4 years of Folklore. 4 years since I started The Attempt & The Aftermath. That first chapter I wrote with tears in my eyes desperate for connection. For help. For anything to keep me out of the hospital or else I'd have to go back there. The only way I could see myself living through the summer.
Folklore may not seem like it has much in common with a fanfic about ducktales characters drenched in angst but it's woven into TA&TA's DNA. Even if there isn't much for direct references.
Folklore. An album that Taylor Swift calls a spring and summer album but to me it's late summer going into the fall. When the weather is still warm but colder days are coming. You can feel it. You welcome it. It's time for a change.
I couldn't seek professional help in 2020. God above I wanted it. But my only option was hospitalization and I wanted that to be truly my only last option.
Folklore is hard to describe sometimes. It's beautiful and poetic of course. But what did it do for someone so deep in pain? It's a collection of stories as songs. There's other albums that can be more cathartic than this. I listen to plenty of angry metal and angsty emo music to know. But I don't know that Folklore necessarily gave me much in catharsis. But. Somehow in there I found something else. An outlet. A dream. Somehow it just. As hard as it is to describe, Folklore came to me in a time of need. And it gave me something for that void. To live for the hope of it all.
Maybe it was just how beautiful it was. Just like hearing My Immortal by Evanescence as a child all over again.
But it pushed me to create. And that creating has helped me push myself. To stay alive when I didn't think I could.
I finally have a therapist. A good one. There are good things in my life. Even though my mind is still far from the place I want it to be.
I suffered a loss recently. I've lost a friend every year since 2020. Whether the friendship fell apart or for 3 of them literally dying. It's been hard to carry.
4 years of The Attempt & The Aftermath. Well. Almost. It approaches. I've been feeling so threatened by my own work these past few chapters. Even to the point I didn't publish for over a year. And now a fresh wave of grief wants to bury me into my bed and not touch a thing.
Listening to Folklore tonight on its 4th birthday has me remembering why I started TA&TA. I started it for me. For connection. And that exists.
I can't let grief win. Even though it's hard.
The steep irony in that I had long picked out this chapter title before my friend passed Saturday. Chapter 16: Living is Harder. The irony in its focus of a friendship separated by time reunited. And the question of how do I keep living?
This chapter will be finished my friend. It may not be in a timely manner. But it will be done. I will continue. I have to dedicate this chapter to you.
