Hello, it’s Day 424 j/k…it’s just a day.  And I’m in shock right now because this 2nd album is getting so close to done, well WAS getting so close to done, when the computer I’ve been working on (not mine, Bryans) had some sort of malfunction…he’s asleep after a long day, and I don’t know what to do.  For about 3 days now, people have been encouraging me to push this 2nd album out and get it done, but my inner rhythms have said PAUSE.

I didn’t know WHY they said pause, so I listened to others…

3 days of it.  And finally the COMPUTER forced me to pause.

What is that? Am I ascribing meaning to something random and coincidental?  Or is there meaning in the universe, when we’re not listening to CLEAR intuition, things slow us down or halt us until we DO listen?

I don’t know.

I just know that I hadn’t thought about the possibility of malfunctioning technology when I agreed to release something every month.

Probably too much in shock to know if I lost anything (anything I hadn’t backed up yet…I think THANKFULLY I backed up a few days ago)…

But we don’t have another computer that can run ProTools right now…well we do but…

I’m feeling the weight of my limited funds, and way too big dreams…

He’s using an old computer (the one I record on) but just bought a new one, for his work with a recording studio…and I can’t hijack that one (he was going to let me use/borrow indefinitely this one that’s now not working)…

Sometimes life feels super silly…I’m not saving anyone, I’m not curing anything…I’m just a little peon making songs, and hosting house shows, and making people smile or cry with my way of being.  And it feels good to be needed in this little world, but maybe this 12 albums thing is overkill.  I don’t know…I KNOW without a doubt that it’s for me.  To prove that I can, to be transparent about my prolific ways, to get over saving my life like this is some dress rehearsal while YEARS tick by with nothing done…

So I dunno, I’m ready I’m willing, and I’m poor haha.  I mean, I guess there are worse problems.  By a million.

So in rethinking all this…maybe I’ll go back to an old idea…a sketchy album cover I made late one night, and a rough album with all the songs on it on their purest form…citing the hard drive crash and overwhelm while living in “friends month.”  Basically this album of 23 songs w/ friends in em, or about friends, has reminded me of all the love that surrounds me and I’m terribly overwhelmed because in thinking about these people, I also fanned the flames of connection with all of them, AND with other friends…and the whole thing reminded me why I only have a few close friends usually and am otherwise an introvert, hiding in the shadows.  Being out in the light draws people to you, and when people are drawn to you, you take on their joys AND their sorrows…and I think everyone must have a different threshold for how many joys and sorrows they can hold in their skin.  Me personally, I was loving this friend album so much, and working on it EVERY DAY and then I got sick with pink eye and strep and felt like the universe FORCED me to slow down…and coming back from that, had to curate a 12 band/musician house show, that more or less PULLED me back out from that…antibiotic brain barely being gone, mind barely coming to, heart getting unflooded, looking around, coming up for air, seeing this puzzle and puddle of friends and frenemies and comparison to everyone in the industry, seeing all the ways I do it wrong, am not like my “competition” and am seemingly not trying…who am I letting down, who thinks what I’m doing is crazy, or social/career sabotage, on and on…I think I so enjoy being in my skin, taking walks, having a silly weird crazy flighty bird-loving nature-loving brain, that I forget that how I appear is possibly not as enjoyable as the experience of being me.  I probably appear all over the place at times, happy then emotional, etc…I don’t know.  I think there’s a lesson in this very crazy May.

I wish I knew what it was.

Thank you all for reading, if this helps you, or ignoring this, if it makes you think less of me.

❤ Jessica

p.s. if you come to my house shows, all I do is smile and hug people – and in a way that feels closer to the ‘real me.’  this feels like complaining with the hope of catharsis, and then I go away from it feeling untransformed sometimes, like this time, and i think…well if only i could just smile at everyone and hug everyone and feel the warmth of connection when I’m feeling sad at a harddrive crash and sleeping boyfriend and possible project rerouting (i.e. no fun layers to this album, just the original files from 365?)…I don’t know.  help!

