The Song of Myself

Finding Authenticity With Music

Originally Published on Medium.com on March 17, 2020

Photo cred: Jacek Dylag, via Unsplashed.com

Who are You?

I remember confidently scanning the faces of my classmates and knowing that I’d delivered yet another excellent performance. The year was 2005, I was in eleventh grade, and theater was my lifeblood. If I sound a bit proud, it’s because I was — at least, I was about theater. It seems I’d found, in the midst of all the chaos that comes with adolescence and high school social politics, a niche where I belonged. Not only that, a place where I excelled. For me, theater was effortless and natural, an extension to the make-believe games and showcases I’d staged as a young, only child in my room to pass the time. Except now, instead of dolls and plushies leading the showcases, it was me before the curtain. Instead of my parents serving as my only audience, I had school auditoriums full of parents and teachers championing me onward. They said I had talent, and you know what? I did! I really did back then…I could memorize an entire monologue in the span of a class period (usually the one right before it was due), and I was good with flares, projection, and “hamming it up.” It was easy to be a showman; I loved to entertain and thus the thespians welcomed my oddball, eccentric energy into their circles with open, spirit-finger fringed arms. I was Drama club vice president aside Nick Flato (who’d been in commercials, so he was practically a celebrity), was a Freddy Award Nominee (our district’s version of the Tony), and voted most likely to make it in showbiz.

Imagine, then, my despair when our instructor, Mr.Perrett, furrowed his brow.

“Who are you?”

“Excuse me?” I stammered, feeling a familiar pit forming in the well of my sternum.

“Who are you?” He repeated behind folded hands.

“I-I’m what I am, I don’t understand what — “

“Listen, you’re great at acting, but you’re a terrible actor. You can’t truly become someone else if you don’t know who you are to begin with, and you have absolutely no idea who you are!”

I remember the fuzzy feeling of detachment that came with the notion. Self-alienation felt like thrashing through a claustrophobic fog. What did he mean? Of course I knew who I was! I was me! How could I be anything else than what I was? I remember sitting with Flato and Leo after class, trying to get perspective.

“I know what he means,” Nick offered helpfully.

“Yeah, you’re always on ‘perform’ mode,” Leo added.

“But, that’s what I am. Just because I’m performing doesn’t mean I’m not being me,” I argued. Back then, it made sense. I was a performer. At the time, it was one of the identities I’d defined myself by.

“Yeah, but that’s not you!” …Wasn’t it?

---

It is a design flaw of memory to exist in a space that shape-shifts with the passage of time. As such, I can’t recall exactly which of these three figures imparted the following to me, but it was undoubtedly on this day that I received six words that would forever shape the lens of my introspection for years to come.

“Adelina,” they’d said, “Who are you when you’re alone?”

Submersion…

Back in those days, I’d surrounded myself with a sea of people to escape. I started three after-school clubs to stave off what waited for me when I got home. My mother’s mental health was in rapid decline, and she was becoming more volatile, harsh and unstable. Since my eleventh birthday, my life at home was largely one of seclusion, abuse, and time spent alone in my room. I’d read, I’d write, I’d draw. I’d watch my mother battle her demons and I’d listen. I observed much.

Meanwhile, the internet was quietly seeping its way into people’s houses for leisurely use and I’d found solace in writing rambles or fan-fictions and in Role-play based mIRC chat rooms, when allowed. There, I was the brash and bold bounty hunter, Tally, or I was the solemn, wise and reverent priestess, Lesara. Sometimes, I was the ancient, skeptical and cunning vampire, Lamia. ChibiAngie077 had “chat room charm” and was a hit with the boys online. I was cool.

In school, I was a hyperactive ball of energy whose wardrobe decisions were questionable and included way too many animal ears and gowns. I was a girl who loved manga and this new thing called “anime.” Nowadays, I’d definitely be coined a “weeaboo.” I wrote funny stories to read out loud in class; I performed. School Addy was a hopeless romantic who was too fugly, awkward and dorky to attract any of the boys she liked (T.J. Keefe once called her “obnoxious” and trapped her in a locker. Yep, that actually happens). She kept the picture of a boy she’d liked for the past four years in a heart-shaped frame under her pillow. His name was David. He looked like a character from one of her favorite games and he was kind to her. Addy said no to drugs, was in A-Track and honors courses, was as obedient as she could be, loved her god, and adored her father, who was also very kind to her, but always away at work.

But at home? I sat on my futon in silence and stared at the wall of drawings in front of me listening to the static hum of silence in my ears.

---

“Who are you when you’re alone?”

---

A quiet girl who was made to stay in her room a lot. Who wasn’t allowed to open windows, but would peak through the blinds. A girl who would fill notebooks with songs, poems and essays examining philosophical observations about society. Whose journal was her dearest friend. You see, Adelina, the real one, had died according to her mother — only, metaphorically. There was a “demonio” in her place now fighting for control, so the punishments were harsh and frequent. I was a girl left alone to watch her mother deteriorate and watch her father struggle with PTSD that manifested itself in fear and evasion. I was criticized and praised, lifted up and torn apart, broken and rebuilt over and over again. I was a girl who felt a light in her soul and whispered to storms, who felt something akin with the wind. A girl who thought a lot about a lot of things, who’d speak into empty rooms just to hear a comforting voice. A girl who wanted…

I returned to class and performed my piece. Mr. Perett nodded with approval.

