disclaimer: this is going to be a very personal description that contains discussions of depression that may be uncomfortable to some. nothing explicit, nothing graphic, just - might be a lot to take in.

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i'm back! again. again. again. again! here with my final solo chart. again. for real. really real. no more after this. the real final chart, after the tv size quartology, 7150 days, world's smallest violin, pox, oyasumi, the adults are talking, bedroom community, my contributions to 20/3's 39's showcase, and my "unofficial" 9/3 charts. i'm content with moving on from this game. really. oh who am i kidding we all know i'm going to come crawling back to this game sooner or later and it's just a matter of when and why.

so why am i back? a lot of circumstances lined up.

first and most obviously and most definitely the trigger i pulled, unbeatable has a release date!!! or well, a release year, at least! 2025 baybee! i'm so excited for it it looks so good. so what better way to celebrate unbeatable than this? returning to chart the one song i didn't chart from the [white label] ost. there *is* worn out tapes and there *is* motherbound now and even homework salad, but! in terms of the "originals", and particularly the songs playable in [white label], mirror was the only song i didn't chart. with unbeatable hype through the roof, there's no better time to finally finish what i started.

now for the personal stuff.

2023 was a good year for me, until december 26, and then it wasn't, and it became the worst year i've had since the pandemic. i had an emotional breakdown and fell into the worst depression i'd ever fallen in. i impulsively quit my job, i shut myself off from people i knew, i barely left my house. i turned a story and a character i was writing into a coping mechanism that started to invade the way i think, and i spent my days distracting myself with an unhealthy amount of video games.

invariably, i kept finding myself staring at my library page for spin rhythm. i keep telling myself i'm done with this game. i'm not. i certainly feel content with closing this chapter of my life. but i've kept the bookmark to spinshare on my browser. i just can't seem to let go. can't seem to stop yearning for *something* to do with this game. i just kept on wanting to chart a song to express my pent up emotions. that hopeless feeling of utter defeat, wallowing in depression and self-loathing. listening to songs that embody what i feel has been a very cathartic experience since the start of the year. so why not chart one of those songs too?

mirror was not one of the songs that embodied how i felt. it was the opposite of how i felt. and i wanted to chart it because of that.

mirror is a fun song. it's a song about hope. it's a song about finding the strength to help yourself in the face of self doubt and a cruel, indifferent world. and i love where that strength comes from. the way i see it, this song makes strength and hope out of sheer fucking arrogance. out of pure stubbornness, beat refuses to be broken. she's too stubborn to let things end here. so she doesn't. out of pure spite, she finds the will to overcome the dark. even if you can't find the happiness for self love, then fuel your spirit with anger instead, because depression is a little bitch, and you're better than it, so spite it.

if you're thinking "jesus, this kid sounds like he needs therapy", we're on the same page! i was deathly afraid of going to therapy, but i eventually went, because i was even more afraid of what would happen if i didn't go to therapy. long story short, therapy didn't really help me feel any better! i am no longer going to therapy. but in my final session, it made me feel better, in an incredibly counter-intuitive and hard to summarize way, but my therapist said something that caught me completely off guard and frankly still confuses me and strikes me as irresponsible of them to say - that if therapy wasn't working for me, then maybe i should follow through on this crazy and irresponsible idea i've had.

for the longest time i've wanted to do something reckless and insane and an overwhelmingly bad idea and i can not get this idea out of my head. i want to ride a motorcycle across the country, from toronto to vancouver, in a misguided effort to confront myself. it's stupid, right? this trip doesn't meaningfully address any problems with my life. it'll cause a hell of a lot more. and i'm trying to do it anyway. why? i don't know. i just have to. madeline climbed a mountain. and this is my mount celeste.

and guess what? this is what got me out of the worst of it. i've been working toward making this possible. i have a motorcycle license now. and you know what? it feels fucking *GREAT*. there's voices in my head telling me to stop. i should. i really should. and they do make me stop a lot, because i know that on some level, they're right. but every now and then, i manage to drown them out, and i move forward, because this is what i WANT.

let me tell you a story about getting my motorcycle license.

i messed up. i messed up bad. i couldn't handle it at all. in the first hour of my motorcycle lessons, i crashed. into the one thing i shouldn't have crashed into. i crashed into the instructor's personal motorcycle. i had to pay for the damages. i nearly got kicked out. i had this on my mind for the entire rest of the day. and i still couldn't handle the motorcycle, i kept struggling with balance, with switching gear, with finding the right amount of squeeze on the clutch - i struggled with everything. it was a gut wrenching feeling, realizing just how in over my head i was. i cried that night. i didn't want to return for the second day. i wanted to give up then and there. everything i'd been working for was for naught, wasn't it? i should just call all this off. the latest in the series of failures and running away that i call my life.

the next day, i passed the evaluation perfectly.

i don't know why i returned. i thought i made my mind up about this. that no matter what happened i'd hate the outcome and call this whole motorcycle thing off. but i returned anyway. despite all my self doubt and how badly i'd fucked up the previous day and how ashamed i was of even showing up again i showed up. and something just clicked. and everything made sense. and i did it. all those anxieties and panic and depression from the night before still existed and still lingered. but passing that evaluation. acing it. it was like all my worries faded away and nothing else mattered. i did it.

i might still be depressed. i might still be an anxious mess. still probably a ball of undiagnosed mental illnesses. but i feel like i'm getting better, chasing this idea. and that's enough for me.

if you're worried about me, then don't be! i'll be fine. i'm like beat. we're too arrogant to let our depression and our anxieties completely consume us. it has its grasp on us, sure. but we're too stubborn to give up just yet.

i don't know if mirror is my song right now, but i am damn well trying to make it mine. so i charted it. for unbeatable hype? yeah. but i also charted it for myself. because i can't let this be where i am. i know we're not broken just yet.

so let's begin (to start again)
i won’t let this be where we end
i'll give you this
to make our world brand new.