There are few things that will change you more than hugging one of your biggest heroes and getting to tell her she changed your life (or saved?), and having her be so so kind and tell you to keep going with your music.

This post doesn’t make much sense, maybe I’m leaving out too many details haha (like I was sobbing, and it was the wordless parts that changed me, didn’t know we’d get to meet her at the merch table or I’d have emotionally prepared myself lol), I’m still 2 hrs from home in a Burger King drive thru getting coffee, maybe I’ll write more when I get home, or maybe I should save this moment for myself, but yea I just sat 10 feet from yet another hero of mine this year (some I’ve seen, some I’ve opened for or performed on stage with), and in this case I saw how real and surreal she was, all at once.  Her joy and energy and kindness and genuine talent and insight (those lyrics!!!) is absolutely bigger than life. My boyfriend always tells me that famous people are just people, and that helps me so much too, to keep in mind, but ALSO they put their gifts in the world and in this case her gift TRULY changed me from the inside out.  When I first heard her, during the hours and hours of repeated listens, and now again tonight.

Thank you Nellie. Forever a fan! (And friend in my heart, thank you so much for the warmth and kindness and hugs! 🙂 ❤️⭐️💕😊

Jessica

So in my dreaming of things, I often get off balance…and then something or things bring me back to reality.

I wonder if that last post sent me to a strange place…almost wrote again the next day.

Like why complain when I did this to myself? 🙂

So here I am with pink eye and strep and day two of being off work, waiting til I’m non-contagious, and hopefully having a little more energy…my mind is a foggy sea and none of my plans feel very real right now.  Moved back more deadlines, trying to accomodate life.

This blog is very much for me, and anyone who has issues with BLOCKS in their creative life may get something from it.  I’ve had 3 new JiTR albums slated for 3 years, and haven’t prioritized them due to some MASSIVE fears…this 12 albums in 12 months process is a way of getting me over that, and sneaking those ones in here too, I hope.

I don’t know what makes some people so dang confident without all this “processing”. They seem to move from point A to B in their wants and thoughts to their execution.  That has never been me.  Self-help books, therapy, friends who get me, developing safe relationships and safe spaces to become has been crucial in my process…and I don’t know if I’d have ever released a single album as an adult without all that.

In fact I know I wouldn’t.  Dreamerism is strong in me, and in my blood 🙂

No offense to that, of course, just that the real world is gritty and it’s so easy to get wounded when we put ourselves out there.  Not to mention real wounds from my past, not sure ever how much to share about that…but let’s just say that healing from trauma, reframing experiences, and helping others do the same feels like my life’s work and purpose.  Tho really, had I gotten to have a trauma-free life, then I think my purpose would have been sharing joy.  So the hybrid of the two feels the most true.

I think if I’m really honest with myself, this month’s challenge is the hardest one of my adult life, and I’m trying to act like it’s fun and no big deal.

I have armor all around me, boundaries maybe, as a way to protect myself from further trauma.

And I hide it through friendliness, so most people don’t see this truth about me until they get to know me, if I even let them in.

This month I’ve compiled all the collaborations, and am doing more of them, not too many (my dreams said to do a million, or 20+, make everyone I know and appreciate feel loved and included…but the practicality of that, and it’s accompanying stress, is probably how I got so run down and then sick…), anyway…even with the downsized collaborations, I feel like I’m taking in the energy of others – massive amounts of others – in a way I haven’t done in a decade.  Or more.

Ever since my first drummer bailed on me, maybe? (cancelled on the day of a show?)

I’ve never really accepted the fact that I hold grudges.  Maybe not with specific people (rarely), but with the universe, with things not working out that I tried so hard on or wanted so much but didn’t work out.  And whenever there have been lots of those, something in me will shut down on a topic and write it off as “not me.”

