I talked about this a little bit in “The Ballad of Richard,” but lately I have been doing this thing where I am making friends with myself. 

That might sound weird. You might be thinking “Why aren’t you already friends with yourself?” or “How can YOU be friends with YOU?” Or maybe you’re an Enneagram 4 or an INFJ or an HSP or some other self-critical form of a person-type and you totally get it.

Because here’s the honest truth: You can objectively enjoy your life and still not be friends with yourself.

Take me, for example (I’m writing this blog so, like, you have to). I think I’m a mostly confident person.

I have friends who choose me, I have family who love me, I have activities I enjoy and talents I use, I have the expectation that my opinions and thoughts will be valued and appreciated, I think I live a pretty interesting existence that people might like to hear about occasionally, etc…

So it’s not like I’m over her kicking myself down night and day, pouring heaping coals of insults upon mine good crown, or whatever.

Still, somewhere along the way I realized that I was looking at parts of me—my body, my life, my thoughts, my worries, my fears, my jealousy, my envy, my dreams, my hopes—as the opposition. As enemies to be conquered.

Somewhere along the way I had let my mind become the General of Me—constantly fuming with suppressed rage about order and efficiency, whipping the stray parts of my soul into formation with unyielding judgement, eyeing the wayward dancing march steps with hostile contempt. “Get in line!” My General constantly bellowed at me, “There will be no messiness here!”

When I was in Mexico this May I had a massage with my landlady who, turns out, was a mystical wizard healer (plus she made the best raw chocolate cake I’VE EVER HAD, so, it was a win all the way around for a living situation). 

“Oof,” she said, attacking the angry muscles of my shoulders with gusto,” your mind is STRONG. I mean, really, REALLY strong. You take on a LOT of responsibility in your life that you don’t have to, I can feel it.”

Honestly, I’m a feeler so I’m apt to be able to emotionalize a reason for anything, but in that moment I WAS STUMPED.

“Responsibility?” I thought, “Me?”

I mean, sure, I have things in my life I’m trying to take care of, and I worry about my friends and family, and I’ve recently realized I lean toward a slight co-dependent bend of wanting everyone to be ok, but in general I tend to think of myself as the stubborn individualist who does what she wants, expects everyone else to take care of their own baggage themselves, and doesn’t internalize others’ opinions.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

I never stopped to think that, yes, this is mostly true, but that I had been internalizing and carrying the weight of MY expectations, piled higher and higher and heavier and heavier, year after year.

Have you had one those relationships, or relationships that go through a stage, where the person seems to pile on constant, small (or big) criticisms about you every time they can and you end up thinking “I know you love me, but do you even LIKE me? Is nothing ever good enough?”

I was doing this to myself.

At the Hridaya retreat I went to in Mexico, we learned how to connect to our hearts—the soul part of us that was there at age 2 and 4 and 12 and 21 and will be there when we’re 80. Our being-ness. Our true “selves.”

Meditation is a good way to connect to yourself—a very transformative, empowering way.

But pumpkin butter is a good way to do this, too.

The other day my soul saw it at Trader Joe’s and said “Ohhhhhhhh, I want that.” And my General Mind said: “That’s full of sugar. Honey is more practical and better for you. And my Soul Heart said “But…but…I want THAT. Pleaaaaaassse?”

And so I bought it, and I ate it today on my toast, and it made me really blissfully and wonderfully pleased.

It might sound silly, but if you don’t treat yourself as a friend in small ways (tiny pleasures, warm compliments, pep-talks, the walks you take, the books you read, the clothes you wear) how can you expect to treat yourself like a friend when things get hard? How can you expect to know how to be a friend to yourself in depression and sadness and stress? How do you think you’ll respond when your plans fail or you don’t do something as well as you wanted to?

I’m learning to listen, comfort, enjoy, rest with, delight in, sympathize to, encourage, celebrate, soften and nurture ALL the parts of me that seem trivial or superfluous or scared and anxious, and I’m finding that my self-love and intimacy with my soul is deepening. I feel happier, less afraid, more at peace, and quicker with words of kindness and love. In short: I feel a friend to myself. Not a stranger, and no longer an oppressor. 

I LIKE myself. And so I treat myself as such. 

Conclusion: make friends with yourself (actively) in big and small ways. Life’s too short to live in the soul army. 

The fans have spoken and YOU ARE WELCOME because today’s song is another one featuring The Very Reverend Canon Emeritus A. Robert Bethancourt Jr. (Aka: My dad).

