"Get Out of This House"

On a day like the one I am having, I would say it has been bad. It is hard to focus, and be 100 percent in public, which affects my work, and my relationships with other people. The world around me is like a fog, thick and never-ending. On this particular day I listen to depressing music that I know I will make me tear up. Melancholy music is my kryptonite and my healer.

A few of my favorite artist to listen to are Priscilla Ahn, Ingrid Michaelson, Hozier, Band of Horses, Lord Huron and Shawn Colvin. I even took the time to make a playlist in my iTunes of all my sad songs for a day just like this one. The feeling of relief after shedding a few tears washes over me, but the thought of why I torture myself every time I have one bad day out of many good days.

This single thought spirals me into another set of questions that follows another question. Before I know it, I am laying on my bed not able to answer any of the questions. It is like when I get a little bit of heartburn, and my chest feels tight. My throat is stuffed with cotton, and I try to clear my throat to get whatever is causing the blockage. The answer to the questions are pieces of cotton inside my throat.

Shawn Colvin, an American singer-songwriter and musician, has a song called, “Get Out Of This House” on her A Few Small Repairs (1996) album. The whole album is wonderful and I love all of the songs. “Get Out Of This House” is just one of the songs that have really touched a part of me.

When I first listened to the song, I thought Colvin had a troubled childhood and is trying to change for her own sanity. My adult mind turns this theory into a sample of what mental illness can do, while selfishly remembering my own set of illnesses. At some point in the song, she says that spent many years in a “hot house zone,” and spent more time trying to get home. She continues to say that she has not come back to her original home, but she has made her own home.

I am a very sensitive person. It only takes a few careless words at a social event to make me fall back in the hole in my heart. In my own interpretation of the song, my “hot house zone” is my own mind, the one place that lies and cheats me, but I am content to stay there. I sleep there on a “bad” day, while melancholy music notes dance around like stars.

In the same song, Colvin says it took her seventeen years to try and save her soul and spent twenty-three “more down in a hole.” She continues to say that her soul is alright, but she is stuck in the house that she created in the end. At this point of the song, I am tearing up, crudely singing along.

The thought of this section of the song makes my mind wander away. I see a small, four-walled home with three, red windows. The door is painted the same red color. I see an older woman sitting on a stool in an unfurnished room. She turns to each window in the stool and waits to see if there is anything new outside the four walls. She stops to stare at the red wood door, hoping to see the brass handle jiggle open, realizing the door from its lock. The woman is not deformed or fading away. She is a solid form, her heart pumping and brain ticking on. The sad part is that she is fine with waiting for change or someone to open the red door.

With my mental illnesses, I become that older woman sitting there, waiting. I am waiting to see if I will get better without any effort. The world is too big and life is too unsure, I think on a constant loop in my head. The door means I can open it by myself, but I wait for someone to do the leg work for me. I am not a damsel in distress, but someone who needs a true friend.

I am scared that I will tell this person to get out of this house.