First day going back on tour, I would instantly become numb for a few hours then I would spiral.
Definitely a good idea, I didn’t go straight to Portland after my father’s passing. Part of me feels a bit selfish for even considering to go. Hell, at this moment I feel horrible for being in Washington. I could barely enjoy the fact that I’m actually in the snow. An environment where I would go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the ground next to my window covered in snow.
There’s a strange spiritual warfare going on for my soul I feel currently. I’m trying my best not to retreat to old habits of cutting everyone off and search for alternatives however I feel like everyone wants to hurt me. Friends, I known for a long time doing shady things behind my back. Hurting people. I feel like a failure trying to set an example and be an upstanding role model, but I guess I messed that up. More recent friends, on a second offense. I find myself ask God, what is happening? This is a very unusual storm. My career is on a high and I feel low. I can barely function. I can barely concentrate.
I powered through my performance and workshop and maintain a level of professionalism and transparency. My artistry is built around the idea if brutally honest story-telling, to the point I am definitely aware it may make others feel uncomfortable. On my first album, The MisAdventures Of Chris Siders, the heavy topics surrounding trauma and how that can affect the present in how you may look at yourself turned people away. The horrible violence I endured, and inflected upon others. To the bare bone sensitivity surrounding mental health.
My best friend Megan is worried about my capacity and suggested I find a quiet place as my world has been noisy. How exactly you run from tour own thoughts? How do you silence the intrusive destructive thoughts? Getting to my hotel room at Washington State University I felt a brief moment of peace and tranquillity. Followed by crying profusely. The loud guilt of being away from home. The loud anger of my father’s passing, and distrust towards spirit and friends. The loud shame of understanding and knowing I can always do and be better. The loud sadness. It’s been to the point where I feel my stomach turn. Gotten extreme migraines. Fatigue.
I told Megan, it just seems I’m taking bullet after bullet. My refusal to drop, I feel is going to eventually bleed on others. The day that happens is when I know I truly lost everything. I fear that blood, others wouldn’t be able to wash off. I try to plug the bullet holes as much as I possibly can. Keeping up with each hole is way too much.
The night before my father’s funeral, I screamed loudly with two different friends of mine. To the point I lost my voice. I’m still in that space of needing to scream. I penned up so many emotions.
I came home to quiet place. I didn’t hear my father’s complaint to my dog Charlie’s barking. Him asking me how did it go? Did I have fun? I hugged my mother. I still see the sadness in her eyes. Waiting to breaking down. On the drawer is his old Christmas picture from 2003. I think that was the same year I caught him as Santa Claus.
The following night I hung out with a close friend of mine, and I spoke to her about those times I spiraled in my hotel room. My paranoia. Lack of control. Lack of acceptance for situations. She said, “Something I find interesting is that you are very emotionally intelligent, but you have trouble actually feeling emotions.” The reality of black men feeling emotions is damn near non-existent. The slightest expression of discomfort, disgust, sadness can be misinterpreted as something abrasive. I hate that. I don’t like living like this. I honestly get fearful to release my music because I often express my discomfort in heavy situations I’m in. For example, again, my first album on the second track, “Paranoia”, on the second verse I talk about a guy I knew who committed the act of SA towards a friend of mine. I gotten the news when I was homeless. My immediate reaction was beat the living shit out this guy. She given me the power to do anything I want with the situation. At the time, I over-thought and was scared because I don’t want to put her in a potentially dangerous situation all over again if he got word he got reported. 9/10 police never do shit too. Honestly, to this day, it’s on-sight him anywhere in LA. I thought I seen him early last year. I’m still upset.
I live with several extreme situations such as that everyday. Several. No one really knows that dark side because I don’t show it often outside of my artistry. Even within my artistry it’s a rarity it’ll show up. The approach I would take as a teenager cannot be the same I would take as an adult. The toolbox must be updated upon each situation, each event, each interaction, if not what exactly I’m doing? I have to challenge myself. I feel my issue is challenging myself at a pace.
In this discussion surrounding paranoia, I realize, I develop an expectation for others to help me out as much as I would help them out. My grief counselor after giving me modality techniques told me to watch the energy I give others. I love assisting. Its a natural instinct. An instinct if I were to review in its most rawest form, has historically put me in danger.
This is something I can control. A tool that needs to be updated.
The counselor within that technique asked me to envision a happy place or a place of peace. I stressed out trying to find one. The one I did find was in relation to my father: video games. My dad got me into video games heavily as a child. Some of the best times. I actually utilized video games as a way to escape the world. I told this to my friend as well.
A year ago, MarKing asked me if I can tell a younger Chris anything what would be? I said that the world isn’t out to get you. Fast forward a year later, the question became, “If you had the opportunity to comfort a younger Chris what would you do?” I didn’t have an answer. I wouldn’t know what to do honestly. I cried at my answer to that. I feel in many ways I failed my inner child.
The comfort question stemmed from a situation of when I was robbed at 12 years old. The emotion I could identify at that time, as a child was loneliness. Feelings of being misunderstood. Being black and being labeled as weird for being into other things that are deemed “not black enough”, video games and anime being a couple of them.
Yesterday, me and my brothers had a short discussion on mortality and control. Our anger as kids was to punch a hole in the wall. I remember those times where I done that and broken my phone. A bad night of when I had S.I. resulted in scaring the hell out of my sophomore year college roommate. The friend that endured the SA had saved my life that night. Took me to the hospital.
The character development as my brothers put it from “boys to men” is astounding in every way. If others see it or not. Life will force you to grow up. The pending resentment anger, sadness and grief must be transitioned safely. When I speak of Legacy, I admire the blueprint on the business end. How did one get from point A to point B? Life is getting more demanding so it's difficult to attend to these emotions. Even the happy ones, like yo I'm going to Canada in April. I should be ecstatic but i'm not. I feel stuck.
The blueprint legacy of understanding how to evolve as a human I feel has yet to be discussed. I remember at my father's funeral one of my older brothers expressed they wished to live their life differently. I thought about Evan, a brother of ours that passed away in 2020 due to drug overdose. If the world ever gave him a chance to express and hearing him out. Hell, if things would've been different if I gave him the chance to express and hear him out if things happened differently.
Happy Belated Birthday Evan. Rest In Peace.
