When You Can No Longer Turn a Blind Eye to Hate

Sometimes, I get the no-reason sads. Usually, the logical side of me (the part I’d like to imagine is bigger) will chalk it up to a chemical imbalance., just some muddled up brain slush not doing its job. This most recent sad, I could have easily brushed off as me not having my Wellbutrin for the last few weeks. But there was something more to this particular sad, and I could feel it.

The sad was not a typical no-reason sad. It was a scared sad, and it came with a realization.

I’m going to be living my entire life in fear for the women I love more than anything in this world.

I fear for my wife, who is black in a world that turns a blind eye toward violence against people of color. I fear for my girlfriend, who is transgender in a world that tells trans women to kill themselves, if the world doesn’t murder them first. I have so many fears about my future family and whether or not we’ll be safe in this country I love, the country I’ve called home my entire life.

I want to start a family with my two favorite people so badly, but I can’t shake this fear that something will go horribly wrong. Growing up, I never felt that kind of existential fear. I was a white, straight-and-cisgender-passing Christian. I never had to worry about systemic oppression or the ignorant prejudices of other people. I was able to exist peacefully and apolitically. But you can’t exist apolitically in a society that vilifies your loved ones and actively seeks to harm them. I used to be able to overlook oppression, but now I see racism and homophobia and transphobia in the world and it’s fucking personal.

My mom once told me that my writing has the power to change the world, and I hope it does. This was a hard post to write, but it’s so important to put out there. I want to live in a world that allows my future daughter to grow up without fear, without the nagging feeling that someone’s going to hurt her moms. No one should have to bear this kind of anxiety, ever, and I pray someday we’ll live in a society that lets us simply exist.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I’m Not Ready

Earlier this week, I made a pilgrimage to Fort Wayne, Indiana for my internship interview, and who would I be if I visited my girlfriend’s home state if I didn’t visit my girlfriend at some point?

I’m the “long distance lesbians” stereotype meets the “four hours is nothing to Midwesterners” stereotype.

The drive from Fort Wayne to South Bend isn’t too bad, mostly passing through the endless open fields the Midwest is known for and a few odd cities. But one thing I noticed fairly often while traversing Indiana (aside from corn) was the presence of billboards like these:

I’ve been a Christian most of my life, and although I’m not much in the way of a traditional one, I believe the core tenets, including the whole “forgiveness” thing. I know the ubiquitous verse — “So God so loved the world” and all that. I know everything I could possibly ever do wrong in this lifetime has already been forgiven. I’ve never been afraid of Judgment Day, whatever that will look like.

So why am I still scared of dying?

I think about it more than I’d like to admit. It’s a dark cloud looming over my brightest days, a little nagging fear surrounding the fact that my days are numbered. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that one day, I’ll just cease to exist, and I’ll never have the chance to do anything else. All my dreams will have remained just that — dreams. All unfulfilled, all forgotten.

There’s so much left I want to do in this life, so much so that it’s overwhelming at times. I want to be a music therapist. I want to be a songwriter. I want to be a mom. I want to be a professor. I want to publish my stories. I want to live in a little house by a lake. And it sucks to think I might not be able to get to do everything I want to do. I only have, what, 80 years or so if I’m lucky? And I’ve spent 30 of them being too mentally ill to do much of anything. Logically I know I’ve accomplished a lot in the past three decades, but I’m always scared I’m running out of time to finish everything I want to do.

So no, I’m not ready to meet Jesus.

Maybe it is a sign I need to lean more into my faith, I don’t know. God knows everything that’s ever happened and ever will happen, and His plans are greater than my own. But as much as this should be a comfort to me, it’s almost worse to acknowledge that everything is ultimately out of my hands. My future is already decided for me, and what if it’s not a future I’d want for myself? What if I’m doomed to be a pharmacy technician for the rest of my life?

I guess I need to accept that I don’t have all the answers, and I never will this side of Heaven. I just wish I could live in the moment and not worry about these things so much.

My Life as a “Should’ve Been”

Everyone’s familiar with the term “has-been.” It’s a label we give one-hit wonders and washed-up celebs. But the thing about has-beens is that they have at least, well, been. There are so many more people out there who never will reach those heights at all, who had potential and squandered it somehow. I think those are the cases that fascinate me even more. Maybe that’s because I relate.