One such topic was playing-with-others.  It’s why I perform alone so much.  And why this whole last year since cloudlight, and recently with welcoming old friends and new ones into playing with me on JiTR sets…and now why I’m even gonna edit and list all these collabs together in one place on my bandcamp.  Like a statement to the universe that yes I value and love these people…

And it’s hard because people break my heart all the time, like I talk a lot (duh) and I feel like I’m “too much” for many people, not all of course 🙂 and I’m so thankful for my posse of people.  But I think I’m learning that I used to live in black and white – either a person accepted ALL of me, or I put up a boundary with them.  I dunno, trauma is so weird.  I mean, I  don’t even accept all of me…why should others?

Blogging is strange.  Who am I talking to?

I guess I felt like this last year, doing those check-in videos.  Still I said I’d do it.  I knew I’d want a record of how bizarre this album-a-month process would feel.  I knew it’s be hard or almost impossible.  So far the hardest is the interweaving schedule of deadlines…like I’m already working on June, July, August, and even OCTOBER deadlines.  Because of different levels of polish on those albums and projects.  One will hopefully be in studio, with others, so that involves coordinating and practice now.

Okay well, I’m still super sick despite starting the antibiotic today…feel like my body is tryin to sweat something out.  Maybe this helped?  I never know with my strange sensitive system.

Xoxo to all the gentle people, the world is infinitely better for your care.
Xoxo to all the passionate people, the world is moving forward from your dreams.
Xoxo to all the confused people, I think this is most common and nothing to feel ashamed of.  I think life is a process of untangling all the lies we’re taught as truths, and trying to find who we are amidst a sea of misinformation.  Hope you all find whatever feels like ‘yourself’ today.

Jessica

*Note to readers: this blog is part of a challenge, to release an album a month for a year. It’s a way of documenting the insanity of the process :)*

SO there is a reason people pace themselves, avoid things, focus on one project, wake up in their minds a year or two after a brainstorm, having not accomplished said brainstorm, beat up on themselves, without analyzing the reality of TIME…

That whole “to everything there is a season” thing is bouncing around in my brain right now.

It’s like I’m trying to have 12 seasons at once, without anything in my life suffering…

It feels like a trajectory, or like 12 trajectories, started simultaneously, without the boost of 12x the life force…I find myself getting sick, run down, tired.  Not sleeping well.  Not able to go for walks.  Etc.

Today is Monday, the day after my big yearly piano recital.  It was a WONDERFUL event, my students played super well, and I’m grateful yet again to have such a meaningful way to support myself.

But historically these would take a week of focused prep…well, 7 weeks of prep with the students, but even I would go to a headspace meant for recitals (or, music parties? they are unconventional, everyone plays only their favorite songs from the year, of any genre, and performance in them is optional…)

This year, I’ve done so much other work in the week leading up – practice with a drummer, recordings and field recordings, album artwork, tshirt design collaborations, reorders and orders of tons of merch, things that have fallen through the cracks in the past but something in me is trying to work 12x faster, 12x smarter, and be 12x better of a human.

It’s partly working, as this much effort is bound to succeed in some ways.

But it’s also exhausting, and I feel like something in my body is trying to get me to rest (about to go to the doctor for what may be a case of PINK EYE?!? I’ve never had pink eye…)

Deep breaths.  Intentions set.  I made a LIST.

Not my usual list.

Not a list of wishes and dreams all written all over, in a tree or thought bubble, with floaty dreamy Equal Importance.  But a LIST, like a bada*s list.  Where I assumed much would have to fall away.

“Choose your top 3 things” something in my mind said.  Like “I know you have 20 things between now and June/July that you want to accomplish, but CHOOSE your favorites – the ones you’d be the most sad to see fail.”

Priorities.

As an A-student crammer my whole life, all the way to scholarships and free trips to London, I CAN’T BELIEVE I never learned how to prioiritize.

But I haven’t.

I genuinely just push push push and leave til the last minute and do each thing right before it’s deadline, and get EVERYTHING done.

But I’m seeing that only works if your list is small enough that EVERYTHING is possible.

