Ep 23 - Manifesting a Partnership + Painted

This episode is all about what it took for me to find lasting love. This is the song Painted's Song Journey.

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Transcript

This song took a year to write. It was 2011 and at age 27, I had already been dating for 10 years. I wrote the words and tried so hard to find a melody for it. Nothing came. I collaborated with a friend of mine named Zach who tried to help me find a melody for it. Nothing came. After trying and trying, I decided not to force it. I put it away. A year later I pulled it out of my burgundy unfinished songs folder and the magic just happened. The song and the melody came together effortlessly and I could not stop playing it.

I feel like there’s always this question that people have, which is, how do you know when you’ve actually found love? What does it feel like? Am I making the wrong choice? There's often fear attached to love because we’ve all either been burned or seen somebody else be burned by loving someone else. 

I had already had two relationships in my life   where I really hoped that they would lead to marriage, but didn’t. I felt pressure from my religion and family to marry as soon as possible, but getting an education was my priority. Even still, I took some of the pressure on. 

When I was 21, I met a guy who I fell really hard for. We had the best time together. I loved his mind, his ambition, being with him, how attracted I was to him, and he was incredibly thoughtful. It took me six years to move on from him. He was about six and a half years older than me and told me the age gap was too big for him. Now that I look back, I have more perspective on that relationship, but at the time it was very difficult to process and took me many years to move on. I wrote a song called letting go during that time to encourage myself to   move on from him. It’s linked.

By the time I wrote Painted, I had been wondering how to know what love looks like. What does it feel like? How can I care so much for someone and they not care for me back? It doesn’t make sense, especially when it feels so good and right for me. How can it be so wrong for him? 

So how do you know love when you see it? I’ve seen a lot of women in my family get into relationships where their voice was not important. I’ve had friends feel that they were doing most of the work in the relationship when it came to kids and family. I knew what I didn’t want that and was trying to identify what I did want. I knew I would rather be single than in a miserable marriage I knew I wanted someone who was a team player, had initiative to do things that obviously needed done. I wanted someone I had fun with. I used to have a really long list of the things I wanted in a partner. Over time, that list got smaller and smaller and smaller because I realized I was being too specific. I wanted only a couple things. Someone I loved to be with and someone who treated me and others kindly. I stayed away from anyone who had addictive practices, knowing that if they did, they needed to do the healing before getting into a relational with me. A free and clear mind was really important to me. 

October is a magical month, with autumn coming on, and my birthday in the midst of summer‘s goodbyes and winter’s beckoning. I love the leaves color pallet and unique fingerprint of every sunset. Painting has always been something I enjoy as a rare pasttime. The amount of time I spend on painting ebbs and flows, depending on what I’m doing in my life and what I’m focusing on. I'm known to gift my paintings because it’s one way I can create and then give that creation away. Handmade gifts are always more meaningful to me.

I once heard someone relate painting to family life, so I related it to partner love. With every stroke, the painting is more itself.  With every act of kindness, conflict resolution, thoughtfulness, genuine regard, and interest in the other person, a relationship is painted. Two people are literally creating their masterpiece or their scrap. The way I began to see it after reading books and seeking out mentors, is that if both people can easily move on from a conflict after communicating and working through it, that’s special. Every relationship will have conflict, which is nothing more than seeing something from different perspectives and then trying to figure out how to come to a place together from those two perspectives. Certainly if there’s fighting going on with words, emotions, or physically, that’s an automatic red flag. Everyone deserves basic human respect and love. 

Painted was my poetic way to describe how I hoped I would feel in a relationship. When I look up at an endless blue sky and feel liberated and open, I want to feel that in a relationship. I don’t wanna feel closed off or constrained, insecure or held back. Relationships require attention and nurturing, but if it becomes an energy drain, that’s something to explore so that each person is getting what they need. 

I will say that if I were rewriting this song 11 years later, it would be a love song to myself. It would be fully and beautifully embracing myself in all of my shadows and light. It would be me knowing that I was sufficient and did not need somebody else to make me whole. I didn’t truly feel that inside until about three years later when I moved to Boston on a whim. That was when I embraced being alone and single, feeling genuinely happy. I no longer needed somebody to fill the gaps inside of me. I could fill the gaps myself by learning more about myself and by fully loving myself and trusting myself. I slowly began to believe that I am my highest authority and that I have the answers for me and my life. I would also add that I do believe we have the inner strength to get to where we’re going, but never we get there alone. Someone inspired us, or gave us a kind word, appreciated what we made. In ways we often don’t recognize, our light becomes brighter with the bits of light people generously give along our path.

Six months after Fell Apart happened. Make sure you listen to that story and song. I was loving my new life on the East Coast. Two months after I got to Boston, I met a guy named Nick. After a month and a half of being friends, I played Painted for him, along with a few other songs. A week later, we were out for a chilly evening walk in the neighborhood where I lived. We stopped where there was light. He pulled a letter out of his pocket. He asked if he could read it to me. At the end he said, “I hope to paint your life pretty like October sunsets.” Not only did he quote my song, which completely melted my heart, but he wrote me a letter and read it to me and then kissed me. We married the following October and this month we celebrate our 8th anniversary. Every day I am grateful we found each other. I love the story of how we met. Part of that story is in the song and story of I’m Yours. Be sure to listen.

Painted was the first song I produced professionally in a studio. It was in the top three of the most transcendent experiences of my life. I loved producing this song and I love all of the ethereal vocals that I added as part of the background sound in the song. I would be in the studio and just jump around and twirl and laugh with giddiness. It just came together so nicely and so easily. This has become a favorite and most requested song of mine. For many years, it was the strongest connection to what I could not see. Music takes me to another realm in a way I can’t really explain, but I suppose the best way to say it is that it helps me makes sense of life. 

I have another really funny story about him getting me a birthday cake and putting my lyrics on it. I need to figure out what I’m going to tell you that story because it definitely needs to be told. 

With every step forward and every stroke and every learning, we paint our lives pretty like October sunsets. And if you are looking for a person that you want to spend your sunsets with, love and trust yourself. Make your path a beautiful journey that you can invite someone else to join you on. Your gratitude and joy will be magnetic. You’ll know when you want to walk alongside someone on your life journey. Much like the song and how it came together, we don’t need to force things. It’ll come together and it will feel right to you. 

Like an endless blue sky, you free my soul,

I breathe as if it’s my first breath,

Somehow you make me whole.

Like a shooting star, I’ll only see once,

Penetrates me with pure delight, 

Can’t even sleep at night.

Cuz you paint my life pretty, 

Like October sunsets,

The canvas complete, 

With your smile so sweet. 

Guitar that grows old

And needs to be tuned,

You've changed out the strings 

And made a new tune, 

Like a dirt-stained window 

My vision was blurred,

You've cleaned off the glass,

Revealing the hope that was blurred. 

Cuz you paint my life pretty, 

Like October sunsets,

The canvas complete, 

With your smile so sweet.  

They say you don't need, 

Anyone to succeed, 

Although I agree, 

I'd like you alongside of me. 

Cuz you paint my life pretty, 

Like October sunsets,

The canvas complete, 

With your smile so sweet. 

There's so many times we all get knocked down, 

Inspired by you, it's sure nice to have you around, 

Cuz you paint my life pretty, 

Like October sunsets,

The canvas complete, 

With your smile so sweet.