I was shaking inside with it. I sat back on the couch and closed my eyes and just listened. And every time I opened my eyes, I kept expecting to see Mom or Dad sitting on the couch next to me, their eyes closed, too, because if they DID hear this music they would have no choice but to come downstairs and join me in listening.

Something was happening inside me, Jolly. Something real big.

“Terrible Lie” and “Down in It” made me feel like I was electricity, like I was IN the band or at the show or like…like I was one of the instruments they played! Insanely, I believed I knew the members better than I knew myself, which suddenly felt like NOT AT ALL. How was it possible I was relating to something I’d never heard before? This SOUNDED LIKE ME, yet I hadn’t ever heard it. So, who had I been before hearing it? And all while this album was sitting here in the living room, evidence of something like me, and I had no idea.

I felt like I needed a guide. Someone to say, HEY, KIT, THIS IS YOU, HELLO, THIS IS YOUUUUUUU

You pretty hate machine, you.

“Sanctified” blew my mind. I didn’t care about waking Mom or Dad anymore. I turned it up a little and just…FELT it. I sank into the couch and I sank into the song like people sink into baths. YES. JOLLY! It was like I was taking a bath in water that CAME FROM ME. Not from tears, but from sweat. You know? Eyes closed, sweating now, heart pounding, thinking THIS IS ME AND I DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS ME AND HOLY SHIT THEN WHO AM I?

But it wasn’t quite there yet. Panic.

Looking back, I’d say it was in the kitchen maybe, sitting at the table, waiting to get up.

What’s worse, Jolly? Realizing you don’t know yourself? Or realizing it didn’t matter because you could be anyone you wanted to be?

This is it, Jolly. This is when things got scary.

It was during “Something I Can Never Have.” A phrase, not in the song, popped into my head. This was it:

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT WITH YOUR LIFE

Hold up: Remember that magnet I told you about? The one Dad put on the fridge? About how everything you want is on the other side of fear? Yeah, there are a LOT of those magnets in the world. Quotes, all tryin’ to sound smart and all about life lessons, how you gotta treat others like you would be treated and all that. And when you hear these phrases, you just…you just IGNORE THEM. Right? Who thinks “You can do anything you want with your life” and actually…believes it?

It’s just a phrase. A string of words. A magnet.

Right?

Well…not always.

That night it was change.

That night it was revelation.

“You can do anything you want with your life.”

Even now, the words frighten me. Though they’re not new to me anymore. THAT NIGHT they came like an envelope under the front door. Like God had bent at the waist and whispered it in my ear.