Cannonball

I am listening to Pandora, and Damien Rice's "Cannonball" just came on. This is one of those songs that instantly transports me back in time, fills me with emotion, and reminds me of the life I have lived. For some reason I felt compelled to write...maybe because I have had a bad day, maybe because I am too sick and tired to do anything else, maybe because I am alone and wish I was not.

This song reminds me of a very painful time...but also a time that helped define who I am today. It was almost exactly nine years ago. I was romantically involved with three different relationships at the time - that sounds completely promiscuous- but really it was not...it was just the way things unfolded that fall.  Those three men each left a dent in me...one of them often appears in my dreams still to this day, despite the fact that I have not seen him in eight years.  I have no idea why.

Storms taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

It is amazing how powerfully those words relate to my life.  And also amazing how far I have come in my ability to live and love, despite how often I have fallen down.  Since moving to Utah, I often feel like Alice, lost in a wonderland, because I am living in this land where I am actually happy, I actually feel peaceful and calm, and where the world does not seem to be falling down around me anymore.  But this kind of world is so unfamiliar and strange to me that I feel slightly out of place and not quite sure whether it is all real or just make-believe.  I often wonder when I will have to make the trip back up the rabbit-hole and go back to where I came from.  This song reminds me of that place - the place I came from.

I actually miss that place every now and then.  Maybe that's a side effect of living with depression, or maybe it's just normal.  I miss Prescott.  I miss crying over Oreos and milk with Nathan.  I miss the feeling of first love, first kisses, dark secrets.  Most of my past is painful...so why do I actually miss some of it?  Because it made me who I am.  Even if bad choices were made, people were hurt, tears were shed, scars were inflicted, and words were said that can never be taken back...it all somehow got me here.  Those experiences are what make me love so fiercely and make me so intensely grateful for what I have.  I have been given experiences, people, and moments that I do not even feel worthy of.  When I think back at how far I have come, and what I have lived through in the process, I stand in awe of the ways God has allowed me to grow and become more of the woman I want to be.

Am I still the girl I was back then, when I used to listen to this song on repeat in my bedroom while writing page after page in my journal about love, pain, depression, sex, and mourning?  Perhaps.  There are still parts of her inside me that I think will always remain, and that comforts me.  I need her every now and then, to remind me of my mistakes, my fearlessness, my passion.  But I am also comforted by the fact that I have finally, finally found a way to move past that life and embrace peace in a way I never thought possible.  I may float like a cannonball, but luckily I somehow landed in a better place.