Avett Brothers – One Foot In, One Foot Back

Feeling like you don’t belong can be one of the most awful feelings a person can experience. Beyond the hormone-driven teenage years when young adults are desperate to fit in while trying to assert their identity separate from their parents, seeing oneself as the square peg in a round hole can be very painful. The Avett Brothers seem to be alluding to this familiar and very human circumstance in the following lines:

I wanna fit in to the perfect space,
feel natural and safe in a volatile place.

It is truly a gift to be able to be yourself with no need to edit your words or to act in a way that is expected. Not having to be on guard when you’re around others frees you to express the uniqueness that makes you, you. Part of this magic is created when you surround yourself with people who are willing to accept you, quirky warts and all. People who stand by you in your dark times as well as your triumphs are the ones Scott seems to be singing about.

I wanna have friends that I can trust,
that love me for the man I’ve become not the man I was.
I wanna have friends that will let me be
all alone when being alone is all that I need.

But another essential ingredient is that you have done the work within yourself and have reached a place in your life where the opinions of others no longer affect your self-regard. This common teenage malady of low self-esteem is what causes so many of us to follow the crowd and make decisions that often end up scarring our souls. These are the weights that can be carried for the rest of our lives if the inner work is not done. This means that you can have the most compassionate and supportive friends in the world but if you still feel like there is something wrong with you, the ease of fitting in will never materialize. Alternatively, you can be the most enlightened person but being surrounded by people who don’t value you (i.e. assholes) can also create discomfort and unhappiness.

I can’t help but think of all of the colleagues that I have worked with throughout my multi-district career as a teacher. Unlike most elementary teachers, I didn’t get hired by one district and work there for my whole career. I have worked in private, public, urban, suburban, and even rural districts for over 28 years. There was always a short period of time where I struggled to find my place in each new school. But I have been very blessed by the friendships I formed in each of the schools. The people who went out of their way to make me feel welcome in each new position are the ones with whom I still am in communication. When we get together, it is as if no time at all has passed. This is the gift of belonging, and it is one of the many gifts from God for which I am so grateful.

Of course, the opposite is also true. There are people who accepted me when I was “one of them”. But as soon as I spread my wings to go onto my next adventure, it was as if I never existed. I don’t just mean falling out of touch. Life is busy and as we grow older everyone has a hard time staying in touch with even the best of your friends. What I have found to be most disappointing is bumping into former colleagues and finding that we have nothing left to talk about. Over the course of 15 years I changed from a people-pleasing, “suburban wife” wannabe who took approval from the “in crowd” as a sign of success to a sarcastic, sometimes cynical, new age hippie who has learned to not judge people by their appearance nor their zip code but by their actions. Always being the single girl in a crowd of married folks with babies used to make me feel “less than” but that was down to me and my self-esteem. No, what really bothers me now is that some of the people who I used to swear would be friends for life now just look at me blankly like they have no idea who I am. My true friends (and many still are married folks with babies) don’t care that I read tarot cards, listen to music that is rarely played on the radio, have tattoos, or post way too much on facebook. They accept me for who I am today, and more importantly, I accept myself for the person I have worked so hard to become.

I wanna have pride like my mother has,
And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad.

Once you develop that pride in who you are and what you will and won’t stand for, then true belonging can take place. The next time you find yourself feeling like you don’t belong, ask yourself two questions:

Am I judging myself harshly about something? Is this situtation triggering some childhood hurt that still needs healing? If so, try to ignore the immediate discomfort but then work on the issue that is leading you to feel badly. This isn’t an easy process but it is one that give you access to a much more peaceful life.
Am I surrounded by assholes? If the answer is yes, get the hell away from them. If not, revert back to question 1.

I wish for you all to attain the inner knowledge that you are worthy and to always be surrounded by people who are open to your uniqueness. That really is the perfect space.

This is one of those songs that fans love to argue about. Some insist it is about an addiction journey taken by one of the brothers. Others insist it is about an illicit affair and the way back to his marriage vows. Scott wrote it and will only say that it was a significant day in his life that he won’t talk about. That ends the discussion as far as the writer in me is concerned. But it didn’t stop me from wanting to write about the inspiration I get from it.

Going by what little Scott has said about this song, it’s evident this was a day which is etched in his memory. He sings about a critical dark memory with such clear focus:

I was on the mend when I fell through.
The sky around was anything but blue.
I found as I regained my feet
A wound across my memory
That no amount of stitches would repair.