This song “When Are You Coming Back” is from a mid-90’s contemporary Christian album called “Angels of Mercy” by an artist named Susan Ashton.

It holds a special place in my heart (and a “coveted” spot on the One Out October song video challenge) because Ashton and songwriters Wes King and Wayne Kirkpatrick are a trio of my first and biggest musical influences.

It might seem like a relatively strange influence for a sad, angry, f-bomb dropping folk singer like myself, but DON’T WORRY—I consumed a lot of Elliot and Joni and Fiona, too.

(To be fair, Paul Simon was my #1 musical ride-or-die ever since I learned every single word to “You Can Call Me Al” at age 4).

But when I was 13, writing poems in my journal and singing 3-chord worship songs in the youth group band, this album was my JAM and I had Every. Single. Word. Of. It. Memorized.

Honestly, I probably still do.

Even hearing intro melodies to some of these tunes takes me back to those times–when I was young and awkward and just learning how to express emotions through words and sound.

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I re-listened to “Angels of Mercy,” that it slowly dawned on me “Oh….Oh! This…feels familiar.”

And it felt familiar not in the way of “I’ve heard this before,” but familiar in the realization that those songs had at one point in time become a part of me– and had never left.

Needless to say, I can hear the thumbprint of this music on so many of my songs, especially my early ones.

To me, if there’s even supposed to BE a category of Christian music—this should be it.

Voices that make your brain think and your heart stretch. Lyrics that ask you to grow your empathy and kindness for yourself and others. Melodies that move you, even if you can’t pinpoint why.

My “religious” songs have never felt devout or evangelical to me. They’re honest, messy, uncomfortable, complicated representations of my faith—in all its expressions of doubt and hope, often filled with mingled sadness and anger and yearning and love.

And anything else would be a lie.

 

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact that my music has had. It’s easy as an artist to discredit your creations when you can’t quantify its “success.” I more often than not feel like a failure and wonder if anything I wrote mattered. It’s an easy thing to do when you haven’t had a conventionally successful music career.

Still, I can’t forget the audiences who listened to me play with tears in their eyes. I think about the people who bought and listened to every CD I made. I remember strangers who told me my songs made them feel seen, helped them get out of bed, walked them through pain and loss, and encouraged them to keep going.

And when I remember these truths, I don’t just think of myself. I get to think about how, really, the ripples of what we do go much farther than we ever think, right?

Take Susan and Wes and Wayne, for example: I’ve never talked with these musicians and writers, never met them at a show or connected with them, never been able to tell them–before now–how much their songs meant to me.

And yet their music rippled out and played a HUGE part in the music I made that has touched others’ hearts, offered some hope, made them laugh, helped them to feel not so alone.

So, thank you Susan and Wayne and Wes! May your words always speak the truths that lead us onward in hope and love.

Also, seriously Lord—when are you comin’ back? Because it’s a dumpster fire down here.

Here you go everyone—a song that ISN’T about pining away for a dude…but IS about giving a dude the middle finger because he couldn’t be bothered to try a little bit when I was pining away for him.

I’m aware that my musical cache makes me sound like a contradictory combination of a Disney Princess and a Disney villain, kind of like a naive and romantic Arielle meets a bitter and hag-like Evil Queen.

People are complicated, what can I say.

I’ve said this before, but it’s always funny to me how my songs often come from very, very minor instances in my life…

and yet stand as diary-page testament for other people’s intense and deep stories.

This song, for example, came out when I was annoyed with a guy who always wanted to flirt up a storm with me but never followed through. RUDE. Yet I very vividly remember playing it a show where my friend sat across the room from her ex-fiance—who was there with his new girlfriend.

OOOOOOOOOOF. Music. Music! You knowing minx, you wily jukebox, you omniscient storyteller strummin’ our pain with your fingers.

 

Truthfully though, I did have many years of “Shoulda Known Better-ing,” where I kept holding out hope that someone would change their tune and give a fuck.

But now I am older and wiser, and, thankfully, less ambitious about changing people’s garbage behavior. The days of giving my exuberant 100% to a dude’s (or anyone’s) indifferent 20% is in my rear-view mirror now, dear friends.

 

Those idealistic and ignorant hours are done for. Today, I try to operate under a very effective and rational I like to call “The Ball Back” method.