Are you holding a grudge? About?

I think my biggest grudge is against myself for not going all-in as a musician when I was younger. I feel like I could have actually taken my music somewhere had I started sooner, had I thrown my entire existence into it. It’s hard to accept that it may be too late. There are artists half my age who are making it in the business now. Thirty is grandma-age by industry standards.

It’s not entirely my fault that I didn’t devote myself fully to the dream. I think back to my struggles with mental health, which were debilitatingly severe in my teens and twenties, to the point where I could barely keep up in school and work. Much of the music industry, now and back then, happened on the internet, which I was scared of using for many years. And who could blame me? There are a lot of things to be afraid of on the world wide web.

I had a presence on YouTube, but I remember being nearly paralyzed every time I went to post a new song. I couldn’t help but fear what kind of reactions I would get. I remember some of the mean comments I’d receive about my appearance and worse, my musical abilities. Even in a sea of positive comments, it was the negative ones that haunted me and made me not want to share my music anymore. I had a lot of anxiety about putting myself out there, and I’m beating myself up for it to this day.

I feel like I could have been something greater. I could have been the next Taylor Swift, or even Christina Grimmie (RIP), had I actually kept an online presence back then. Now I feel it’s too late. In a post-TikTok world, I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to sharing my music. I feel like everything I do will be hilariously irrelevant now that I’m past the peak age for “making it.”

I wish I could go back and tell younger me not to be scared of internet assholes. People are gonna suck, and there’s nothing you can do about that except shine in spite of everything. I wish I hadn’t hidden myself away in the darkest corners because of my anxiety. I feel like a massive “should’ve been,” and it sucks to think about. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, and I need to accept that. But a tiny part of me still wonders what could have been had I just put myself out there more.

I guess I’ll never know.

The Downfall of Dreaming

I love, love, love making vision boards. Probably too much. I wasn’t allowed to tear up my mom’s magazines, and I didn’t want to ruin mine, so I never made collages as a kid. Now that I have a digital journal and all of the internet for inspiration, with a simple copy and paste, I can make all the collages I want out of anything I want. If I can dream it, I can slap it on my vision board. I’ve even talked about the merits of making a vision board in a past post.

I think my love for vision boards stems from my love of dreaming. As an ADHD-haver, daydreaming about the future comes naturally to me. But lately, my daydreams have become day-nightmares. All I can think about is how things are probably going to go wrong eventually, no matter how hard I try to avert disaster. These anxieties range from small in the grand scheme of things (like me not getting my internship) to really fucking enormous (like “The Handmaid’s Tale” coming true and me and all my queer friends get lynched).

It’s hard for me to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t a racing freight train. I want so badly to control the future, but I know it’s simply not possible. I just wish I could fast-forward and know that everything turns out the way I want it to. That I will have my successful music therapy career and happy life with my two soulmates and our child, and we will be safe from all the evils of the world.

Maybe the trick isn’t to stop dreaming altogether, but to dream a little more loosely. Instead of planning everything out meticulously, as I tend to do, maybe leave a little wiggle room for when things don’t go my way. I might not get the internship I want, but I can always apply for different ones. Perhaps I’ll have to move out of state temporarily, but I’m blessed with a wife who’s willing to travel with me and the means to do so. And even if the very worst does happen—

—well, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I guess I have to come to terms with the fact that when it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. It’s a reality everyone has to face at some point. I don’t want to live all my life afraid what comes next, but I don’t think I’ll ever be free of the nagging fear of death until it finally comes to take me.

But as much as I want to quit ruminating on the future, I don’t ever want to quit dreaming. Because when you quit dreaming, that’s when you really start dying. I always want to strive for something more, even when I’m at a place of contentment. I never want to settle. There’s always a new mountain to climb or a new sea to sail, and I think that’s what makes the future exciting.

