Music in All Good Things

I can’t concentrate. I was in such a good headspace for the first month of the lockdown, really relaxed and kind of happy, writing a lot and doing all kinds of things at home. But now my brain feels like it’s stuffed with cottonwool and it’s hard to focus on anything.

I think I’m panicking. It’s like one really long, drawn-out, never-ending panic attack, happening at a low level but happening constantly.

I just want to sleep, mostly.

Our country keeps talking about the end of the lockdown. I can’t imagine what life’s going to be like. Everyone’s arguing about the lockdown. About how many deaths are worth the economy. I get really frustrated because they keep asking the wrong questions. The world was fucked before this. All the wrong priorities. We need everything to change, but it won’t. The same rich, white, greedy men will keep their power over everybody else and keep 95% of the world’s wealth for themselves and bail out each other and it will just get worse for everyone else. And it was already bad. There’s so much I want to change in the world but what can I do? I have no power.

I look forward to the day the earth wipes everyone out. It’s the only way.

And that’s so depressing.

I’m getting a piano. I used to play. I taught myself around five or six, and took lessons throughout school. But when I started my current career, it wasn’t wonderfully compatible with playing and now I haven’t played for years. I gave my old piano to a friend of mine a few years ago when she said she wanted to learn how to play.

I went walking on the cliffs last night and realised how much I miss making music. The piano was always my safe space in high school. No matter how badly everything else was spinning out of control, the piano was always there. The music was always there for me to lose myself in and forget everything else.

To be honest, I stopped playing after Jordan’s death. He used to love listening to me play. I was self-conscious about anyone else hearing me, but I loved playing for him. Every time I played in the weeks after his death I just ended up crying, and eventually months would go by without me playing. It’s been eighteen years now, or will be at the end of this month. I think it’s time for me to play again.