Daughter came to me from my daughter. I think she heard one of their songs in a film, but I’m not quite sure. I devoured their EP Wild Youth, and have been a fan of theirs ever since. I’ve been re-reading (listening) to God-Shaped Hole (by Tiffanie DeBartolo) this week, and the conversation between Beatrice and Jacob about everyone’s “God-Shaped Hole” resonated more with me than any other time I’ve read the book.

“We’re all searching for something to fill up what I like to call that big, God-shaped hole in our souls. Some people use alcohol, or sex, or their children, or food, or money, or music, or heroin. A lot of people even use the concept of God itself. I could go on and on. I used to know a girl who used shoes. She had over two-hundred pairs. But it’s all the same thing, really. People, for some stupid reason, think they can escape their sorrows.”  – Jacob Grace

I was listening to a playlist afterward, while I pulled reports at work this morning, and Daughter’s song “Medicine” came on. Something about the song and the quote above weaved together and sewed itself (themselves) into me. Is there really any kind of medicine that actually helps anyone? Can a person be medicine for another person? Is love enough to heal another person? Is love enough to fill that “God-Shaped Hole” we all have inside of us? Can love make you happy? Can it make someone else happy, even if that someone else is so deeply unhappy?

“Medicine” by Daughter
from the EP, Wild Youth (2012)
Song of the Day

“You could still be,
what you want to be,
what you said you were,
when you met me.
When you met me.”

I’m not big on God or the concept of. I’ve spent a lot of time studying him, and the concepts of. More time than I may have chosen for myself (years in parochial school will do that). I’m still not quite sure what I believe in, in the God regard. But, I do believe in love, and hope, and in finding your bliss and hanging on to it. I believe I found the love I want to have in my life forever, and beyond (if there is a beyond). I believe I found the bliss I started to doubt existed, the love I thought was not possible, at least not for me. It makes my heart soar. It gives me flapping butterflies in my stomach, racing heartbeats when I’m near him, and desire that is like nothing I’ve ever felt. I feel so much joy its hard to contain.

I want to say “I love you” all the time.

I do say it all the time.

In the midst of all that joy and desire and extraordinary love is a vulnerability I’ve never experienced. A vulnerability I’ve never allowed myself to experience. The walls I built around me have been under-construction since I was a small child. Walls that were impenetrable.

Until now.

He managed to knock them down. Our love knocked them down. And inside is me. Scared and younger than my years, gooey and soft and emotional, fragile in many ways, but happy nonetheless. And so in love. I’m not used to all these emotions though. I’m not used to tears that seem to come so fucking easy. I’m not used to not being strong and controlled, with the proverbial one foot on the ground (or out the door). I’m not used to loving like this, wanting like this, needing like this.

It’s all worth it though. The happiness I feel, the extraordinary love, the hope and belief and joy, it is enormous and beautiful and worth everything. But, he’s in pain and sad and some days he seems to be disappearing in front of me. I grab on tighter to keep him with me. I try to love all the hurt and sad and worry away. I try to do anything I can possibly think of to help. I try to bring back the happiness he seemed to have when we met. In those first days. Those first weeks. I try to search my memories to think of what I gave to him then, what was present, that helped more. I try to recapture it.

I’d take all the pain on myself if I could. Every ounce of it. I’d honestly do anything to help him. But, most of the time, there is nothing I can do. Sometimes that hurts. Sometimes it makes me feel very alone and scared and sad. And when that happens it’s like some god-damn virus that spreads to him, making his sad and worry and hurt worse. It applies pressure on top of things that are overwhelming him and seeing that hearing it, watching it happen hurts me more. The hurt surrounds us and tightens around us, like a constricting snake, and we have to work our way back out again. To each other. With each other.

We do it though. We make it through.

Most nights we find a way to connect. And when we do, those moments are everything. They are what I saw in our first exchange of words, in that first moment I saw him, that first embrace, that first kiss, the first time we said “I love you”, when we’ve held each other while music played, when we’ve laughed together, and every time we’ve made love since the first time.

Maybe all that is medicine enough. Maybe we are medicine enough. Maybe, with enough time, with all the love that we have in our bodies, and souls, with enough belief, maybe that is the medicine he needs. Maybe its the medicine I need, too. I don’t know.

All I know for sure is that I love him. I bigger than love him. And I’m not ever going to stop. I’m never going to give any of this up. Not a moment of it. Not ever. I just hope I can find a way to fill that “God-Shaped Hole”, for lack of a better description, in him. That I can fill it, and build a bridge across the chasm that it creates between us. That I can knock down his walls now, the ones that seem to be growing. That I can love enough, believe enough, hope enough and impart joy enough to make a difference. To him. That he knows, without a doubt, how much he means to me.

I’m never going to stop trying.

“Medicine” (live) by Daughter