Everything here is old -- too old -- except some of the pictures and this:

"I know the meaning of "you can't love anyone until you love yourself." I feel that truth so strongly. I know I have to be a whole and find someone whole to have togetherness, to have what I want most of all -- unbreakable, indivisible love. And I know that I can't love myself until I hear these songs that I feel waiting for me, until they are given to me and it is shown to me how my voice and hands can borrow them from that other world so they can be in this one. They are the heat you feel when someone walks up behind you. They are that magnetic pressure when you hover a fingertip between your eyes. And I am scared of them, because I am scared of myself, because they are hard words to say, because I have no trust in myself. It is so much fear, it is so much self-doubt I can't even believe that I know how to take the first step to find and capture that music. ...

So what does that mean for me now? If all of the plans I made and the thinking I'd done are erased by the unforeseen? When I tried to think up a million bridges to help me across but I suddenly decide a jump will help the other side find my feet? ...

My fight against myself to win myself is all about fear, the kind that paralyzes you, and relents only to allow you to search for all kinds of crutches so you're able to wander aimlessly, limping on this side of the gap. I have to give up those things that pad the sharp corners, that dull the ache, but in return dull me. I have to be brave and not look down so I can get to where I need to be. The old cliche has meaning for me -- I have to face the music. I try so hard to have faith that when I finally turn toward it, what faces me I can look in the eyes and finally love." [Entire entry here.]

I've realized that something I said not too long ago (and have felt for a very, very long time) was wrong -- I have to love myself before I hear those songs, not the other way around. Right now, for me, doing that is not about giving up, but about not fighting with myself over this anymore, and that being okay and being the right thing to do.

In the interim... if you wanna see me play, just get in touch. I'll be glad to use your living room as a stage.