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elbluehiphop-blog · 7 years

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October 7th

Today is October the 8th.

My father passed away October 7th 2002 when I was Five years old and yesterday was the 15th anniversary of his death. I can’t help but have him on my mind this year for some reason. Usually the day comes, and some years I’ll remember, while other years I’ll completely forget until it’s Halloween and I’m out doing whatever to celebrate, then the thought pops into my head. But this year was different, I looked down at my phone as I woke up and when I saw the date it immediately registered. “Oh, it’s the day my dad died,” I thought, almost too casually for my own comfort. But then I also came to the realization that not only was it the anniversary of his death but it was the FIFTEENTH anniversary. Wow...

15 out of my 20 years on this Earth have been spent fatherless. It’s to the point where I sometimes even forget other people have one and I don’t. I almost have no conceptualization for what a father is other than the Eutopian idealization that I carry with me about how I would be when/if I become a father myself. I often wonder if it’s even realistic to believe I could be a decent father, let alone a great one. And I want to be great.

However, the strangest part of the 15th anniversary is the day before it came: October 6th. This was the day I found the saddest, most heartbreaking song I’ve ever heard. “Apple Blossom” by Esperanza Spalding. At first when I heard it I felt bliss, the way the composition seemed to speak WITH the lyrics, rather than merely accompany them was a feat that I realized I someday wanted to accomplish with my own music. I was inspired, profoundly, and for the next few hours I looped it as I studied. Each time I listened through I was trying to relive and feel the emotions I had experienced the previous listen. But I never quite did. The experience was different each time, evolving slowly from a song that brought me hope and essentially made my heart go “Awwww, what a sweet song” to falling into a beautiful (because of how the composition was constructed) nightmare I’ve dreamed many times before, and one I prayed I never lived.

My biggest fear in life has been finding the girl I absolutely am in love with, I’m talking no doubt in my mind, always intoxicating, gorgeous love, and losing her to the cold and unrelenting hand of death.

This is precisely what this song is about. This is precisely what my mother experienced with my father. 15 years ago.

“With memories of when her boughs were arms that held him as a younger man together they would marvel at the birth of the springtime”

“But now [s]he stands beneath the apple blossom every year where they used to go walkin’ -- and he tells her about the summer, and the autumn, the winter in his heart, and their apple blossoms”

“As [s]he opened the earth to receive [him] [s]he prayed heaven would be waiting to meet [him] [s]he kisses [his] cold cheek goodbye But [s]he couldn’t surrender the hopes they had sired So in [his] folded hands [s]he placed a seed From their favorite tree And [s]he laid [him] to rest ’neath a blanket of white Until they meet again in the springtime”

I listened to this song as I studied and continued as I left the library and walked to my car, and as I drove home. I listened to the song until I got home and fell asleep. Depressed.

The feeling was nothing new to me. For as far back as I can remember in my recent past I’ve been living in my own blue period. Living from it, experiencing through it, and creating out of it. The blue is a product of my failure to find fulfillment. I’m not entirely sure where the emptiness stems from, but I do have some ideas. Perhaps it comes from my ambitions and my tendency to be over ambitious; and if such a thing exists it surely would exist with me. Through my ambitions, I work myself until I’m depleted, and then some more. Maybe I’m just tired.

But I’m positive that’s not the only thing contributing.

I’m alone. I have been forever, honestly. But I’ve never felt lonely until now.

My last relationship was my only (real) relationship. The only time I was with someone who loved me and I felt I loved. But that love was not the love I wanted. I wanted the love I never had. And the love she gave me felt familiar. It felt matronly, to a fault. Over time, my body and soul understood and started to reject it by killing my animate agency, something she called passion. Something she said I lost. I did. It was because I knew what I needed and I was sure (whether or not I was right, and sometimes I still wonder) I wouldn’t find it with her. However, as she left to Mexico for the summer, she was terrified because she probably thought it was over for sure. She could probably sense my disconnection and figured the relationship had no chance of surviving until she came back. And that is probably why she did what she did down there. But that doesn’t explain why she never told me, even when she dumped me and made me feel like I was broken and could never be fixed (although, admittedly, I probably helped manifest the sentiments). Still, it was over.

