Day 6- What makes you not suffocate?

Ok, on the GULP front, things are looking pretty good. I've reduced my swearing pretty significantly. I'm at about 2-3 swear words a day, which is still pretty expensive at .25/word, but at least I've gotten better.

I've had the same dinner for about 3 nights in a row, and all I can say is thank goodness for Trader Joe's Spinach Pizzas. You can put anything on them and it will taste delicious. Lunch at the office today was hard though. It was someone's birthday, so I had to pass up on the free deli lunch and the free german chocolate cake. When I was cleaning up the conference table after the party (yes, that is my lame responsibility), I saw the cake knife and wanted very badly to lick it clean. That was tough.

This entry's gonna be a little short since I have to run off to band practice, but one thing I started pondering about today was songwriting. I think about it all the time, but lately, I've been wondering how much of yourself you have to give up or give away for your art, or for whatever you're passionate about. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but lately I've been getting the same reaction from people regarding my writing-- Wow, your writing is getting so much better. Your songs and performances are so much more real. 99% of me is so genuinely thrilled to know that people are liking what I'm writing and relating to it or at least understanding that it's coming from a real place. But there's that one percent of me. That one percent of me wants to say, these songs are the only way I don't suffocate. These songs break my heart, I feel like I'm dying when I write them and I feel like I'm dying when I play them. But at the same time, they heal me. I don't know where I would put all this pain if not into music.

There is no real point to these thoughts, I just find it interesting, that's all. It took me getting to a place where I'm practically using my music as a survival tool for other people to come along for the ride, if you will. This also makes me wonder, what do other people do to keep from suffocating? Or do people just not feel like that for the most part? People always say how great love feels. I feel like love is the most painful thing I've ever experienced and writing songs is the only way to cope with it. I don't know. I know this whole thing probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you have to understand it's Friday evening and I've been sober for 6 days. This is quite a different state of mind for me. Until tomorrow. :)