Journal Entry #9
Punching the fcking lid
7/15/19
25 years old
My old journals are full of poetry and prose and infatuations. The romance I created all around me was a great and efficient way to combat all of the hopelessness and fear I saw and felt. I hope I still have even one half of the blind drive that I had then. I was throwing myself in a direction and just hoping it worked out. I made so many bold claims that life would extinguish shortly after…but I was bold…and I hope I’m still bold. But I was also so tired. So stressed. So scared. All. The. Time.
Should I embrace that again? Do I crave stability and happiness so much that I’m losing my steam or am I just arriving at the place that I’ve been working so hard to get to all of these years? Maybe it’s a little bit of both? I’ve crawled out of the trench on my hands and knees and the hands of those who reached up to guide me. I’ve created doors and windows where there were none and now I’m still walking behind my peers, but I’m fucking walking with them finally. I could afford to take some more risks. I could afford to send more booking emails and produce a little cover EP and allow some controlled discomfort. I used to let my mind consume me and now I’m usually one step ahead of her and I’m less afraid of my mental illness. If I could get out of Wasilla, Alaska what else could I fucking do?
Right now pudding is in cat loaf position with her eyes closed and I can’t believe this is my life. Seven years ago or so I was surprised a man would spend 20 dollars on me and now I’m my own best advocate for myself. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.
- Julia Cannon
6/12/26
I’m turning 33 next month and I’m just now moving from 50-55 hours a week of nannying to 30 hours a week with the family that I’ve been with for about 6 years.
I’m about to have more time for my music…finally.
It’s funny reading this entry from 25 and further affirming that life is essentially just arriving a ledge, looking over, and deciding what to do next over and over and over again. There really is no destination. The target is always moving and the only constant is change.
My whole adult life I’ve been focused on making sure that I would be able to get to this point where I had enough security to work less and music more without shit hitting the fan. I paid aggressively on my private loans after refinancing them and my medical debt because I’m uninsured (weeee) and finished five years worth of very painful dental work and started a Roth IRA and built up an emergency savings account and effectively became the first person in my family to break the cycle of poverty. And STILL…still the irrational fear that I’ll end up right back where I started even though I’ve worked so hard for so long to set myself up with a little safety net.
The last time that I spoke with my advisor Erin from the Financial Empowerment Center, (Nashville’s free program) she told me that I’ve reached a point where it doesn’t actually matter how much money I have stashed away or how prepared I am for a shit storm because I have to confront my financial trauma responses and how they no longer serve me or it’ll never be enough. Damn, Erin. Buy a lady dinner first. Shiiiit.
She’s right though. I’m afraid of the risk associated with leaning into music more. I’m afraid of getting trapped on the hamster wheel of poverty again. There was never anybody who could save me without deeply jeopardizing themselves. I had to become that person for myself. Stakes were high growing up. Like, when on the occasion that I had to ask for help with rent in college, I did so knowing that the gas bill would likely be sacrificed at my moms house that month. It’s really hard to untangle those neuropathways.
I keep bumping up against “I’ve already succeeded relative to where I came from and what I initially aimed to do. Isn’t that enough?” and “I want more but I don’t fundamentally believe that I can actually have it.” Which, I gotta tell ya…is ass. It feels to me like I was born into a box that I’m constantly outgrowing and I’m pushing up against the lid trying to get out, but the box just keeps growing with me.
I want out of the fucking box.
There are so many things that I want to do, that I’ve been dreaming of doing. Simple things…not at all crazy things. But now that I can actually take more steps toward them…now that I’ve minimized the distance between my ass and the curb…I’m UNcomfortable. I don’t quite know how to even imagine a world where I don’t work 50-55 hours a week. Where I have more energy to put toward my art and my craft and my shows. Where I can’t hide behind the limitations that I’ve gotten comfortable with. Because let’s be honest, “I would if I could” feels so much better than “I could but I’m chicken shit.”
Luckily for me, the one thing that I’m certain of beneath the fear and the discomfort and the grief for all of the time that it took to get to a place where I can even have this problem…is that I believe that I owe it to all of the past versions of myself to keep punching the lid of the fucking box.
I’ve never wanted to be famous.
I’ve never wanted to be liked by everybody.
I’ve just wanted more time.
Time to invest in myself. Time to hone my skills. To be able to show up at the gig or the write or the session prepared and rested and be able to be present. TIME. To do one of my favorite things on the planet, and time to go and play more shows out of Nashville and connect with more people.
TIIIMEEE.
I’m about to have it. And I’m freaking out.
-J