When contentment looks nice on other people
Was it sweat or smarts or genetics, I wonder
I’ve wanted to be old ladies and anyone
who seemed to have it in their cellular structure
I think must have been born with some too
But I lost it somehow. I ignored or forgot it
when I was13 and thought I’d be skinnier and popular without it.
No one told me then nor I wouldn’t listen
that all that time with yourself could be more fun
If you didn’t keep wanting to be someone
Someone else…
Now, you have to be yourself, god knows, no one else is going to do it
Who’s going to see the things you saw and think the thoughts you thought or wring the regrets you’ve wrought.
Who’s going to wade through that doom with all the copious coping mechanisms handed down to you, if you don’t, who’ll do it?
It’s your special combination of doubts and you finding your own way out and remembering your own way in to who you’ve always been
You’ve got to be yourself god knows, no one else is gonna do it; you just wake up, don’t give yourself too much hell, that’s all there is to it
So even if they assume you’re an Alyssa Milano, and you know you’re more like Jennifer Jason Leigh,
don’t let it affect what you do tomorrow, because there’s only one you you can be (except for that other several dozen)
You've got to be yourself. God knows.
credits
from The Birth and Death of Meaning,
released March 21, 2010
guest musicians: trumpet - Ben Holmes; piano - Ed Pastorini; drums - Brian Viglione.
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