Somewhere I Belong

 

Music is so powerful. It is an integral part of my life. It often helps me express my feelings that I cannot do otherwise in any form. Yesterday this happened to me once again.

I drove to Curby, Indiana for my massage. It is a nice smooth drive west on interstate 64 to exit 92. With the temperature in the upper 70s and the sun shining brightly, I had all four windows down and my sunroof open. Cruising at 78mph, my playlist on shuffle and the radio turned up. We have all done this.

I arrived at my massage location and as it begun, my massage therapist referenced my latest post tiled 3am. She, however, had a different take on it. She mentioned that she had read waking up at 3am consistently was because of anxiety or anger, not creativity. The CALM app states, “The mind has a funny way of kicking into overdrive just when you need rest the most. Stress and anxiety can activate your body’s “fight or flight” response, making it hard to stay asleep.”

For me, waking up at 3am has been going on most of my life, so I am not sure if it is indeed stress and anxiety, or the fact that I have a creative mind or possibly a combination of both. Whatever it is it is exhausting. I yearn for a solid, uninterrupted night’s sleep.

I paid, said goodbye, hopped in my car, rolled down the windows, turned up the radio and made the return 30-mile trip back home. As I merged on the freeway, the song Somewhere I Belong by Linkin Park began to play. Feeling relaxed and hypersensitive, the following lyrics hit me like a ton of bricks. “I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real. I wanna let go of the pain I’ve felt so long (Erase all the pain ‘til it’s gone)”. Instantly I got the chills, and the tears began to flow. These lyrics tapped into how I was feeling with my anxiety.

Anxiety is not a pain like stubbing your toe or breaking a bone. It is a nagging pain that, when experiencing it, can certainly be overwhelming, but most of the time for me is like a nagging itch from a mosquito bite or a mild sunburn that always reminds me it is there. For anyone who has ever had a mild sunburn or an itch from a mosquito, you just want it to stop and go away. That is what I hope for my anxiety. Like the brilliant voice of Chester Bennington belts out. I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real!

As the title of my blog site is Ruminator, the following lyric from this same song also struck an impressionable chord within me. “Looking everywhere only to find. That it’s not the way I had imagined it all in my mind.” A side-effect of my anxiety is to predict the future and relive past moments. To predict potential outcomes for future experiences and imagine how the narrative might have changed if I had made a different choice.

Through my continued work with Dr. Erin, my trial and error of medication for anxiety with Alan Hightower, and the support of my wife and friends, maybe I can finally get the rest I have needed for decades.

This may not be your type of music, but I simply request to take 3 minutes and 45 seconds out of your day to watch this video. Chester (one of my 3 favorite singers of all time) is the guy wearing glasses. 

Somewhere I Belong video

Lyrics to the entire song:

When this began
I had nothing to say
And I get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
And I let it all out to find
That I’m not the only person with these things in mind

But all that they can see the words revealed
Is the only real thing that I’ve got left to feel
(Nothing to lose)
Just stuck, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I’ve felt so long
(Erase all the pain ‘til it’s gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

And I’ve got nothing to say
I can’t believe I didn’t fall right down on my face
(I was confused)
Looking everywhere only to find
That it’s not the way I had imagined it all in my mind

What do I have but negativity
‘Cause I can’t justify the way, everyone is looking at me
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
And the fault is my own, and the fault is my own

I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I’ve felt so long
(Erase all the pain ‘til it’s gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real
I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong

I will never know myself until I do this on my own
And I will never feel anything else, until my wounds are healed
I will never be anything ‘til I break away from me
I will break away, I’ll find myself today

I wanna heal, I wanna feel what I thought was never real
I wanna let go of the pain I’ve felt so long
(Erase all the pain ‘til it’s gone)
I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m close to something real

I wanna find something I’ve wanted all along
Somewhere I belong
(I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m)
Somewhere I belong
(I wanna heal, I wanna feel like I’m)
Somewhere I belong

Somewhere I belong

Until next time,

Tim