We're human, and we have to deal with that.

So, every once in awhile, without meaning too, I'll throw on some Deftones.  Instantly, I flash back to that time of my life as it was in late 07’.  When it was so easy to learn to be REALLY happy again.  I was listening to a lot of Deftones at the time.  Due to the proximity of the low tunings and the sweep of Chino's voice mixed in with the decision to divorce my wife at the time.  This makes for some very sad feelings as well as heartache for the future.  What a trial.  In life not the legality.  Listed in the further text are my thoughts on how the songs would speak to me during that winter.  I was living in a 8x6 foot room with no windows or anything really.  Just a lamp, clothes and air mattress.  To say it was a rough time would cheapen the feeling and be a blatantly inaccurate description.  Here it goes anyway...

"Hexagram".  As if I were already free again.  After so many years of false joy and cynicism in the overall life I'd been living.  It wasn't a lie all the time, but it wasn't real, genuine or happy.  For the first time in my adult life, I was being totally honest and enjoying rediscovering myself.  Who I was.  Or thought I was.  There was no coldness in the air, to me, during that initial period for some reason.  It seemed so simple.  Live honestly, live realistically, live happily. 

The intensity of "Needles and Pins".  Knowing that this song played out as the soundtrack, and script, to some sweat-free embraces in an empty house speaks it's own volume.  There was nothing to be scared of, there was no disease, there was no hindrance.  There was no oddity or hang up.  There were two people living in each other’s eyes and souls.  Desperately escaping to a self-made reality that was quickly turning very real.  “Tune out everyone in the crowd, because now it’s just me and you.  Make a pact to each other when no one's around put the crowd between me and you.  Who wants to f*** with us now?”  Crazy stuff right?  It was just starting!  I say that as being excited.  I'm meaning it as more shocking.  The excitement came with a spiral that no one in their right mind would want to willingly get on.  There I was though.  Thinking I could prep myself to endure it without being too hurt.  I don't care who you are.  Going through a divorce is not easy.

"Battle-Axe".  All I can think of is the immense cold freeze I suddenly felt once reality set in.  The new year of 08’.  Staying in that small room, with that small light, on that small bed.  All my small things and clothes around me.  No windows or feeling.  Just trying to figure out what to do for the future.  So much sadness in my heart and life.  

"Beware" makes its first appearance here.  “You should know (by now) really that this could end, really you should know I could never make it work (wake up) it's pretend, really”.  Realistically letting go of her.  Trying to fight the emotion in real time, that my mind had already gotten over so many times before, in make believe.  The wrath she put on me while she was still there.  Trying to be happy with my beautiful children and still be “dad” to them.  Not wanting to live with what I thought was a real "loving relationship" anymore.  I was comfortable in this illusion for a long time this way.  This song represents hurt I was feeling knowing someone was hurting just like me somewhere out there.  Out there on the air.  My phone would just crackle and there she appeared.  From the air for all I knew.  I have these feelings forever stamped on this particular song.  Oh how pivotal the Deftones seemed to be then.

"Hole in The Earth".  Where does fit in this collection of months?  Late January?  Isolation coupled with longing.  This song makes some sense of hope realistic with the help of a Phoenix that popped up on the internet.  It offers incredible verbal strength to drive a fight that MUST be confronted even though I wanted to avoid it all together.  The image of the Phoenix has been coupled with this song in my mind ever since.

Now...when it all ended, it hurt my heart more than I had ever known.  When I drove my family to the airport and said goodbye, I watch them walk away from my everyday life for good.  The aftermath from this moment made my mind and body become just as empty as house they left behind felt that winter.  The duality in pattern for this event was that I knew there would be joy in the renewal process.  I knew that after this, I would not be on my own.  I knew that for the first time in almost a decade, I would have the freedom to be where I wanted.  I was so happy for all of this!  Yet, all this was completely overshadowed by the incredible loss that was happening right before my eyes.  To the rest of the world watching in, it was just some guy splitting up from his wife.  Just an uninteresting event. 

"Anniversary Of An Uninteresting Event".  How can you sum it all up so easy?  I don't think it can.  With this song.  It seemed, to kill the old and refresh the present into the new.

Crazy isn't it?  The story itself is pretty graphic, intense, sad, filled with moral standards both good and bad, and ultimately heartbreaking like nothing I'd ever encountered at the time.  I lost what I thought was my life all along.  I let it all go to be myself and not become some old man that had never been honest to anyone or himself.  It wasn't fair to the others I'd hurt and let down.  My ex-wife, my kids, my job.  The list goes on and on.  We all make our choices and should be in the right frame of mind when we do so.  But realistically I know this is never the case in life.  We're human, and we have to deal with that.  This is my first major time I've made a choice that destroyed what I had and those around me.  But I'm one of the most happiest men alive today because I went through it.  Not much can be said from that statement.  I'm sure it can be taken several ways, though I only mean it as one.  Mine. ;)