REAL TALK WITH DANIELLE - On Being Okay With Not Knowing What I'm Doing
/The first time I saw Sara Bareilles was before my senior year of college (2014). I wrote a song immediately following the concert called “East River Sunset,” which, to this day, is the song I love to play most (Here is the video from the night I wrote that song: East River Sunset). This song is a love letter from my child self to my adult self. I wrote this during a time when I was making a major career change and had just started a serious long-distance relationship. I felt lost and this song was an offering of comfort. It was essentially a way for me to tell my older self that it’s okay to “just be” and to “just exist” in this moment and not worry too much about the mistakes of the past or the expectations of the future. The theme of this song was hugely influenced by Sara Bareilles’ “Uncharted.” One of the lyrics in her song goes,
Compare
Where you are to where you want to be
And you’ll get
Nowhere
That lyric was just the thing that I needed to hear in that moment. It helped me so much to be able to write that in a message that was more personalized to myself. It also reminded me of just a few months earlier, when I released my first EP, Constant State of Change. The title song to this EP has turned out to be the main theme in most of my creative projects. It’s almost comical because I get so stressed over huge changes, and then it hits me like, “Oh, duh, I forgot, this is the theme of my life.”
On Friday night I went to see my 2nd Sara Bareilles concert. It was pouring buckets of rain, and I was headed into Boston during rush hour traffic, which took triple the normal drive time. People were driving like Massholes, and I ended up parking far away and walking drenched into a restaurant across from the venue. Meanwhile, I don’t like big crowds, so my patience was very thin. And something in me just snapped. I told my husband I don’t want to live in Boston anymore.
This is not the first time I have felt this snap happen in me. I have felt this snap when I wanted to move from Florida to New York, from New York to London, and from New York to Boston. It’s a very specific snap. Okay, so it’s not just a random, out-of-nowhere feeling. It’s more like the boiling water has finally boiled over. I have disliked Boston for years. Main reasons: Weather and traffic. It’s freezing, grey, rainy, or snowing for like 9 months out of the year and it makes me very depressed. The traffic is also (as I’ve recently found out) the literal worst in the United States because the infrastructure is terrible and people drive like asshats. Yes, it’s cute and New England and foliage and whatever, but the bad outweighs the good (at least, for me).
So when I heard “Uncharted” again, my heart almost stopped. Because it did that magical thing that music does when it pinpoints exactly what you’re feeling and makes you feel understood and supported and validated and loved. Here’s another lyric from the song:
I’m already out of full proof ideas
So don’t ask me how to get started
It’s all uncharted
I felt the weight of saying “I want to leave Boston” lift off of me. Because I realized I don’t need to have a master plan. Who knows how long I will be here or what kind of changes I would need to make in order to move. But the important thing is: Who cares!! It’s okay that I feel like I want a change again. And I don’t have to feel ashamed as if I failed in another city or as if I am creating problems by not wanting to live here. As I titled my first EP, I have always been in a constant state of change, and this is just another one. So I did what I did after my first Sara Bareilles concert. I went home and I wrote a new song. I wrote a song about it being okay to want a change and not know what the plan is. That song is called “The Heart Wants” and I’ve attached the lyrics and very first demo I made below. This is a VERY early version of the song, and I’m excited to see where it goes, but I think in the spirit of sharing where I’m at, I wanted to share the very first demo here with all of you:
Years ago
I made a map
A full-proof X
Would mark the spot
That held the treasure to my soul
A city girl with city goals
The city life would make me whole
Years from then
I rearranged
Realized
I needed change
To a place I hadn’t tried
Find a new way to provide
That could keep me satisfied
I can see the world keeps turning
No matter what I do
I can hear the clock keeps ticking
On and I will too
Nothing stays the same forever
But, hey, that’s nothing new
Oh Oh
The heart wants what the heart wants
And it’s never what you think
The heart wants what the heart wants
And it’s there before you blink
Oh my life has been a
A constant state of change
That’s the only thing I think will stay the same
Now I made
A brand new plan
This time I
Will understand
In all my new maturity
I want old stability
The peace and calm tranquility
I can see the world keeps turning
No matter what I do
I can hear the clock keeps ticking
On and I will too
Nothing stays the same forever
But, hey, that’s nothing new
Oh Oh
The heart wants what the heart wants
And it’s never what you think
The heart wants what the heart wants
And it’s there before you blink
Oh my life has been a
A constant state of change
That’s the only thing I think will stay the same
Oh
I wish had a better plan
But no
A plan would break my heart again
And so
The change will keep on going
And I’ll keep going in the change
The heart wants what the heart wants
And it’ll have it’s way
The heart wants what the heart wants
There’s nothing I can do or say
Oh my life has been a
A constant state of change
That’s the only thing I think will stay the same
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