Don't Worry, it gets better.

or does it?

You know how they say, you become better with time?

The phrase is surely a nod to the wisdom we collect through navigating life’s ups and downs. Through growing up. And I do think there’s some truth to it…

But I also think we get worse with time.

Yeah! Worse.

Stef & her pug Jeff, young, youthful, pre-Saturn Return. I was also on mushrooms in this photo.

When we’re young, we’re usually fearless. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we don’t yet know the depths of how cruel people can be.

Especially people who are close with us.
How strange that strangers can be kinder than our own blood?

So we write like we have an audience of fans who love us.
We dance like no one’s watching.
We love, like we’ve never been betrayed before.

Then as we age, grow up, we begin to experience people telling us how much we suck at writing. They shoot down our words.
Our bodies get critiqued and made fun of. Culture tells us to have a 15 step skin care routine to stop the natural process of aging! Because, ew! wrinkles? Disgusting.

Imagine if we fed the trees chemicals at their base to stop them turning colors in the Fall?

Would we really cherish their blooms, if we grew to expect them to bloom year round?

And oh, we definitely don’t want to look stupid moving to the rhythm of a song anymore. That’s for kids. Besides, it makes my arms jiggle.

And love…. well, we build walls to keep people out because holy hell did that last relationship hurt more than any lie we’ve ever been told. That was some scary, erratic, human behavior. I would rather live in stillness. Alone.

A mirror was held up to me in that relationship, and I was terrified of the reflection looking back. It actually pissed me off. It made me realize I may have years of unlearning, then re-learning to do. And I’m safe in my chosen identity, I’m tired of the human experience, so, No thank you.

All of the sudden we don’t write. We tell ourselves painting is a waste of money. The song we loved so much in high school comes on the radio and we want to sing it but our voice is shaky because we realize… we haven’t opened our vocal chords that wide to sing in a long, long time.

If we’re really strong, we will reclaim our child-like confidence that the world so desperately tries to wipe us clean from.

But man, can it be hard. I think I bounce between the two feelings; young enough to still create from the heart, old enough that I know how to structure and set boundaries with it.

My medicine of choice? The Morning. Like casting a net in the ocean, I “cast my net” in the morning by not touching my phone and focusing on what is real. No noise from conversations, good or bad! No music. No podcast. Just me and the first rays of light.

That is, after all, where I got the name for this substack.

Alright!

On that positive note, do you guys want to play another round of Tell me More?

I got new cards.

They’re called “Tales” and an algorithm somewhere in the ethers sent them to me. I couldn’t resist.

Adding for context: I was born in 1988.

______________________


First card:

1. What song immediately puts you in a good mood?

Ironic question.

Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift.
Ruff Ryders Anthem by DMX
Can’t Tell Me Nothin by Kanye West
Blame the Moon by Hazlett
You and I by LEON and SAINT WKND
Fireworks by Hazlett
Cumulonimbus - Pt 2 by Max Richter
Prettiest Girl I Don’t Know - Troy Cartwright
Sunny & 75 - Joe Nichols
Begin - Shallou
Truth- Shallou
Lover - Taylor Swift
Delicate - Taylor Swift
Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

Ok fine just follow me on Spotify


2. As a teenager, what were some of your favorite books, films, and music?

Not many people know this about me, but when my grandpa suddenly passed away from a stroke when I was 14, I inherited a little bit of money. Something like $8,000. I begged my mom to buy me DJ equipment with it - two turn tables, records two speakers taller than my little 5 foot frame. A mixer in the middle. A sub woofer under the set up to amplify my favorite sound.

I wanted this because I wanted to work for myself doing something I loved.

Since I could walk, I was attracted to such a strange genre of music for a little 5 year old caucasian girl from Southern Indiana.

By 8 years old I knew all the lyrics to top songs by:

Jay Z
Nas
DMX (made me cry with his passion. Got sent home from school once for wearing his shirt)
Eminem
Lauryn Hill
Eve
Tupac
Notorious BIG

I was obsessed with rhythms, rhyming, bass lines. Captivated. Enthralled. I wanted to make my own.

School mates could see my passion for music. It oozed out of my aura.

One classmate was big into art and car design. He wasn’t much for words. I liked that about him. Without me asking, he surprised me with a huge brown paper poster, covered in spray painted black, silver, and deep purple letters that said DJ POWERS in graffiti. It was sick. I hung it behind my set up every time I did an event.

My mom would drive me to events, and I would carry in the heavy equipment, plug things in, test the microphone, all by myself.

14! 15! Too young to drive. Too young to work past a certain hour, by law.

But that was my default setting; do what you love.

I rarely watched movies. I was obsessed with living my life as if it were a movie. I was creating mixtapes while most were watching Mtv.

So, no favorite films come to mind. I did watch the Titanic a dozen times and attempted to make a hip hop remix of “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion

Only thing I read were Goosebumps by RL Stine.
Can you believe he’s a Libra???

Photo by Michael Benz on Unsplash

I would absolutely love to know your answers to these questions.

I’m always on the hunt for “that new song” that becomes the soundtrack to a season.

Drop it below!

See you guys on the airwaves, and over here in text.

Steph