My list has grown so much that now, truly, everything I want to do IS NOT POSSIBLE.

With each new idea, the seed of another idea is born.

I’m getting better at delegating.

I’m getting WAY better at contacting people for rehearsals and collaborations with enough advance notice that they can actually get involved and/or (whoa!) be working on something while I’m finishing up another thing.

It’s like weaving, and I feel like my time use used to be a simple braid and now it’s becoming a complex friendship bracelet and even I don’t really understand or remember or know how to explain the pattern, but I can do it by feel.

Sooooo I like it.

But I don’t like that I’m sick.

Either my body is revolting (but excited).

Or it’s trying to get me to PAUSE.

At least long enough to see that I’m missing a point of course correction (last night I made 3 new lists, and altered my unrealistic deadlines 3x).

So I’m kind of into that.

The idea that my body knows what’s possible, better than my brain does.

So yea…if anywhere I said that I’d release things on the 9th, 12th and 20th of May, just FYI I’m shifting it later as new things came up, some of which are more important (by a lot!) than meeting these arbitrary deadlines.

So I know the new deadlines, still a release in May, but I’m wondering if announcing deadlines is an absurd extra pressure I don’t need.

Like yes, I want to honor friends’ bdays on the month of my friend ship album…but it’s ultimately also pretty cool that I’m even trying to release something less than a month after another thing.

Sometimes my objectives get so powerful and intense and foreboding that I forget to congratulate myself on even thinking of having that objective, and/or meeting it halfway or most the way.

Okay, off to get dressed and have my eyes looked at.

Wishing everyone peace and motivation and the balance between the two…

xo Jessica

Hello…so I’m feeling a lot of things but mostly happy and wordy and teachy/preachy and this emotion or slew of emotions always turns on me.  Like, right now, I’ve shared so much on my friends’ facebook pages that you’d think my life is an open book.  Maybe it is at times, but not all the time.  Maybe this year it will be, all this blogging.  But I feel a strange push of energy and I THINK it’s coming from the fact that 4 shows this month being done now (all with their 10-20 hrs of prep each), I’m feeling the push of excitement to finally have time and space in my brain to REALLY dream about this year’s project…and the connections and collaborations are all melding together and I’m just getting really freaking excited to create so much.  It’ll be weird and polished and scrappy, in varying amounts, and involve working with more friends than I EVER have.  Which is scary and thrilling all at once.  Good thrilling.

Soooo here I am on what feels like too much coffee but it’s really just rest and sleep and time to dream meets one cup of coffee, and making to-do lists and existing as I am, I feel like I’m bouncing off the walls, having this free day to imagine and dream and get things done…  that’s what my skin feels like when I’m happy, and maybe you relate, how this can turn on you if not utilized well?  Like when I’ve had all this energy in the past, I often would get decision paralysis, and then not do anything “constructive” and by the end of the day, feel like I didn’t choose any one thing, and be frustrated and mopey about my projects.  These deadlines that I’ve put in place – the next ones being May 9th, May 12th, and May 20th, are staring me in the face (pre-release, video release, album release, all birthdays of friends, old and new ❤ which is fitting for my “friends” album…)

Here’s a little bit that I wrote about this upcoming project on my Patreon a few days ago…(if you want to be in my little secret private fan club, I give away stuff there and share more, or try to, or at least share things sooner like previews of songs on albums… it starts at $2/month http://www.patreon.com/jessicaintherainbow )

This past album, album 1 of 12 this year, was focused on some heavy themes…ways I’ve loved the world even when it felt like it didn’t love me back (i.e. hence ‘Misfits’).

This next album is focused on the abundance I keep finding all around me…even as a misfit I feel like I have a little tribe, or rather a ship of friends, haha, a “Friend Ship” if you will.  The more I’ve looked for it, the more I’ve found it’s always been there.  I feel more lifted up than ever, just learning what to pay attention to.