Dear Cadence, Part Nine: The Path to Your Dreams is Not Always Linear

This is the latest installment in my memoir project, written as a series of letters to my future daughter. Here are the previous entries: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, and Part Eight

I found out what music therapy was from one of my grandma’s nurses when she was dying. She found out I played music and encouraged me to bring in my guitar to play for my grandma and the other old folks at the nursing home. She told me there were people who get paid to do this kind of thing, and that they actually go to school to study the ways music can be used to help people.

I wasn’t sold entirely. My long term plan was to attend Eastern as a pre-med student and eventually go to the more prestigious (and expensive) University of Michigan for medical school. I’d minor in music, but it wouldn’t be my main thing. I wanted to be a cardiologist or a pediatrician or even a neurosurgeon, something that could legitimately help people, instead of wasting my time selfishly playing music for my own ego (this was before the “Jacob”’arc).

I’d already signed up for all of my freshman year bio classes when my parents overheard me singing and playing in my room.

“Remember what that nurse said about music therapy?” they said, implying that they wanted to become the first parents in human history to encourage their child to go to music school instead of becoming a doctor.

So I went back up to the university right away and auditioned for the music therapy program. I already knew my way around a guitar and I could sing circles around most of the other freshmen trying out, so I was a shoo-in.

Despite being less than a half hour from my hometown, life at the university seemed a world away from life in high school. Not only was I living in an artsy fartsy college town, it was also the point in time when the “quirky weird girl” trope was at its most popular. The days when no one wanted to associate with me seemed like another life. Everyone wanted a piece of the guitar-slingin’ manic pixie dream girl, and I was happy to oblige. I started playing house shows and cafe gigs, and I made a name for myself as the Taylor Swift of Ypsilanti, Michigan.

But the cracks began to show as I struggled to stay awake and focused during my classes, to the point where I’d gotten referred to the university counselors by my professors. To top it off, the anxieties that had plagued me my entire life were coming to a head, to a near debilitating degree, and I had no choice but to consult with a psychiatrist at a local clinic for young adults. It was there that I was prescribed Prozac, which I do credit with saving my life, but it wasn’t nearly enough to save my academic attempts. Music therapy school was brutal, and I found myself fighting hard just to stay on top of my coursework.

I’d signed up for the school newspaper on a whim, and that seemed to be working well for me, at least. I was a naturally skilled writer. I didn’t even have to try to crank out article after article for the paper — I would sit down at my laptop and the words would just flow through my fingertips. I even got awarded the title of editor for the arts and culture section of the paper less than a year into me working there (we’ll revisit that in the next chapter). I did some research on the journalism major and it seemed significantly easier than music therapy, which was becoming increasingly difficult to even find the motivation to study for. As my mental health declined, I wondered how I’d ever be a therapist when I couldn’t even help myself. At least newspaper editors didn’t have to help other people figure their shit out. I could just do my thing and pretend I was okay.

So I made the decision to switch my major to journalism and forego music therapy altogether.

Still, even after I graduated, it felt like something was missing from my life. I tried finding writing jobs but nothing ever stuck. This was around the time I was still reeling from the breakup of my first real band (which we’ll get to) and the crumbling of my first marriage (which we’ll also get to). Nothing was working out, and I needed to regroup and figure something else out. That’s when Coco happened.

Coco was a Disney movie about a little Mexican boy who plays guitar against his family’s wishes. I won’t spoil it, although I’m certain I’ve played it for you at some point in your childhood. (What kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t make you watch all my favorite Disney movies?) But the climax of the movie, where music helps the protagonist’s grandmother momentarily regain her precious memories, made me realize I’d made the wrong decision when I switched majors. I was meant to — destined to — use music to heal people. No, I wasn’t too messed up to be a music therapist. That was a damn lie I told myself and believed to the point it became the truth. I drove straight up to that university myself and told the professors I’d be joining them once again that fall.

And…I failed once more. This time, it wasn’t my choice. I had a strong start. That school year began with me trying my very best. I was doing everything in my power to succeed this time, taking notes and staying alert and keeping organized. Then, something happened at that year’s music therapy conference that derailed all my plans.

I was raped.

The assailant was a total stranger, and I should have known better than to trust him when I met him at the rooftop bar at my hotel. But I was lonely, and it was my first time traveling alone, no friends, no parents, no husband. And he was charming. He said he loved how I was using music to help people.

