Music again

I've been thinking about music again. I've been wondering why I can listen to Tori Amos and literally, i'm not exaggerating, nothing else and I don't get sick of it. Instead I keep hungering for it over and over and over again. I believe this is because something in her music resonates in me. There is a gaping hole in all teenagers and her music resonates within it. Like when you are humming in the shower and you hit a certain note that makes the whole shower buzz. It's almost like the shape of the hole changes throughout teenagehood and when you hit a certain age, around 16, (Me, Laura, Wendy) or if you have the maturity level of this age (Brian), for some reason or another Tori amos fits with your pain, your hole in your chest, and while you're listening to it you feel like you're full, like you're actually whole again.

I'm sure that it's pretty rare to find an artist or genre of music that resonates so perfectly, but once you find it, listening to any other music is a flat experience. You almost don't hear it, because it bounces off you. There was a time when Incubus filled in the whole in my chest that was shaped like anxiety. Then after that bands like deftones and tool filled in the hole that had shifted into a cold, dead, passive, apathetic sphere. I tried listened to Incubus the other day. It was as flat as the mormon music I described in my last post. And that's when I thought something that had never occurred to me before in my obtusity: There probably comes a time in your life, when your brain is freed from the bonds of it's previous teenage stupidity, when the gaping hole shrinks, and changes its shape so that church music is exactly what you need, and why should I force those adults around me to listen to something that fills me up but not them. That's why parents hear our music as loud, irritating, noise. Because that is literally what they hear. Just like Incubus sounded like irritating noise to me.

When does the hole open up? As soon as you start feeling pain, I'm talkin emotional pain, it starts to eat its way from the inside out. Some get in while they're still children. Most get it when they hit teenagehood. There's probably the few exceptions who never get rejected, who never feel lonely, who never want someone out of their reach, who never fight with anyone, and always have a good relationship with God. Those people might go through life and never feel the emptiness. I'm hoping that eventually as time goes on mine will close in on itself and leave nothing but a scar.

All of this is metaphorical of course, but sometimes it feels strangely literal. When I have to dance with Steve Gashler and watch a boy that I'm in love with flirt relentlessly right in front of my face with another girl, knowing that it could have been me he was touching if i hadn't been such an idiot, it takes all that I have not to grab my chest in agony right in the middle of class. And when I'm at home thinking about it I actually do it. I moan and hold my chest because it hurts so bad. I do wonder if other people feel feelings as strong as me sometimes. Does it hurt so bad for other people? Probably not. I'm a Lowe.
The strange thing is, is that though all this, I don't wish it would go away, because i'm finally feeling SOMETHING. I finally know something, someone that I want, instead of being passive and cold. And I think I've been passive and cold for a while. The pain almost feels good. It's like sweet pain. I must be really sick or something. But sometimes the hole gets too large and it's not sweet anymore, and I really need people, a lot of people, and I need to be close to them. My best friend has always needed me but I didn't need anyone so I didn't understand it, and now i'm as needy as anyone. I've never had to lean on anyone till now and I'm grateful this is happening to me because I have compassion now, and I desperately need it, being by nature the least compassionate little ENTJ you will ever know.
I'm so thankful that I have such a huge tightknit family because I think I'll need all of them to keep me afloat before I can built a boat for myself.

I know what I have to do.

Music gives the illusion that you're full.
Relationships allow you to use other people's fullness to fill in yourself, and so you are emotionally draining on other people.
Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace?

This is what Christ came for. God is infinite and can fill us all up. This is why I have to believe. This is why I have to gain a relationship with him. It's the only way out.