It was over and for the next three days I was in hell, but miraculously on the third day I was resurrected. Sure, I still had some shitty feelings or whatever, but for the most part I was back to being functional and decently happy.

The next few months featured my best acting job. I seemingly managed to suppress my emotions and kill the part of me that held any sort of sensitivity to the world.

In the midst of this weird period of being a robot, the actual love of my life, a woman I hadn’t spoken to in months called me, and she rejuvenated me, just like she always seemed to do. She lit up my life with her voice, it was that simple. We spoke throughout the rest of the day, but she revealed too much and I didn’t hear from her again for another couple of months. That was the longest period of time in my entire life.

During that period of time I met someone else who proved to be very special to me and more important than I had imagined to that point. The problem was that she was her best friend, even though their friendship seemed to be deteriorating at the time. She reminded me too much of her and eventually I sobered up and realized the relationship I built up with this girl was a mistake. I was gone.

The thing is, this girl made me despise and resent the love of my life. Whether it was through manipulation or through actual good intentions I’m still not sure. But the haze was not worth it to me, so I decided to pull my head from the clouds.

I just realized that was last October. Funny...

Anyway, the longest period of my life came to an end and the love of my life came back into my life and she did as she always did: rejuvenated me. She’s wonderful.

Things went back to normal.

We would always talk about the days when we were both in the same city, before she went up the coast to where she belongs, back when we were in high school and we used to sneak around just to see and talk to each other whenever we had the chance. When we used to go walkin’.

I still love her and I’m pretty sure I always will regardless of the time that passes, of the distance between us, of the psychological barriers placed in the way. I’ll love her.

However, all those factors will make sure we never get together.

Yes, I have been trying to move on, and yes I’m actually being fairly successful at it. I’ve definitely never made this much progress before and that’s encouraging I guess, I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

Moving on.

I’m at school everyday feeding my ambitions, grinding in the desperate hope that someday all of my hard work will pay off and I will finally be well off, for me, and for my family. I’ve never been the type to be an especially dedicated student, but recently I’ve had the desire and the desire has been enough to keep me focused. So now I spend more time in the library, I spend more time reading, I spend more time doing my homework, I spend more time going the extra distance needed for me to have a chance at being successful. And believe me, I am going to be great. I refuse any other result.

And after I get home from school, I get right to work again. Musically. But I’m not going to talk about that too much, you know how hard I fucking work.

All that is to say is that no matter how much I’m working and what I’m working towards, it’s just not going to be enough, It’s not going to be what I wanted. It’ll all simply be a result of the method in which I chose to cope, but it won’t be the thing that fills the void. Though, I suppose it could be worse, I could let all this shit crush me, but that’s not who I am.

“It took me time to realize that I’m living life for love, but that shit is just a lie.”

I wrote that for “Until I’m gone” and the line is absolute bullshit. Love is not a lie. And even if it was, I would have no idea because I’ve never experienced it.

But If I have experienced or if I will someday find it if I haven’t already, then I pray that I don’t live out the nightmare that haunts me. I hope I never have to put that seed in her folded hand, from our own apple blossom, as I kiss her cold cheek goodbye.

Imagine finally finding fulfillment. Finding the love of your life. Finding LOVE, actual love. Not some half way, almost love, but the real fucking thing and having it ripped from your hopelessly weak grip by the grim reaper’s almighty grasp. Losing it all, to an unstoppable force. Something we simply can’t escape.

I know. I know we’ll all die someday. But I pray I never see her lifeless body that was once animated by the beautiful soul I fell in love with. I pray I never have to. But if she has the same fear as me, then I guess I’ll make sure I live long enough to make sure she never has to face it, knowing that I will have to. I’ll live it all out for her, because I love her. I love her now, even if I haven’t met her. I’ll love her forever. And when we meet for the first time I know the feeling will last until I meet her again, in the springtime.

That was on October 6th.

#Apple blossom

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