JULY 11, 2022: “It’s Times Like These” …

Although it dropped a few days ago and I’d already given it a couple spins, because I’ve been preoccupied and unable to really dig into it the way I prefer when any new Death Punch drops, it wasn’t until today while answering a Quora question about mental illness that I really sat down and dug:

It’s nights like this, under a harvest moon. It came too fast and it’s gone too soon. A wilted rose and a frozen tomb. A memory for the wind. Anyway …

Does anybody notice that the sky is falling? Are we all just happy in the rain? Am I the only one who hears the sirens calling? Am I the only one who feels the pain? I read all the pages from the left to right. I took one in the morning and one at night. The fire still burns, but it’s cold inside. It’s all that I can do. Anyway …

No one wants to talk about the end is coming. Pointing fingers, handing out the blame. If I gave you answers to all your questions, could you change, or would you stay the same?

It’s times like these when the sorrow shadows all the laughter.

It’s times like these when the hurt goes on and on forever. It’s times like these I wanna fade away.

It’s times like these when left is right and forward’s backwards.

It’s times like these when days and nights just roll together.

It’s times like these I wanna fade away.

{“Times Like These” by Five Finger Death Punch}

WOW! Just WOW! How the fuck does he manage to do this? Just like clockwork and always right on cue, that FUCKER I love so very much managed to find an unexpressed storm of thoughts in my head that I didn’t even know existed and pull them out of me for reckoning.

Trust me, I get it. I totally fucking do! I’ve had a front row seat to the SHIT SHOW for the majority of my life and know exactly how it feels to want to fade away. Been there. Done that. I’ve got the proverbial straight jacket and yet the softest, most tender, stitched together, steel-encrusted heart to prove it, not to mention the unfortunate privilege of having to watch the dying soul of a person I loved literally fade away.

But let me ask you this …

If you could have all the answers to your questions, would you really change or would you stay the same? And what if I told you that the truth of the matter is that some questions just aren’t meant to be answered? What if our “assignment” is to simply roll with all these fucking punches, win, lose, or draw, and go screeching into the bull pen more like Ferdinand the flower smeller than Bodacious with his reign of destruction and terror?

But Cat, how the FUCK did you hear this song and end up standing at a bullfight?

Somehow, the haunting intro to this song with its echoes of what seem like my ancestors calling to me, channeled me back to either the wild, wild west or some ancient arena in Spain where kill or be killed was the fucking assignment, much like it is today during “times like these” when we’re all just fighting not only to survive, but fighting for the will to survive.

The late, great French philosopher, Albert Camus, who is one of my favorite “absurdists“, once said these most powerful words:

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Well, I am here to tell you he was dead on giant BULL BALLS accurate! Happiness is what we make of it, even in the midst of falling skies. Pray GOD we all make it to the finish line in one piece with the power and grace of a Ferdinand and as many roses that we can possibly gather, wilted as some of them may be, and not like a Bodacious standing before a frozen tomb full of regret, disdain, and misery.

As and aside, I think I’m finally beginning to understand why I’m obsessed with grey skies and stormy weather. They’re a constant reminder that even though the sky falls from time to time, as if to scream at me in rage and provocation, at the end of the day I’m always gonna be okay, because it’s times like these that made me who I am.

Left, right, forwards, backwards, inside or fucking OUT, the fact of the matter is that these SHIT STORMS are gonna keep coming. So, I’ll just keep myself buckled up for the most epic ride of my life while I’m hunting for roses and laughing as often I can. I’ll make my own happiness on my own fucking terms while screaming back at the falling sky, “Guess what, Bodacious? I’m still here riding! You lose! I WIN!”