Soooo this next release will be a restored collection of many of the collaborations from 365 (for those who know Michigan music, there are ones with Fiona Dickinson, Micah from Breathe Owl Breathe, Jes Kramer, Tom Hymn, Bryan of cloudlight, Maddie Jackson, Van Lente, and more :), and maybe some older ones too, pre-365!  And even a new one or two possibly, if time allows.  

I’m calling it Friend Ship vol 1 because I hope to make a 2nd one someday that is fully in-studio and the highest audio quality possible.  But for now focusing on lo-fi stuff keeps me moving forward.  And I just plain like the sound of it if I’m honest.  Maybe you do too 🙂

That’s what is on my plate now.  I feel like I’ve had about 2 days to calm down, and relax and reconnect and re-observe what’s working and what isn’t, and I’ve (unfortunately?) used it mostly to make to-do lists and dream more about all these projects and write people about collaborations.  Like I’m a LITTLE worried already that this year of albums may leave me feeling less rested than usual, which I hope isn’t harmful for my health.

But if I’m honest, I have a TERRIBLE habit of thinking I *should* rest when I really don’t want to, and then all this hyper-excited energy would just turn on myself…when I force myself to chill when I really want to dream and work and create.  It definitely swings the other way too.  Some professionals call this “bipolar II” (less severe than Bipolar I, usually super-high-functioning and sometimes hard to detect, common in creatives and often manageable with self-care) – I did try meds once, for about 2 years, because of a really really bad (abusive) living situation at the time.  So I really needed something to keep me saner.  But over time I discovered that those meds made it so I couldn’t write songs, couldn’t really journal, or even dream properly.  In my case, since I build my life around creativity, that trade off wasn’t worth it.  So instead I’ve learned to work with the highs and lows, and honestly creating more has been an incredible solution.  That and having a *very* stable living environment.  Like truly no surprises.  I think people with my traits have a hard time finding the right partner, and I personally can’t imagine the unpredictability of something like motherhood or wild roommates.  So if you struggle with these things, my heart is with you.

So all this energy is because, I imagine, like a flood I’ve been identifying all the things I’ve put on hold – new biz cards, new tshirts, new stickers, new cases, plus I have determined the next two weeks to be the time to check in extra with my patrons, which includes sending out thoughtful lil packages and other extras, motivational videos, and something about shifting from a show-based to-do list, i.e. each show had a list for the week of the show and obvious concrete goals, to shifting back to a vague no-timeline based to-do list, is sending my mind into a cloud of “which thing to do first!” which feels very dreamy and exciting and scary and leaves a LOT of potential for me to let myself down.

And if I’m really honest, I’ve let myself down most of my life.

I don’t share about this much but I have lots of trauma in my past, and digging out from under it has been a lifelong journey so far.  I’m lucky to feel mostly hopeful and optimistic considering what I’ve been through.  And I hate talking about it because I know many other people with similar circumstances aren’t at this point or may never be.  I feel genuinely hardwired for joy, and all the bad experiences did a good job obscuring that, but underneath it all something in me has been pushing to get back there.

I dunno.  I wish I could, instead of blogging, just go around to all the people who’ve ever read anything I’ve written, and give them a hug and say it’s gonna be okay, even if it really isn’t for everybody.  Because hope has been the most transformative thing in my life.  I wish everybody had hope, or joy, but I know they don’t.

Okay well, I said I’d blog alongside this weirdo challenge.  I feel pretty freakin weird about this one, and want to sort of delete it.  But my desire to talk about just about anything is so strong right now, and it’s something that definitely gets in the way of my work ethic and creative process, or is a strange piece of it that I’ve yet to understand…like this too-many-words thing, followed by feeling unnoticed, can be misinterpreted by inner-child-me as unloved or un-needed, when really it’s just that I’m taking up a lot of freaking airwaves and I know that.  And I know that when I feel like this, I need to a) find a way to focus and get work done or b) remember to reach out to loved ones and REALLY listen to them.  Because honestly much of this hyper energy is LOVE, and I love all the people who’ve been surrounding me, and that love and joy feels overwhelming, and I should probably turn that love VERY directly onto those people who engendered these feelings in me in the first place.