“I think I get it now.”

A gasp of air Another wave

A Song of Myself

It’s 2008 now, a thousand failures later, and I’m in the arms of one of the seniors from Phi Theta Kappa, a philosophy major named Scott. My face is puffed up and scarred from an accident, but he’s tracing around the scab on my forehead with a delicate finger.

“It’s a shame,” he says, “You’re like a hermit crab who’s collected all these bits of people around you that you’ve liked and stuck them to your shell. You’ve become a menagerie of so many bits of them that you’ve lost sight of what your own shell looks like. Somewhere along the line, somebody made you feel like you weren’t good enough, and that’s so sad.”

The face breaks through the wave, The swell subsides The figure floats adrift

Then suddenly, in that moment, it all made sense. The myriad moments of dejection played before my eyes. I watched myself patch together pieces of the people I loved to create a tapestry that was sure to please. I had built a character out of the things I wished I could be by pantomiming the behaviors and styles of those who held them, rather than finding the elements of those characteristics in myself and cultivating them.

If it sounds confusing, allow me to use the following example: pretend that we are all musicians walking around with our instruments, right? Say, for instance, mine was a guitar. Along my path, I’d meet a saxophone player wailing out a sweet tune, a real toe-tapper. So, I’d sling a sax on my back and try to play that tune. I did this with many instruments until I couldn’t even find my guitar beneath my one-woman band assembly! Thus, the first step was to identify the instrument bits that weren’t mine and remove them.

Using Scott’s words as a guide, I reflected on times I was made to feel insufficient and identified moments where I’d tried to compensate by taking on the traits of those around me. Looking back, I was able to see the places where those seeds of doubt had been planted, and where I’d adapted these superfluous features. Once again, I revisited the question of who I was when I was alone. Who was I without the expectation of those around me? Who was I when there was no one to entertain or please? What did I do? What did I love? What did I think about?

Ah. There’s my guitar.

Once I did finally find my instrument, at first I would change my tuning to match and play the songs of others. This was still incomplete, as it is inauthentic to the self. What I needed to do, you see, was to fine tune my own instrument to play the songs of me and harmonize with the songs of those around me. Not play the same notes, not play the same instruments, but learn my own, find the song of my soul, and become apart of the symphony of life.

To tune my guitar, I examined her. I examined every scratch on the neck, every delicate curve, the sturdiness of her wood, the material of her strings. I listened and played with different ways to strike my chords until I had embraced her being, realized I was a finger-picker that wasn’t so good at using a pick (which is fine). I examined my instrument the way I examined others. I found out what I was built from. My materials. My sound.

Modern psychology teaches us that we are beings shaped by both nature and nurture, so in my case, I sat and read those aforementioned journals I had kept and listened to the story of myself. I still practice this from time to time, in fact. I will take a day and go back and re-read my history and examine it through the lens of now, applying the knowledge and experiences I have gleaned and analyzing how I’ve come to be where I am, why I may behave in certain ways or why I did at the time. I look at what I believe, what I care about, how I cope and cognitively interpret the world around me. Every time I practice this, I walk away with a different piece of the puzzle. Every time, I tune in a little more. This is a ritual meant for orientation of the self and it’s served me well throughout the years. I highly recommend it.

Next, I thought about what I’d loved so much about the other peoples songs I’d tried to take. Were they playing a tune called “Confidence?” What, then, would confidence sound like to me if I were to play it with my strings? I searched for the things I did that filled me with confidence and cultivated them. What did I love about myself? What could improve? Once I learned to listen to my instrument, I could recognize when she needed tending. I could notice if a string was coming loose and could tend to it properly. Then I would practice and play my songs until it all became what the taoist philosophers call wei wu wei, or “effortless action/the action of inaction.” When what was once effortful becomes effortless.

It wasn’t a perfect process. Growth, it seems, is messy at times. I’d hit sour notes, I’d forget a song I’d learned, a string would break. Nevertheless, I continued to play. I played until I loved her, I played until I accepted her. And you know what? Turns out she’s a pretty sweet axe and I’ve got a lot of pretty sweet songs. They are beautiful because they are mine.

And I am beautiful. And I am enough.

The sun warmed her face The waves lapped at her feet She felt sand beneath her palm

It wasn’t until I was able to see myself that I could nurture myself to the point of self love and acceptance. It wasn’t until I faced the emotions and experiences that shaped me objectively and took time to understand myself with patience and an open heart that I was able to fall in love with who I was. Like a gardener, I worked with myself to cultivate and nurture facets of my being that I wanted to sprout and pruned the bits that needed it until I looked at the garden that was me and delighted in it.

I’m forever grateful for the experiences that brought me to my songs, to my guitar, to my Me. I encourage you, too, to search for yours, fellow truebadours (get it?). Then, come sit by the waters and sing a song with me.

I look forward to jamming with you.