Wow. I never though I'd get something like that out of a Survey of Music class.

Sorry, this is going to be another deep, self-reflective entry. :)

We talked about the different feels of different timbres in music. He had us listen to Evanescence's song "Tourniquet." This is how things panned out.

At the beginning of the song, with the light gong sound, I thought, Whoa. What is this, Chinese? And then everything blasted--the guitars, the drums, etc.--all at once I got the driving beat and I was like, WOW. Whatever this is, I like it! And then she started singing in that distorted voice: "I tried to kill my pain, but only brought more." All adrenaline that had rushed into my system from the exciting music sunk immediately into a lump at the pit of my stomach. I thought of Eowyn, Courtney, Jennifer...

I didn't like the song from then on out. But it wasn't a vivid "I hate this song! It's depressing!" kind of dislike, it was a quiet, "Oh, those poor girls... This is hard to listen to" kind of dislike.

Then Dr. C paused it and we talked about how angry and depressing the sound of the music was. And then he said he liked it, which totally took me by surprise. Dr. C is not the kind of guy you look at and think, "He likes loud, angry, depressing music."

But then he explained it. "The sound fits the words. Rock 'n' roll--the smashing drums, the distorted guitars and vocals--is meant to be angry and depressing. The sound fits the words."

And that made so much sense to me. THAT'S what my deal is with Air 1 music! I suddenly realized. It's all rock, but the lyrics do not fit the sound.

As we listened to a little more of Tourniquet, thoughts of those poor girls who have gone through so much kept recurring and I grew sadder and sadder. I noted in my notebook: "For me... It's too emotional for me to listen to regularly."

But I am not done yet. Because that's when something hit me (please, nobody pounce on this, I know it's true--and it's painful to know): I use my emotionalness as a crutch sometimes. As an excuse not to listen to music like Evanescence or what have you.

God whispered to me something I had heard before: Stephanie, don't be afraid to feel.

Don't be afraid to feel. I realized not too long ago... Late last month or early this month... That I am afraid to feel. I don't know how long I have been like that. Probably ever since... Well, ever since last December when I started to get over Nate.

Anyway... I don't like pain. And after/during that breakup I had never felt such pain in my life. And I didn't want to feel it ever again. So when I finally started to move on, I shoved all feeling away and was as happy, put-together, and content as I could be.

That's how I've been ever since. Even during World Lit last year when we talked about serious, depressing stuff. Even during Intro to Study of Lit and Greek and Roman Classics this year when we talked about serious, depressing stuff. (Yay Prof D. :-P ) I've been afraid to feel...

That explains why I haven't cried much in this last year. Not just because college life doesn't really allow for a lot of time for it, but also because I've been afraid to. Afraid to feel pain again.

Like I said, this has come to me before... I don't remember the exact day, but I remember writing "When did I become afraid to feel?" in my prayer journal somewhere... But I ignored it after that one particular day and tried to go on living as a happy, content, got-it-all-together young woman. Today it came back to me with stronger force than before. Gosh, I need to be able to feel again. I don't know how to go about working on that, but I'm going to try.

No wonder I'm so emotionally unbalanced. I didn't realize there were two ways to be so: one way is to be sad all the time, another way is to be happy all the time. But we're humans; we've all got to have a balance between the two.

Hm. I guess I'll work on it.

-Stephanie