All before everything went dark, in the absolute worst way possible.

After the incident, my mental health took a nosedive. I couldn’t concentrate for shit. I started drinking myself sick every night. I was making rash decisions and doing everything I could to drown out the ever-present feeling of disgust. I eventually snapped and found myself crying in the office of one of my professors. I couldn’t do this anymore.

And so I dropped out of the music therapy program for a second time.

This is a depressing chapter, right? I promise it has a happy ending.

Another few years passed and I found myself drifting aimlessly once again. I was in a slightly better place — I was married to someone I actually wanted to be married to, and my mental health was finally on the up-and-up. I even got a proper ADHD diagnosis, which explained some of the inattentiveness that made my previous attempts at the degree more difficult. But I didn’t have a job I actually liked. I knew I was meant for more than wiping people’s butts or slinging prescription pills. (Legally. As a pharmacy technician. Your mother was never a drug dealer.)

So, tail tucked between my legs, I whimpered pathetically at the professors one last time, begging for one last shot at that music therapy degree.

And this time, it worked! While finishing those last two years of schooling, I managed to earn a prestigious scholarship and even presented on autism for the university’s undergraduate research symposium. In 2023, I completed the coursework necessary to become a music therapist. As of writing, I’m waiting to hear back from my internship site. After completing the internship, I have to take a test, and then I’ll be certified. In other words, I still have a long road ahead of me, but the worst is over.

Sometimes I wonder where I’d be if I’d just stayed the course and finished my music therapy degree years ago. The truth is, I probably would have crashed and burned. I needed to learn to take care of myself first; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been focused and motivated enough to earn that scholarship or present in that symposium. I would have gotten meh grades and probably would have landed a meh job I would have given up on as soon as things got hard. But my place in music therapy is now fire-forged. I’ve been through the worst, and now I’m better equipped and prepared to face whatever comes next. The twelve years it took me to get this far weren’t a waste of time. Rather, it was time spent figuring out for sure that this is where I belong. I don’t think I would have made it this far had I not taken all the time I needed to reevaluate my core values and recover from, well, everything.

Often, the path to your dreams isn’t linear. It’s a road with many forks, pitfalls, and distractions. If you ever lose your way, though, just remember this chapter. When you discover what it is you’re meant to be in this world, it will chase you down, and no amount of obstacles will keep you from what it is you need to do. You are stronger than everything that will ever try to hold you back. You’re a force of nature unlike anything anyone’s ever seen, and I’m so excited to see where life takes you.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Last night was my interview for my dream internship. So much is riding on me getting this position. If I get this internship, I’ll get to graduate by next December, meaning we’ll get to move to Kalamazoo so I can start grad school and perhaps most excitingly, start our family. Should I fail to get this position, I’ll have to either wait another year or move (potentially out of state) for a different internship. Which is a lot to take in.

I just wish I knew one way or another. Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.

I talked in a recent post about how I wish I could fast-forward my life story and know for sure that everything works out the way I planned. I’ve been reading books on things like the law of attraction and how you can manifest the life you want just by imagining it really hard. I hope that’s true, but at the same time, I hope it isn’t, because I’m secretly afraid the second I lose faith, everything will come crashing. If my hopes can manifest good things, surely my anxieties will manifest bad things in turn. That’s how it works, right?

And all I can think about is, if I’m this much of a wreck waiting for news on whether or not I got an internship, imagine how much more of a wreck I’ll be waiting for news of whether or not I have some terminal illness or something.

Is there such a thing as being terminally anxious?

I don’t have a lot of family baggage, but there is one generational curse that’s plagued the women in my family for time immemorial, and that’s anxiety. My grandma was so anxious she rarely ever left the house and consequently never learned to drive. My mom’s better, but not by much. I see how anxious she is and it breaks my heart. She’s scared of heights, bridges, highways, serial killers — she once told me not to date a guy because he looked vaguely like a local murderer who was on the run (it wasn’t him, for what it’s worth). And as much as I’d like to consider myself fearless, I do have things that scare me. One of them is death, and the other is not being able to do everything I want to do before death. So really, I only have one fear, but it’s a whopper.