We all have days like that, days that we either remember with glorious joy, cringing regret, or deep despair. These days need no special stickers on the calendar or email reminders sent to bring the details back to mind. This song has brought some of my personal dates to mind. September 6th, 2000, is a day I will always remember as the day I first met my beautiful niece. I was starting a new job and was at meetings all day. I kept looking at my phone to see if she had arrived. I was sure that I would hear by lunch time and when I hadn’t, I started to get nervous for my sister who had been in labor since about 5:30 in the morning. I found out around 3:00 that she had finally given birth. I was driving from Latham to Albany in such a giddy daze because I was finally Aunt Franny.

Another date that I will always remember is May 15, 2013 which is the day my father died. I had just visited with him earlier that day and had witnessed him saying goodbye to his brother and brother in law. He asked me to leave the room so I don’t know exactly what was said but I do know that even as I fed him some of his italian ice, I had convinced myself that he would hold on for at least a few more days. I was wrong. When the phone rang and I saw the hospital name come across the screen, my hands shook as I listened to the nurse tell me that my father had taken a turn for the worse and that I needed to bring my mother back to the hospital (she had just left less than an hour before). He was already gone before we got there.

One last date that I can recall easily is January 8, 2016. It was the last day I worked in a district that hadn’t treated me too well as an employee. I have written about falling out with the administrator of that building and I was so eager to leave and start over in a new (old) district. I was finally returning to teach the primary grade students that I had so missed. As eager as I was to leave, it was with mixed emotions. I was leaving some very good friends and colleagues who I still miss to this day. I had also just heard about another colleague from another building who lost his wife unexpectedly a few days before and that was devastating to hear. Now that I was leaving the district, I felt like I was abandoning this person at such an important time in his life. It ended up being a very somber and wistful day where I was unsure of the future. I still can feel the melancholy every year when this day pops up in the beginning of a new year.

But what about those days that are just as significant yet carry no memory of a specific date? Surely, those days are just as important to our personal history? For instance, I don’t remember the date of the conversation I had with my father when I asked him if he was willing to pay for me to study abroad in England. I was 90% sure that he was going to say no and can remember my heart beating so fast as I made the decision to ask him. He was driving me in his truck, and we were at a stoplight. As I felt my heart jump to my throat, I finally asked the question that would end up not only changing the course of my junior year in college but also the course of my life. His surprise “Yes” had me walking on clouds for many months (it also irritated my mother to no end because she was dead set against it). It ranks right up there with the birth of my niece as one of the best days in my life yet I couldn’t even tell you the month.

Another mental souvenir from my past evokes regret when I recall it. A summer romance I had ended when my partner went off to college. I decided to surprise him with an unannounced visit. A good friend went with me, and we managed to track down his dorm and heard his guitar playing coming from behind the door (always a sucker for a musician). I knocked on the door anticipating our sweet reunion, calling out his name excitedly…and he never answered. He just stopped playing and pretended like he wasn’t there. I was mortified but also a bit naive. It just didn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t he open the door? Maybe he was sick? What if his depression had returned? I came up with every lame excuse I could think of to explain his silence. My more perceptive friend gently told me that he probably wasn’t anticipating me being on campus, and he may have had someone with him in the room. My heart was shattered, and I was silent the whole ride home. I was devastated by his callousness and started shielding my heart in a way that haunted me for years. While it doesn’t rank with losing my father, it does represent one of many times that I’ve had a man totally abandon me with no explanation. Again, it might have been September or it could have been January. The exact date is lost in my emotional memory.

The day you get married…the birth of your first child…the death of a significant other. These are all days that have a fixed date attached to them because of the obvious way your life was changed. I would like to argue that we have many more events in our mind’s eye that are equally transformational. They are so momentous that parts of ourselves are changed forever. Our wide-eyed view of the world can be changed in the amount of time it takes for a father to say yes or the man you love to ignore you with silence. These are moments that need no date attached to lend them gravitas. What we do know is that our essence was changed either for the better or the worse from that point on. So, we do what Scott sings about in the chorus:

There’s no fortune at the end of the road that has no end.
There’s no returning to the spoils
Once you’ve spoiled the thought of them.
There’s no falling back to sleep
Once you’ve wakened from the dream.
Now I’m rested and I’m ready
To begin.
I’m ready to begin.

When you think about those dateless memories of your life, especially the painful ones, try to be gentle with yourself. Take a deep breath, focus on what it taught you, and be grateful that you are now evolved and further down the road of life. Remember that every day is a chance to begin anew. Don’t allow others to tell you how you should or shouldn’t feel. And never feel pressured to explain those feelings to anyone unless it will serve to help you heal. I hope Scott never reveals the events behind these lyrics. Having the gift of this song is enough explanation for me.

Category: Avett Brothers

The Perfect Space

February 7