Wednesday, August 3, 2011

mixed tape for singls moms

I made a mixed tape a while ago about being a single mom:

click here

Find that making mixed tapes for specific topics in my life is very therapeutic and I can share it with people. Sometime I can't comments or "love" clicks on my mixed tapes. I love it.

Of course, I have to have the anthem, "Baby Mama" by Fantasia. Thank you, Fantasia.

"Lord, I'm Discouraged" by The Hold Steady. Need I say more? Some days it's so discouraging, this road, that is. Some days it hurts and feels awful and I feel so discouraged by everything.

"Sea of Love" cover by Cat Power reminds me of having my baby. I carried her inside me for 9 months and pushed her out of me after a few hours of an amazing birth. My emotions were wild and she was so small and had huge, large eyes. She recognized my voice and I couldn't fucking believe it.
"Do you remember
When we met?
That's the day I knew you were my pet
I want to tell you
How much I love you"

Some specific lyrics from one of the songs,

"right the impossible
you still come through
roads wide enough you built
my heart was shaped by you
oh nights that heard those tears unearthed
a starry sky
and days that match your smile passed
a wink, a hand, my life

*Life likes to throw boulders and stones
reasons for doubt
and the hardest things you’ll ever know
a smile does the rest
finding dreams in a test
but what you see how far
you are

I guess life knows me more then I’d ever would
choices made but are they really ever understood
living day to day but with tomorrow always in sight
light blue skies whisper dreams to us all in time."

I also put Eminem's "Not Afraid" on it. One specific part that calls out to me is, "I'ma be what I set out to be, without a doubt undoubtedly
And all those who look down on me I'm tearin down your balcony"

I think I lived into the expectations of others too fucking much. I wanted so much to please everyone because I thought I totally fucked up. I had to make sure that everyone was okay. Two people specifically were my dad and his girlfriend. They really put me down so much about everything that I have done and I've never really felt true support from them. Mostly just pure rage and shame. Every time I hear that above lyric, I think of them.

Some of the songs I put on there are kind of cheesy, but they fit. Some of the songs I don't really like, but they fit. Like, the Christina Aguilera song,

"I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring me down
So don't you bring me down today"

From that, I think of the people from my past that have abused me, shamed me, and brought me down. I stopped giving them power. While I still fucking struggle with that, I still fucking believed that I do not have to give that shit power anymore. Those people and that shit no longer deserved my time or energy.

The Chuck Ragan song, "The Boat" has the following lyrics:
"Some days we're ripped and torn away
From the shore and tossed to a watery grave
Set adrift in the depths of the drink in the hands of the gods we curse"

Because this is truly how I feel some days. Some days I feel so defeated and I feel that everything I have done is pointless and that I am just overwhelmed and done with everything. Or that I wish everything was done.

When I left my baby-daddy over 5 years ago, I was so fucking depressed. I remember listening to, "Between the Bars" by Elliot Smith. I listened to it over and over. The first part sticking in my mind, "Drink up baby, stay up all night
With the things you could do
You won't but you might
The potential you'll be that you'll never see
The promises you'll only make
Drink up with me now
And forget all about the pressure of days
Do what I say and I'll make you okay
And drive them away
The images stuck in your head"

I struggled with substance abuse (now almost 3 years sober). Drinking red wine by myself was so amazingly self-medicating for me. It helped drive away the images and make me forget about the shit going on in my life.

In the song, "for the widows in paradise, for the fatherless in Ypsilanti" by Sufjan Stevens, he ends the song with, "I did everything for you" over and over. This reminds me of trying so hard to make it work with my ex, but it also reminds me of being a mom and doing everything for my kid to make things work. I deeply care about her well being and in the best way I possibly can, I try to make things okay for her. Coming from a domestic violence background, we have had to have the courage to work through so much shit to feel okay. I desperately hope my interventions NOW prevent her from getting with abusers in the future. She doesn't deserve that, she's already gone through that in her almost 10 years on this earth.

In Feist's "Feel it all", she says, "I know more than I knew before." Exactly. Even though some days, I really shame myself for absolutely everything I have done and I focus on every mistake I have made and I think I have totally fucked myself and my kid up forever. I seriously have to remember that I have done the absolute best that I kid and yes, I know more than I knew before.

In Kanye West's "All Falls Down", it just reminds me of some of the struggles and it came out around the same time I left my ex and became a single mom.

"You Da Shit" by Lil' Wayne is fairly self explanatory. "Show em what you got baby
Show em you the shit
Go on throw it to the wall, something gonna stick, believe that
F-ck these other bitches, don’t trip
You’ve been working too hard, tell em n-ggas cut the check"

Thanks, Lil' Wayne. I'll show them I'm the shit.