I think it is very important that people accept who they are and live congruently with that, instead of trying to be who they are not. Personally, I know what it feels like not to accept myself. I did it for years. In fact, it almost feels like this 365 Day Blogging Project has been a turning point, where perhaps for the first time I am truly coming to accept myself 🙂
One of the songs I wrote this year is called “Never Belonged.” This song resulted from a conversation I had a few months ago with someone from my past. This person reminded me of an era of my life where I tried my best to fit into a situation that didn’t work for me. I was trying to be someone I thought I should be, rather than be myself. I can honestly say that I never belonged in that situation, and I paid the price for ignoring this. I was extremely uncomfortable and unhappy until the day I finally had the courage to remove myself from the unworkable situation.
This is not the only time I had this experience. Multiple times in my young adulthood, I found myself in a similar position: somewhere I didn’t want to be, with people I didn’t want to be with. Perhaps it was the need to look good, and the hope of getting someone else’s approval, but I pretended to be what I was not, and I denied the truth for as long as I could. Ultimately, reality caught up with me, and fortunately, in each situation I ultimately stopped lying to myself and then made changes to my life for the better. These have been some of my biggest growing experiences, and apparently it was time for a song to come through me about it.
Here is a recording of me singing it a week ago:
I’m printing the lyrics here:
“Never Belonged”
by Chris Goslow
VERSE:
The day that I met you
It seemed you could do no wrong
Ask any question, you had the answer
Maybe that’s why I let you
Talk me into going along
I guess I thought you knew better, you always seemed sure
So I gave it a good run
Trying not to let you down
Digging my heels in for the long haul
Maybe happiness would come
As long as I stuck around
I was half convinced that I would never fall
Until I hit the wall
CHORUS:
Cuz Not a force on earth could close the
gap between us,
Not a ray of light from the sun
could span the distance,
Not a shooting star at night could make that
wish come true,
That’s how I knew I never belonged with you
VERSE:
So I prayed to be strong enough
To make it all work out
No matter what I fought the good fight
But nothing was ever enough
to be worth all the pain and doubt
There was no way to make this wrong seem right
And it kept me up at night
CHORUS
Rap Verse:
That’s right, now I know I never belonged,
Feeling so strong inside of me that this was wrong,
but I was so far gone, inside the weeds, deceived,
needed to heed the voice that guided me to write this song,
But first I guess I had to go through that experience
of weariness and very intense dispirited-ness
before hearing any of it, make a new decision with happiness as my mission, a vision that come into full fruition
only after many painful collisions
‘gainst the walls of this prison that I made myself live in
Those strange inhibitions made me behave so indifferent
until I came to my senses and said, “No way, man, I quit this.”
It was never about you, it was about what I went through
to stop kidding myself and face the truth,
you were a blessing in disguise, helped me get wise
the day that I finally realized that…
CHORUS