The Paradox of Blooming Late
How grief, illness, and neurodivergence transformed my art
Content Note: Discusses disability, chronic illness, autism, self-worth struggles, aging, and includes artistic nudity.
I’m a 37 year old musician, and my debut album is coming out in 2 weeks (listen here). The feelings are paradoxical in that I feel simultaneously not where I thought I would be but also in a place I could have never imagined. On one hand, I thought I’d be farther along in my career at this age. As a teenager, I imagined I would have “made it” by now. On the other, my mind, my insides, my emotional character, my spirit is in a place more at peace than teenage me with her inner world in turmoil could have ever imagined.
People who debut later in life are always listing off these same fellow artists who also “got started late” or didn’t find their calling til later in life. And I’m glad we have them as a reminder it’s never too late to change, to grow, to start out a path you’ve dreamt of. I can’t relate as a Capricorn though. I didn’t get started late at all. I’ve been that goat climbing up the same mountain since I was 15 and decided that I wanted to be a musician. I’ve been songwriting for over 20 years. I’m not even sure what took me so long.
I guess being a late diagnosed autistic person played a big part in it. I spent my whole life up until diagnosis in a state of confusion. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what others wanted of me. I didn’t know why I felt like a constant fraud. I didn’t know why I struggled so much in things that seemed a breeze for others. My self worth was in the toilet. I thought I was a failure at being human. I thought I was an alien who lost her home planet. How could I trust myself enough to create and release a project so big and vulnerable when I was still stuck in these feelings?
Things have really coalesced since diagnosis. Placing this lens over my life, my past, my brain has been illuminating. I’m not a failure. I’m an autistic person.
Many of the other people I tried to compare myself to over the years, and always came up short against, are literally having an entirely different life experience in almost every way. They naturally know the intentions and emotions of others without going through the mental gymnastics it takes me to reach the same conclusions. They naturally have very little resistance to beginning a new project, keeping their life organized, and putting themselves in new situations. Their brain naturally filters out the sensory input that is unnecessary for their every day existence but leaves my nervous system frazzled and constantly agitated. What a eureka moment, y’all.
Back to being 37 though. I feel inside me a huge resistance to the aging process. Culturally, it can be hard to continuously prove your worth as a woman as you age. Youth is the pinnacle. And as an artist, nothing has more value than the young prodigy. But a part of me also feels at peace. And I think this has to do with living in an unwell body.
Going through the grief process within your own body is a hugely moving and freeing experience. It’s not one that happens overnight. It’s taken me many years living in illness of resistance, of anger, of embarrassment, of jealousy, of sorrow. These are all still feelings that live inside of me. I haven’t banished them. I never will. But I’ve begun to process them and the other side of it is so beautiful, my friends. On the other side is acceptance of what is, love for an imperfect body, a desire to still embody a sick body, freedom within a lack of control, facing the inevitability of death. It’s an act of resistance to be present in my body, a body that our society says has no value, a body that many people are terrified of inhabiting.
Once you face these things and feel the gratitude of experiencing life in any form, of having your loved ones for the precious moments that you are allowed, fighting the aging process feels silly. I’m proud to be 37. I’m proud to still be kicking even when most days I’m in pain more than I am not.
Writing my album helped me process a lot of these things. It’s sort of a retrospective on my life thus far. The way the songs move is in stages, beginning with my upbringing. A lot of questioning, a lot of confusion, a smallness, a following, a curiosity. By the middle of the album I’m navigating young adulthood. I’m struggling with self worth. I’m trying to figure out where I fit in this world. I’m making bad decisions romantically, because I’m not yet valuing myself. And by the culmination, I’m tackling the things that have most shaped me in my 30s. There’s a big effort of growth, of knowledge seeking, of facing myself and my emotions, of not shying away from the shadows that lurk in my own spirit.
These are not things I could have faced until I trusted myself enough. Finding self worth feels like the truest form of success.
I guess what I’m saying is, this album came into this world exactly when it was meant to. For me especially, and I hope also for you too. If you’d like to pre-save my debut album, All My Best Friends Are Ghosts, signing up here will send you a nudge on release day so you don’t miss it. I would be honored. It is truly my life’s work.
Love,
vōx
wonderfull !!
I'm still looking for my debut, and in many ways publishing stuff here on Substack are important steps toward that. Like you, I feel that my undiscovered autism played a role there. My social clumsiness first made me shy, and then made me doubt myself. Self-esteem issues to work on there. Getting diagnosed and then having that lens through which to make sense of so much of my life made a huge difference. That was just the first step, of course. Lots of self-discovery to do, a self that buried beneath decades of masking. But it is happening. My therapist suggested the blog, and so I opened this account, but it another seven-eight months before I finally got up the nerve to start posting. Now it's becoming natural. That's a big step for me.
I pre-saved your album. Am listening to some of your other stuff on Spotify. It's really good! You have a wonderful voice. Really looking forward to the album!