A couple more steps

Running into a song you used to love is kinda like running into a person, isn't it? You haven't seen them in a long time, and it inevitably prompts a reassessment. Sometimes, you run into people you haven't seen in forever, but still love just the same. And sometimes, it happens with songs.

I was listening to some music earlier, reading in bed, and this song came on.

I used to really love it when it came out, but listening to it now, I realized it was a tentative infatuation. The sort where you don't know much of anything about a person, and are more in love with the story in your head, rather than the person themselves.

It seems I could manage
At least a couple more steps

This lyric, I remember, imbued such strength into someone who, at the time, wasn't feeling very strong. A couple more steps seemed like a manageable demand. Jesus. This came out in 2018. Also in December. It wasn't an easy time. Looking back, even the couple more steps seems unimaginable. Somehow, though, I made it.

I remember going to the launch party for the music video. Utter geek that I am, I immediately fell in love with the Ariadne/Minotaur theme. It felt very emblematic for what I was, at the time, traversing. The feeling of stumbling in the dark, not knowing where stumbling will take you.

I thought, hearing the song, that there could still be hope of survival and rebirth, though as is often the case, I was rushing so, at the time. Rebirth and healing takes a long, long time. It's not done in mere months, nor does it come by the grace of one beautiful song. It took several songs to carry me through, and many more steps, one at a time as they were, to carry me through.

Listening to it now, five years later, I realized I'd earned the rest of the song. Whereas at 19, I could only really lay claim to the above couple of lyrics, now I can confidently say,

I feel my hands yet again, and hear,
And feel the air
More and more
And water, again,
I can taste.
My eyes, once more,
I can turn skyward.
I start on a thought,
And soon, I'll follow,
In body.
Whatever I may hear,
And know I've lost nothing.
Yes, I'm broke, but not yet dead.

There's a great element of riling against fate in this song that always spoke to me. Yet longing for something isn't quite the same as holding it in your hands. And listening to it again, I realized how far I'd come, how I'd made the song mine, without sparing it much thought over the ensuing years.

Still in the maze. I don't know if you ever make it out of the maze. Maybe when you're dead, except I don't wanna find that out yet. So, still here. But now, the couple steps seem assured. A certainty. Yes. A couple of steps. And then, a couple more. I feel I can easily promise at least a corridor, and not break a sweat.

And of course, that can change at the drop of a hat. There's always the risk of being reduced to a couple more steps, to blindness. To eyes cast ever downward. That one's also a given, and you won't get very far riling against the possibility of pain.

But there's a lesson for me here, the first of its kind, for it's the very premier time I've felt so massively challenged and tried. It taught me I could withstand the confusion, the fear, the disorientation, the loss, the isolation, and still follow my red thread. That I could survive, even when a couple measly steps seemed like a mountain.

That I can.

And that's another lesson I hope to take with me, into 2024, and well through life.