I throw the ball out to someone (old friend, new friend, family, potential romance, creative partnership). This metaphorical ball could be in the form of sharing a meme on Instagram, a phone call just to chat, a text to make plans to hang, an invitation to a party, an e-mailed Gif of a dancing pizza, a question about what they’re doing or how they are, an article I think they’ll like, a Marco Polo about a thing that happened I think they’d find hilarious, a concrete event to connect at, etc..)

If they throw the ball back in a manner that moves us forward in our relationship, then I throw a ball back, and onward we go.

Look at us, both giving equitably!

If they don’t throw the ball back, (or toss back constant text replies that give reasons why they can’t hang, but never initiate or offer other options), I might throw one or two more balls.

If they still don’t throw the ball back, I’m out.

Listen, I know none of us are perfect players in the game of relationship.

Life gets busy, we drop the ball, we can’t keep up our commitments, we overbook and have to cancel plans, we have to smudge meeting times or be flexible about location, we get sick or exhausted and have to bail, we find we can’t meet the expectations someone has for us, we grow out of friendships and have to let go, and so on.

Things happen.

Relationships go through flux and ups and downs and times of connection and comfort. Some relationships are more consistent than others. Some relationships are your people that you’d use your one phone call for when you landed in jail and some relationships are friends who’d help you move and some relationships are “Hey I was just thinking about you” and some relationships exist completely over text and some relationships are bi-yearly movie dates and some relationships are for a season and some relationships endure beyond space and time no matter what.

And there’s so much growth in the messiness of knowing and being known by people, and it’s not all comfortable but it’s all good. We’re all working it out together.

But in the long-game, if you find yourself in relationship where you throw the ball and the person doesn’t catch it or toss it back, so you have to go find another ball and toss it again, and they still don’t catch it or toss it back to you, and your whole relationship is basically just you expending effort by throwing balls at a person who never or rarely throws one back to you…well that, my friend, is a crappy game of catch.

Good relationships take care, and trying. And good relationships toss the ball back.

I’ve always heard the story of Adam and Eve and thought that God busted out the first man and then was immediately like “RIB ME, DUDE! I’m gonna make you an insta-lady companion right quick!”

I simply just pictured them arriving on the scene at relatively the same time, tailor-made for each other and looking naked and fresh-faced and ready to start all of human existence together and stuff.

I thought they were a package deal straight from the get-go.

An inseperable pair.

As in, like, Adam and Eve: Name a more iconic duo, I’ll wait.

But then one day I heard a sermon where someone talked about how God made Adam, told Adam to name all the kajillions of animals and living things everywhere, and THEN made Eve. (Also, I love how God put Adam to sleep first before starting the Eve-making process. Because LORD KNOWS–literally– Adam woulda been all up in that business mansplaining to the Infinite Creator like “No, not that way, here let me show you.”

God, who encompasses the entirety of the Masculine and Feminie Divine, does not have time for sexist shenanigans. (And YES I KNOW sexism didn’t technically exist before the fall so don’t ‘splain that to me, either).

If it’s not clear: I’m kinda feelin’ sassy. But it’s only because I’ve used this comparison while playing this song live for OVER TEN YEARS.

Ten years of this scene playing out: Me, up on stage, the girl wanting a partner, doing the rib-elbow-jab joke “If Adam had to name all the animals first for thousands of years and THEN meet someone, I guess I’m not having to wait that long, huh? Right? Right??? Har Har har har…sigh….sob…Welp, time for a Lean Cuisine…kill me, now.”

For so many years, finding romantic love was one of my deepest desires and a huge focus in my life (that’s why all these songs exist, thanks desperate 20’s and 30’s!). And I know that yearning is from a very real, deep place inside me that still exists.

But lately I’ve been so overwhelmed by the reality of the deep relationships I am ALREADY honored to have in my life. Just this past weekend I went back to San Diego to visit some college friends, and I was amazed all over again to see how kind, creative, thoughtful, engaging, and insightful these people are. I felt pride in knowing them, and pride in myself for realizing that my young heart had the ability 15 years ago to see other souls and say Yes! Those ones are my people.

So, yeah, I don’t have a rib-made person that I call my life companion and will walk side by side with through ups and downs into blissful eternity. And, sure, it IS kinda weird to talk about my platonic friends in reference to a song where I continually use the word “lover.”

But I still think it represents the beautiful essence behind this song–the idea that we can know people even before we know them, with a deep awareness and connection that feels God-ordained.