This internship and the anxiety I’m feeling over it is a microcosm I’m of my bigger fear — that I won’t get to accomplish everything I’ve set out to do. I’m scared if I don’t get this internship, I’ll have to wait another year for it to happen again, and what if I don’t get it then and have to wait another year? What if I can’t have kids by then? What if I’m like, 50 by the time I graduate from grad school? I’ll already be halfway dead, right?

I don’t have an easy antidote for anxiety, and if I did, trust me, I’d sell that shit in a heartbeat and make millions. I guess there’s always Xanax, but you need a prescription for that and that’s too much work. I think the thing that’s helping me is one single affirmation — “What if it all goes right?” We’re so used to telling ourselves it’ll all go wrong, just changing your inner dialogue to something more positive helps alleviate the stress. Will it make the thing you want to happen, happen? Maybe, if you believe in the law of attraction. But it’ll make things easier in the meantime.

I’m holding onto the hope that this internship will come through and I won’t have to uproot my entire life to finish my degree. But if it comes down to it, I know things will work out in the end. God has always provided a way for me in the past, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There’s always a way forward, even when the waiting is daunting. You just gotta trust that the universe will catch you as you’re free falling.

Every Hello Ends in Goodbye (Or, My Newly Realized Abandonment Issues)

It’s probably not the best idea to start my week with therapy, because I’ll inevitably be walking back into work with my eye makeup looking like Avril Lavigne circa 2004.

“Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?” -me to my therapist, probably

Today’s session left me a big teary mess once again, but now I think I realize why I’ve been a big sad lately.

I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that all things eventually end. Places you loved get torn down, your pets will all die, and even if something manages to stick around long after you’re dead, like a really cool sturdy rock or something, there’s still the inevitable heat death of the universe to look forward to.

But love lasts forever, right?

I’ve been through a lot of close friends, and the one thing they all had in common is that they invariably went their separate way from me. Crass is the only best friend I’ve ever had who stuck around, and I’m still paranoid she’s going to get tired of me someday and leave me. Even though we’re legally married. You know the whole “til death do us part” thing? What if she dies first? What if there’s no afterlife and all of this was for naught? What if there is an afterlife and her spirit like, divorces me? What if I get ghosted by a literal ghost?

Family lasts forever though, right? Except the only members of my family I even talk to are my parents, and I’m acutely aware of the fact that they are likely going to die before me, leaving me with exactly no blood relatives I’m actually on regular speaking terms with. There’s always my brother, but he’s been weirdly squirrelly since he got all up Trump’s butt, and he stopped talking to me altogether after I dared to not be straight. “But what about chosen family?!” Ah, yes. That brings me back to the whole “friends eventually inevitably leave me” thing.

Maybe I do have abandonment issues.

I was today years old when I realized that this was a likely problem for me. Before today, I thought abandonment issues were for people who got left on a stranger’s stoop by their parents as a baby. It’s not like I have daddy issues — my dad and I are actually really close. Maybe that is a problem, since I know deep down he’s gonna die someday and I’ll be a wreck without him.

The logical side of me, the part I’ve beaten to death with a hammer and still comes popping back up like an asshole zombie, says that if I never let anyone get close to me, I’ll never have to worry about losing anyone. That’s such a sad way to live, though. The beauty of life is in the connections we make, and by shutting other people out to protect ourselves, we’ll never know how fulfilling it is to love someone else. Maybe that’s the feely side of me talking, though.

Facebook is an absolute hellscape, but I found something vaguely encouraging amidst the general dumbassery. I’ll share it here in its entirety.

Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect every relationship in my life to remain unchanged until the day me and all my loved ones die simultaneously in our sleep of old age. The world is in a constant state of flux, and things will change and evolve over time. Perhaps it should be enough to enjoy what we have in the moment and savor every second we get to spend with the people we care about. That way, when “goodbye” inevitably comes, there are no regrets. “Show love with no remorse,” as the Red Hot Chili Peppers said in their song “Dosed.” That’s the mantra that guides my entire life, and yes, I get my most treasured wisdom from four men whose most iconic outfit is one singular sock.