Recap: Hi, I’m Laura. I made an attempt at blogging like this before, but honestly, hardly anyone knew it existed, let alone read it. And I realized too late that I could change things if I stopped screaming into the void and started talking to people instead.
My partner, Adam, and I met playing music, and we’re still doing it. I sing, Adam sings and plays guitar. I write lots of songs, and sometimes we write together. But we’ve never so much as played an open mic or anything.
One day, after spending a not-insignificant segment of the Unprecedented Times complaining about not being able to go to any open mics, I said, “What if we just… be a band? Like, a duo?”
That went over okay, so with my disappointment in my blog growing, I suggested calling the band Delicately Off-Balance. We would be able to re-use the domain name, and put up some silly pictures, and just gradually fill it with music.
So that became the plan.
For quite some time, I’d been saving up to record an EP, so all of a sudden that was going to be Delicately Off-Balance’s first recording project, too.
Well, we still haven’t played a show, and we haven’t started recording, but damn are we proud of the songs in our repertoire. Christmas 2020 we wrote and recorded a Christmas song, and the lyric video for that is still the only thing we’ve released publicly, although we did put together a series of isolation songs and send them to a few people.
But through this time, since the changeover, it has felt to me like something was missing. I keep thinking of great topics to write about but have nowhere to put my writings (journalling aside). And yes, I could just journal, and not share these thoughts. But I truly feel like I have something to say. Something that might make the smallest of differences in the world. And I found myself wishing, sometimes, that I hadn’t given up my place to do that.
I struggled for a while, wondering whether I should take back Delicately Off-Balance and re-open my blog. But the band (duo) is very much Delicately Off-Balance in my head now, and I can’t give that up. So I wondered instead whether I should get a second domain name for the blog. But that didn’t seem right either, because, like it or not, my blog was Delicately Off-Balance, too.
Music cue for sudden realization?
This website doesn’t need to be restricted to either the blog or the music. For me, my mental illness and my music are inextricably linked. After all, they share real estate in this skull of mine. They certainly influence one another—my mental unhealth inspires my songs and keeps me from practicing, while the muse of music comforts and frustrates me endlessly, sending my mood up and down with ease.
Adam was, as always, supportive, so here we are with the newest incarnation of Delicately Off-Balance! (cont. soon)