Thank you to all who have made me feel so loved lately.  This month has been one of the most difficult and work-intensive of my self-motivated creative life, and it has also been the most eye-opening, enlightening, redirecting, clarifying and moving.  Like I literally feel moved to a different point on my own personal timeline, this month has felt like my usual 6-months feeling.  Sigh, if that’s what this challenge will be like, then I don’t know WHO I’ll be a year from now!!!  That’s scary and overwhelming in a weird way, hence, I’m guessing, all these feelings.

Anyway, love to all, xo and thanks for listening and sharing your truths.
Jessica

Hey there…It’s been such a busy week and a half.  Opening for Johanna Warren in our home, my parents visiting from Minnesota, hosting and attending informal birthday hootenanies, prepping multiple shows with full band, including one this Thursday at Harmony Hall (GR), releasing an album, plus teaching, tons of other research/work… some have asked me why I take all this on (unlike some people who are paid lots of money to do so much stuff…) but that’s a story for another day.  Or maybe I’ve told it already, who knows.

I’m really writing today because I’m doing the finishing touches on a little music video I made during the 365 but didn’t have time to release with the song it was intended for, due to that darn “get everything done in the same day” phenomenon I used to live by for a year.  Wow, still can’t believe I put that stress and pressure on myself daily.  It definitely helped me get used to working harder but whew, glad that’s over.

Still I now have all these deadlines in my head for this year’s project, as I like releasing things on days that are important to me, in honor of people who are important to me.  So far I’ve done my oldest nephew’s birthday and my own, and today I would like to release the first music video in honor of my oldest niece, even though I’ve already released an album on her birthday (the day of her actual birth that is!)

It feels appropriate to have this first month be a month of sharing in honor of my oldest niece and nephew as I imagine much of being a first-born (two different families) is about being a leader, finding a path, and forging it.  I see it in first-born children (actual children and adult children) everywhere.

So as a middle child I’ve always admired these traits and been unsure how to find them in myself…I tend towards some classic “blame on being a middle child” stuff (i.e. people pleaser, indecisive, deer in headlights), so this newest forging-ahead year of challenges is me recognizing a way I haven’t been who I wanted to be (an OPENLY prolific lo-fi artist with crap tons of releases, rather than a closeted one, lost in wishing…), and just becoming it.

This song, and this music video, is all about what it feels like to follow your own internal compass.  I worry sometimes that it appears I’m preaching a one-size-fits-all approach to “letting go” and “being yourself” and “sharing your truth” but I deeply believe that not everyone is meant to be prolific and sloppy haha (duh).  I think that’s just part of MY compass.  Yours may be cautious planning for 5 years with one big moment of release.  Or, to the non-musician or artist friends, other variations on being not-so-public and a little or a lot more crafted and intentional.  I know this weird sharing of all my goofy faces and owl mugs and laughing alone and being giddy and joyful at making songs may seem strange to some, or all.  But I can’t help but have identified SO CLEARLY that this is who I’m meant to be…if “meant to be” even means anything.  I guess a parallel for non-fatalists is…it’s who I WANT to be.  I like sloppy funny quirky cool or dorky lo-fi things.  I like bizarre art and fanciful, whimsical creative types.  I like people who break the mold and push the boundaries and make their own rules.  I’ve always liked it, since being a literature major in college.  And at the music conservatory.  I always got a thrill learning about the weirdos and the non-conformists.  So fatalistic or not, I’m becoming who I feel I am on the inside, which may just be a reflection of what I’ve loved most in my life.  And I hope you all do the same, and I imagine that yours will look VERY different from mine…so as the song is about, I hope seeing my truth doesn’t distract you from finding yours.

Love to all, xoxo
Jessica

p.s. I will probably release the video around 11pm…as I’m running late for work. Bye!

