I'm still here

fire 6/10/18

Finding the things I absolutely love about myself is liberating. Knowing I'm not all bad inside. There is something right about me. Something I can lean upon when I'm trapped in borderline nation.

I found one of those things today. Just now, actually.

I read something written by Ashton Irwin, the drummer of 5 Seconds of Summer. His constant wisdom and heartening words has stuck with me over the last four years (I can't believe it's been four years).

Ashton has a light within him and he shines it on everybody he can. His light is encouraging, hopeful.

After reading those words, I thought what I always thought. I am so damn lucky to have someone like him, and the rest of 5SOS, to look up to and admire. Then, I had a new thought. I must be a really good person, must have a really good head on my shoulders, to choose to admire these humans. I've admired them for four years because they have traveled with me through various stages of my life, and I think vise versa. When I first heard their music, it was the beginning of an era completely new to me. It was the year I decided to leave school to get my G.E.D. and when I got my first job. And when I shut out my friends for 3 months because I didn't know who I was without them. I feel like 5SOS maybe had a part in guiding me through that. In the journey, we became like parabatai, ties together by the magic that is their music. We are stronger together. We fight better together. Never alone.

They crawled alongside me through the hardest phases of my life so far. Their voices helped me find my own. Their sound holds me to the ground when borderline removes the gravity. Lyrics they wrote remind me that it is completely okay to not be okay.

One of the utmost special gifts this band and their music has given me is the knowledge and the sense that I mean something to the world. They are the only thing that has ever made me feel ALIVE. I've never felt so accepted. So completely loved and thought of. And by a band I have never even seen in person! Is that crazy?

That's not even all of it. All of those feelings, the knowledge, the senses, everything... It's made me happy I stayed alive. I can't tell you how overwhelming it was to know I was experiencing something that was so genuinely good, I appreciated myself for deciding to live.

P.S.: Sometimes these titles won't make sense or seem to have any relation to what I am writing. Usually, it's significance is only significant to me. I'm going to keep it that way.

-C.J.