Man. I remember a few weeks ago…words were just the hardest thing to come by. They just…they weren’t there. My brain, my mind, my thoughts…they weren’t connected. And they certainly weren’t speaking any truths to my hands.
But lately, these most recent days, the words are right there. They’re all just right there. I feel connected to them, they make sense, and they’re flowing.
So, I do this thing, and it’s a flaw of mine for sure, where I don’t finish things that I love. Shows, food, whatever it is. The more I love it, the more I just don’t want it to end. So I don’t finish it. It drives my husband insane.
Sidebar, giving my favorite guys their credit
When it’s an album as important as this one, we tend to want to journey together. With others who care as much as we do. We love YouTuber Crypt, so we chose to journey with him and react with him. If you want a live first reaction to the full album, this is where to go.
And if you want entire full breakdowns of every single song in detail, one by one, you need to head Knox Hills way. He breaks down every single word. And he’s amazing at it. And I’ve spent a shameful amount of hours diving deep into songs that he breaks down.
Okay, resuming actual writing
It took me up until last night (okay, it was technically super early this morning) to finish Eminem’s album. I knew his one song, Temporary, where he was talking directly to his daughter about his potential/future death would make me cry. Shit, it made everyone cry.
I took a break from listening to the album after that. And I re listened to the rest of it, from the beginning up until (but not including) that song, over and over. Tracks 1-14.
Well, last night we committed to finishing it. I told my husband (who hadn’t heard Temporary yet) that he’d cry. I’d cry. We’d all cry. And we did.
But we continued.
And then we got to the end. The last song.
And I’m already emotional at this point. Because the album has come to a head. It’s telling a story. A really fucking brilliant story about this struggle. And at its core, it’s about internal conflict. Being who you want to be, making some questionable choices along the way, but ultimately…good winning out.
The whole album speaks to it. This narrative of good vs evil. Good guy vs bad guy. Who is making the choices, who is saying all of the controversial, hurtful things? Not being the person you want to be. How he fed the addiction too much and it got too strong and overtook him.
But then we get to the end. The last song. Number 20.
I knew Jelly Roll was on the track, but that’s all I knew about it. And I was absolutely not prepared for the emotional breakdown I had at 12:30am this morning.
It’s written from the perspective of what happens if he doesn’t get sober. How his life will continue to fall apart. Everything he’ll miss out on. Hurting the people he loves the most. Missing out on his daughters growing up. Missing their weddings. Graduations. Their own kids. The most brutal consequences that come from staying in addiction.
How you have to be saved even from yourself because you just know you’re too far gone, you know you’re too deep into it.
I went in blind listening to this song for the first time. And I just fucking cried. A lot.
It hit me in a way that I just didn’t even know we were going there.
He did do it. He overcame it. Addiction. His alter ego, his “evil, bad guy” persona.
It’s just…it’s so desperately where I want to be in life.
Shit.
This entire album has been just everything. It’s everything that l’ve been feeling. This internal battle between two parts of yourself. One that you KNOW is evil, bad, whatever. And knowing you have to kill it because all it’s doing is getting you into trouble. Knowing what you’re missing out on. Living in the regret while not changing it. Hating yourself for it. But that isn’t you. And you have to overcome it.
And then you do. You kill it. You overcome it. And the narrative changes. The narrative fucking changes.
It’s just…it all is a lot right now. The timing of everything is a lot. The power that it all holds is a lot.
Damn. I feel like I can’t even walk into therapy tonight unless she’s gone ahead and listened to this whole album top to bottom and dissected it the same way I have. Which, of course, she very likely did not do lol. But I mean…it just hits in a really deep and powerful way.
It matches up so amazingly with my own timeline. I’ve been listening and identifying with Em specifically since I was what, 13, 14? Over half of my life. I’ve seen myself in his struggle. I wrote about it a few days ago. And it continues to hit me this hard.
I grew up seeing myself in his own struggles. And that’s honest. I shared a lot of the struggles he wrote about.
But now he’s writing about his successes.
Maybe it’s time I can see myself in his successes too.
Somebody save me
Me from myself
I’ve spent so long livin’ in hell
They say my lifestyle is bad for my health
It’s the only thing that seems to help…