Florence Welch + the Year of Surrendering to Vulnerability

“But a woman is a changeling, always shifting shape,

Just when you think you have it figured out

Something new begins to take

What strange claws are these scratching at my skin?

I never knew my killer would be coming from within.”

“King” By Florence + the Machine

A year ago I went to see Florence + the Machine in Nashville with my older sister, Annie. It was 90 degrees that night at Ascend Amphitheater. The set began with “Heaven is Here.” The Nashville skyline towered behind the stage, and all at once the loud drums came in, bright red lights flashed and her voice took hold of the city. Instantly, we were pulled in. Her presence reached past the general admission section, past the rows of seats, all the way back to the lawn where we stood and on into the rest of the world. Something, arguably Florence’s witchiness, took over. Normally at concerts I’m overly aware of how I’m dancing or singing and how it fits with the people around me. But that night it was just me and my sister and Florence and the music. Within a song our shoes were off, our bags were sitting on the ground next to them and we were in happy, awe-filled, overwhelmed tears.

I graduated from college in May of 2020. The world was ending and for the next two years I got my ass kicked in my personal life. By last September I was in what can only be described as a passive downward spiral. I was spinning out of control and just watching it happen. I had left a job that was eating my soul and I was still in a relationship that was draining what was left of it. When I got to Nashville to meet my sister, I felt directionless and hoped for anything that might give me a sign. I had been listening to Dance Fever relentlessly since its release. It was one of those magic albums where every song spoke to me and I couldn’t stop going back to find more of myself. On my trip home for Christmas, Annie picked me up from the airport and I eagerly played my favorite songs, which ended up being the entire album. I got to watch in real time as she fell in love with the album, track by track. I didn’t know it at the time, but Dance Fever and Florence Welch would end up being a symbol of transformation for us both. Seeing Florence perform live is nothing short of spiritual. She puts everything into her performance and makes sure you’re right alongside her. That night we danced and jumped and sang and cried more than I maybe ever have. When the concert ended and people started to file out of the park I collapsed. I spread out on the grass, dripping sweat, red with exhaustion, tears still in my eyes and took a minute to soak in the intense feeling of emotional release. We left that night knowing a part of us felt healed in a way we couldn’t quite explain. 

This winter became a sort of exposure therapy in vulnerability for me. I have always been highly emotional but also highly protective of those big emotions. This winter I left my ex and moved out of the apartment with nowhere to go. I spent three months on friends' couches and in their guest rooms trying desperately to figure out where I was going, what I wanted and how the fuck I got into this situation in the first place. Suddenly, I had to let my friends see me in some very raw and messy mental states. I’ve spent most of my life “I’m fine”-ing my way through conversations about how I’m doing. Admitting I needed help and allowing my friends to see me hurting was way harder than I could’ve imagined. But they didn’t run away screaming or start throwing things. They stayed right there with open arms and welcomed me, in all my emotional-hell glory, into their homes.  

Along with my post break-up depression and regular old seasonal depression, January came sweeping in with its yearly curse of absolutely sucking. There’s not a good way to say this. Three friends of mine died in the span of ten days. Not close friends, but they were all close friends of my close friends and way too young to be buried. The strange thing about grief is how it puts everything in perspective, but leaves the present moment feeling completely unreal. I had been going through what I thought was emotional hell just to be smacked with sobering loss. It was staggering. All around me, my friends were crumbling apart. We got used to checking on each other and crying in public and talking about some very dark shit right out in the open. There wasn’t another option, emotions were spilling out everywhere and we had to sit with them or go completely numb. 

At the same time I was going through my breakup, drowning in loss and reevaluating my life, Annie was back home going through her own personal revolution. Seeing Florence + the Machine live had awakened this deep knowing that she wanted to pursue music. Annie went through a particularly hard breakup, and decided to change careers and move to Chicago. In February, after enduring our own dark, lonely, exasperating winters, we moved in together. It took a few months for me to return to a sense of equilibrium. But living with my sister helped instantly. I was back home and hadn’t realized how badly I needed that comfort. Slowly, and clumsily, I crawled out of the woods enough to turn back and see what I’d been through. 

