Making All Things New

My Little Blue House

There is a song I listened to on repeat when it first came out.

It was called: Making All Things New, by Aaron Espe. Look it up and have a listen.

It was released in 2015. The first time I heard it, my heart ached with a searing pain, which didn’t make sense, because, by all outward appearances, the song is happy.

The lyrics are full of love, and the melody, while not really upbeat, is uplifting.

It is a song about being grounded in a home and a partnership filled with love, and opening to new light and possibility. (My interpretation.)

It begins…

I leave all the windows open
Let the light come through

It is a song that could be described as warm, wistful and breezy.

Yet, to me, it has always been a sad song. More than once I have cried and felt angry listening to it.

I would tell myself that the song tugged at my heartstrings because, at that time, I did not have what the artist was singing about. My relationship was unstable, and I longed to create a home with a partner where I would feel grounded in love, and where I would feel safe to open my heart.

On some level I knew that wasn’t the whole picture, however. There were many other songs I listened to during that period of my life that directly mirrored my experience of romantic heartbreak and longing, and I could tell this ache was something different. It was something that touched a deeper place in me, one I was not yet ready to visit.

Today, it began playing as I was listening to my liked songs on random rotation on Spotify, and, again, I felt that familiar heavy, angry ache in my heart.

As I now have what he is signing about, I could not brush it off as simply triggering personal longing.

I did think, briefly, maybe its just nostalgia - taking me back to that time when the song first moved me - almost 10 years ago now!

But, a deeper knowing surfaced again. This time, I got curious enough to read the artist’s profile. As I did, something inside me began shifting.

The artist was someone who had quit his traditional schooling before completing it to pursue his creative passion - a career in music. He had travelled all over finding ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it”, but, he had stopped when mental health issues made him reconsider the way he was trying so hard to pursue a music career. Now, he is first and foremost a father and a husband, with a large garden that supports his family. He makes his music in between his regular everyday life.

It was not until he settled down and began home recording that he really hit his stride as an artist.

I can relate in many ways to his story.

In 2015, when I first heard this song, I had quit my traditional career as a lawyer, and was finding creative ways to make ends meet while trying to “make it” as a writer and thought leader. There were high highs and low lows, and no real stability in any aspect of my life.

Even back then, some part of me knew that I would not succeed by trying so hard and giving up everything for my dream, but I was not yet ready to admit it.

The fall that inevitably did come felt 100% like failure, and 100% personal, and the heartbreak and despair that followed was dark and deep and all consuming.

Ironically, the thing that got me out of it, was the thing that got me into it in the first place: writing.

It has taken me years of working through resistance to admit that I have to rethink the way I pursue my writing in the public sphere.

The past nine years have been humbling, and healing.

To be honest, I am not really on the other side of the rethinking part.

But I am getting there.

Today, another piece of the puzzle shifted into place.

I now understand the heartbreak underlying this song. I understand the strength and healing it takes to get to a place of being willing and able to create art from a grounded, stable, loving environment, instead of a place of chaos and volatility.

I now understand the ache I felt when I first listened to this song was a kind of kinship and a foreshadowing of the journey my soul knew it was already embarking on.

I have been feeling for some time now the pull to be public more regularly with my writing, and to begin offering writing workshops again.

In order to do that, there is still some healing I need to do. I need to release the remaining heartbreak of the past “tries” that did not work, and the lingering shame and judgment I have towards myself for “failing” to make it big in the all or nothing way that is idolized in our culture.

I need to allow myself to begin again Making All Things New in my creativity.

I need to allow it to look differently. I need to allow myself to create in moments dotted throughout my ordinary, grounded, and stable life. I need to keep my loving partnership and home at the centre of my world, while I step out into the public arena with my creations.

As I expand, I need to remember what Aaron Espe so honestly sings:

Home, where my heart is

Home, where my love lives

Home, my beginning and my end

Home

xo,

Danielle