist stories and feelings of longing and loneliness. The singer has a star on his eye like Paul Stanley in KISS, and kind of reminds me of the 'friendly angel' character in an old Star Trek TOS episode. The ending of the song is very sad to me, because it sounds like he's getting lost and further away. But I think that's the point.
Anyway, it's that important to me at this point in my life, when I feel like I may be at a turning point. I've read a few books that have made me look at things very differently, and it's also helped a lot. A key point being aware of your own ego, and whether or not you're making decisions based on it, or forming opinions. I read that when you die, your ego dies with your body, and the rest of you carries on. Imagine being free of ego! That would be blissful. And though I'll never be free of it until my time comes, I can definitely learn to control it. And that's been key for me the last several months. It's hard to do, though. It takes practice, and awareness. But it's so freeing.
And this song helped in that healing. It's a landmark song for me in my whole life. Apparently I'm not the only one. It's got a bigger following than I realized.
Maybe it'll connect with you for your own reasons.