Hello there.  This challenge, whew.  So far so good but it might have been silly to line-up the official first release with my birthday.  Feeling lots of things about getting older and having had it take so long to be myself, when I see 20 year olds seeming more themselves than I ever was (I was preoccupied with success and money and finding a career in music back then, now I’m a mostly-contented piano/songwriting teacher, accepting that my work is how I eat and pay my bills, while my “real” work in the world – no offense to my students – is releasing and sharing and creating music…the world just doesn’t pay a real yearly salary for that gift, and I’m okay with that now, though I still love to complain about it as I know there are probably millions of people like me – musicians, artists, poets, dancers, etc – who are not okay with it yet, and it’s a painful path of self-acceptance AND world-acceptance to get to a place of being okay with the fact that being a hobbiest DOESN’T MEAN you failed (wanted to change this to “doesn’t necessarily mean” and then said F*!% that, and rewrote it the original way I thought it in ALL CAPS), it means the world is a complicated commercial business adventure and most art is not practical or commercial.  And THAT’S OKAY.  THAT’S OKAY.  I wish I could get bigger and bigger with my font to break through to you, creative artistic person reading this.  IT’S OKAY.  THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.  YOU ARE PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL AND MAGICAL AND FULL OF FREE AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION, AND IT IS THE WORLD THAT IS NOT MAGICAL, OR LACKING IN MAGIC OR BELIEF IN YOU.  People don’t know what they need so they wait for commercials or loud people or salespeople to tell them what will make them happy, and those people often don’t really care about making other people happy, they care about lining their wallets – and heck I do too, but I’ve found other ways to do it.  So when I share this music with you, you can trust me when I say, something out there wants me to share this music – despite it’s complete lack of commercial appeal – and perhaps there is something in it for you.  Some seed of knowing, that has been given to me, that maybe I can give to you through these songs.

But maybe not.  Maybe just read some lyrics, if you don’t like my musical style but you like the way I think.  It is all in there.  Every seed of how I think, and how I have let go of this world, is in my albums – the last two especially (the “sloppiest” ones).  Let go.  Letting go is the best thing.

I love my nieces and nephews and brother and sister and parents and boyfriend and friends more than I can describe to you.  They are unbelievably precious to me and if I could round them all up in one place and hug them every day, I would.  I truly would.  So letting go does not mean not caring.  I think it somehow has allowed me to care more.  I sense that this world is oversaturating all of us.  There are too many problems to fix, too many paths to go down, too many ways to show we care reminding us all the ways we are not caring enough.  And we are SHORT-CIRCUITING, getting by.  It is overwhelming and exhausting.  Also not to mention, all the disappointments, the ways we get our hopes up, the ways we try and fail and leave things and situations with a sense that we could have done more, could have done better, could have tried harder, could have been kinder, could have put ourselves aside, etc. on and on.  Infinity.  Ad nauseum.  THERE IS NO END TO THIS.  Here anyway.

Soooooo …come live on a cloud with me?

Love who you love, be who you are, say what you know, what is true for you.  Give what you can, let go when you can’t.  That’s all I know.  Love you all so much, especially (sorry to say this, it feels mean, but it is just true for all of us I think) the ones who make me feel seen and heard and understood on the deepest of levels.  I can’t imagine this life without having met you all.  It has been tragically painful for me, waking up year after year and realizing I haven’t been being myself.  Trauma will do that to you.  But I am grateful to be here, to be always becoming, and helping others ‘become.’

Oh and it’s my birthday, so if you like me, or if you want to give me a present, please just listen to my newest album.  First release of 12 over these next 12 months.  The challenge came in my head because I felt overwhelmed by all the ‘content’ created in the 365 challenge, but that none of it would be listenable as albums.  So the 2nd 12-month challenge was born. (I say it that way because of my favorite number, 212).

Here’s the link:
https://jessicaintherainbow.bandcamp.com/album/365-days-vol-7-or-misfits-in-love-with-the-world

Love you all.
Jessica