May 30 - Cotton

Is "whimsical catharsis" a thing?

This song is light and beautiful and soft, a gentle account of the things we hang onto, the memories that pain us, the scabs we pick at, the guilt we tend and maintain, and an easy instruction to do the hardest thing possible. Leave it behind.

It's not forgiveness per se, it's not even forgetting. It's just... not hanging onto things.

I walk around all day every day with pockets full of invisible lead weights. Stupid fucking things I said while I was a kid, occasions I made people cry, times I could have been better, times where my misery was ultimately my fault. I hang onto these things, there's a sense in which I hoard them. That pain was formative, this scar tissue load bearing. I'm afraid that if I didn't have them then one of the things I'd have to put down would be the "I" that was putting them down, and he doesn't know what to do or be if he's not doing or being this.

It's healthy to let things go. It's also hard. But at least we have a beautiful song to listen to while we struggle.