"Finding your people" from my book "Another Vagabond Lost To Love ✦

"I’m scared because I want to reach people, make them feel and relate and know that they are not alone in anything because I am here and I hear you and I’ve felt it too. Just like those words by those authors that I read, and those songs by those bands that I listen to let me know that I am not alone, and belonging is everything.

Belonging changes everything.

So I’m scared and nervous, because the aim to reach those rare and few people who will understand and listen are out there, I know it, but to get to them I need to pass thousands of others. Thousands of others who won’t understand. Who won’t relate or feel or like what I say and what I do or who I am,

and they are never too busy to let me know that they don’t like what they hear or what they see or who I am

and so I’m scared. Because this album is not just an album to throw words on or dissect——it’s everything I came to see and feel and know and be the last years, and that’s why I’m scared.

So just stop, you might say. Just stop and turn around and keep your songs to yourself, and trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve gone away and turned my back and tried to escape

but see,

I still remember being 16 years old and stumbling upon a song, a poem, a book or an album, and I remember sitting numb on the floor, holding my breath to not miss a single word, because he was speaking straight to me. He was singing straight to me as if to tell me that he understood and I was not alone. And I remember thinking “there are more people like me out there!” and that changed everything. I found my people. My family.

Belonging changes everything.

I remember buying my first guitar and playing until my fingers bled and my voice was sore because I had to know. I had to know if someone out there understood and could relate, to me and myself, and I thought that if I learned how to write clear enough, play well enough, sing loud enough, someone might hear and could let me know that I was not alone."

// Read more about the book and purchase a signed copy at www.CharlotteEriksson.com/another-vagabond-lost-to-love

MUSIC USED IN THIS EPISODE:

www.chillhop.com