There wasn’t one big stunning golden moment where the sky opened up and I suddenly realized I needed to get my shit together. It was more like the pressure being lowered, the heat turned down, the layers folded back until I finally figured it out. The past three years rolled back through my mind over and over. In every scene I saw the same hot, tall, brunette wielding the sword of self-destruction. There are countless ways I’ve been hiding from myself and numbing the pain and diving head first into escapism. But that sword I’ve been swinging around looks an awful lot like a Miller High Life bottle. I spent the summer having a reckoning with myself. I faced the chaos living in me and had an honest conversation about my relationship with alcohol. I took a break from drinking and discovered all the ways I’ve used it to hide. When I wasn’t drinking, there was no barrier between me and my emotions. I couldn’t numb myself with a shot of tequila, I had to sit there and actually take care of my hurt feelings. When I told myself I was going to take a month off, I didn’t think it’d be so hard. But once the door was open all of this self-discovery came pouring out and I knew I had to change. 

In the span of six months I had changed jobs twice, moved (sort of) three times, went through a breakup and had three friends die. It was like the universe picked me up and started shaking me until I promised to be better to myself. The chaos I had been riding for years seemed inevitable and I got too good at white-knuckling my way out of storms. I took pride in the strength I used to get through hard times. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted if I wasn’t holding on to my list of survived battles. It took years but I finally had the humbling realization that I just want to be happy. So I’ve been on a self-care journey after a long life of self-abandonment. I’ve been drinking less, doing yoga, taking walks, going to therapy and trying to listen to that voice that’s been telling me to ‘slow down and feel.’ It’s been hard, confusing, lonely and I like myself more than I ever have. I’ve changed so much this year I feel like I could walk past last September and not recognize her. 

When I got out of my own way and let myself feel, I started writing again. For the past three years it seemed every time I sat down to write I couldn’t focus, I didn’t want to think about my feelings that hard or spend so much time on something that didn’t immediately have a tangible outcome. I was running in the opposite direction, into oblivion. But now I remember why I got my degree in the first place. Writing is what makes sense to me. When everything is too much, when I feel like I’m incapable and a walking disaster, I can sit down and sort it out on paper. At the concert while introducing “Never Let Me Go” Florence said something that has stuck with me for the past year. (This is paraphrased-) “As an artist I have taken my worst pain and put it into these songs to share with my fans. When I hear them sung back to me, it’s like the pain has alchemized into something beautiful and worthwhile.” 

I’ve been writing for myself since I was going through puberty and taking it out on my Marilyn Monroe journal in middle school. The first thing I ever shared outside of class was a short play I wrote when I was seventeen. It was horrifying. The entire experience made my stomach turn to knots of anxiety. Even after getting my BA in Creative Writing I still feel this weird deep pull against sending in a submission or even showing my work to a friend. In conversation with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Florence talks about the struggle when the private dialogue of an artist becomes public. During the first play of her record Dance Fever, after every song she kept saying that she would probably scrap it. Not because she thought the songs were bad, but because of the overwhelming fear of being so exposed and vulnerable. But as she says “it’s the most vulnerable things that are the most universal.”

This website has been in my mind for years. I told myself I’d start a website for my writing in college and never did. About six months ago I decided it was worth starting a blog, even if no one ever read it. I have spent the past six months fighting off the fearful voice telling me not to be so openly vulnerable. It’s one thing sending fiction pieces out to magazines and being worried people will think I’m a horrible writer. But now I’m facing not only having my writing skills viewed, but also my life and my choices. It’s strange that I’m deciding to do this after a few years of my worst behavior. It seems like bad timing, or maybe it has come to this at exactly the right time. I guess we’ll find out together. 

Let’s start with me being absolutely brutally honest. Publishing this is terrifying. But so was leaving my hometown and quitting my last job and leaving my ex and showing my face again after some particularly messy blackouts. I’ve done a lot of scary, humbling things in my life. For some reason this being a positive thing doesn’t make it much easier. But I’m trying to stop running from myself. So here I am, publishing a lot of very real, very big feelings and hoping it alchemizes into something that connects us, something beautiful. 

“Oh you know I’m still afraid

I’m still crazy and I’m still scared

But if I make it to the stage 

I’ll show you what it means to be spared”

“Morning Elvis” By Florence + the Machine