I’ve been sit­ting here try­ing to come up with some­thing elo­quent to say. Words you know, are sup­posed to be my thing. Instead I’m left tear­ing up into my san­gria. I’m sad. My heart is heavy because some­one who feels like a friend is hurt­ing. He’s not a friend, but I feel like I know him. Musi­cal poetry can do that to a person.

I’ve almost axed this post a few times. I’m afraid that I’ll come off as an obsessed fan or some­thing so far from the truth.

But then I thought-that’s not what he would do. He would write. Write about what was going on inside his head. Write.

When some­thing good, bad, bor­ing, or remotely inter­est­ing hap­pens to me, that’s what I do. I feel that in some weird hap­pen­stance we’re con­nected that way. Strange I know, because I never thought I would be that type of per­son. To feel con­nected to a “rock star”, yet though his lyrics I do. There is genius in his words. Pure, true, tal­ent. That I think can be a hard thing to live with.Write.

He has writ­ten count­less songs. Songs that reach into your soul and grab you-changing you for­ever. Lyrics like this from Weight of the World,

Well liars they leave a guilty trail.
And let me tell you some­thing peo­ple,
I’ve been lying for fuck­ing years.
That must be why I’m stand­ing in this space.
Dis­re­gard­ing that I’ve cre­ated these mon­sters
they’re on fuck­ing both of my sides,
So I wipe the blood from both of their eyes.
From all four of their eyes.

And while I wait for wounds to heal
I see you by the win­dow sill,
your heart’s torn out
a plas­tic spoon
when hon­esty lit up that room
so I stole the pil­low­case to clean
this mess I’ve made of some­ones dream.
Now you’ve seen what I’ve done,

when the weight of all the world’s gone wrong.
It’s gone wrong again
gone fuck­ing wrong
it’s gone all wrong again.

I’m left won­der­ing if the weight of it all became a lit­tle too much to carry.

If you haven’t guessed I’m writ­ing about Justin Fursten­feld of Blue Octo­ber. The voice of a band that is awe­some in the most amaz­ing way, because their songs can con­nect an entire room. I know this because I felt it. Felt the con­nec­tion with com­plete strangers at their con­cert in August. Felt it as their music flowed through me. Musi­cal poetry.

Their music has also con­nected me to other women I found on Twit­ter of all places. Our com­mon con­nec­tion of being inspired by Blue October’s music has allowed us to con­nect.  You may think it weird but I totally hope to get to meet them in per­son one day. In a per­fect world we’d all meet for cof­fee then head to a Blue con­cert where we’d bop our heads, clap our hands, and scream till our voices were hoarse.

It can hap­pen. Musi­cal poetry can do that.

Blue Octo­ber has can­celled their Pick Up the Phone Tour, because Justin Fursten­feld needs some time to get bet­ter. Accord­ing to yesterday’s press release he’s suf­fer­ing from “extreme men­tal anx­i­ety”. Every time I read those three words I hold my breath and exhale slowly, feel­ing a lit­tle exas­per­ated because I can’t pos­si­bly imag­ine what could cause that… Yes I can. I can imagine-that’s the problem.

“Men­tal health dis­eases are unpre­dictable,” says Fursten­feld. “And on the eve of this tour in sup­port of a cause that means the world to me, I am in need of time to heal from a set­back in my own per­sonal life, which is severe enough for me to seek hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. I hope that my action to seek the strength and safety of treat­ment will inspire oth­ers that are suf­fer­ing to do the same.”

The irony of this is so clear it slaps you in the face. That Justin Fursten­feld, who has been open on a num­ber of lev­els about his bipo­lar dis­or­der has had to seek med­ical help on the eve of a tour that was meant to shine a light on men­tal ill­ness, depres­sion, and sui­cide may actu­ally help peo­ple real­ize in a much more sub­stan­tial way how these prob­lems aren’t just going to go away, and that they really can affect any­one; because they affect him. He who was going to speak at a press con­fer­ence held on Capi­tol Hill about exactly what he is going through this very moment, about what he has gone through.

I’m glad that Justin is seek­ing help-I think it’s impor­tant to rec­og­nize when we need some time to take care of our­selves. I wish him well and can’t wait to find myself in a sea of Blue Octo­ber fans bop­ping my head to their brand of musi­cal poetry.

I’m also imag­in­ing a new album, writ­ten as a cathar­tic expres­sion of this very time.  When the weight of the world isn’t press­ing down upon his shold­ers, when he can breathe it out, on to his crowd because to do so would lift him up.

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