My Review of "Waiting for Superman"

(Maybe not so much of a review but how I relate to the song.)

I won’t lie; I’ve had worry about the new sound that has been referenced in regards to Daughtry’s 4^th album. Like I’ve blogged previously, I fell in love with Daughtry 1.0 and the thought of Daughtry 2.0 worried me. Daughtry is my security blanket and for anyone who has children or worked with children, you don’t mess with a child’s security blanket.

I was surprised when I managed to wake up after midnight considering I take a nice little sleep cocktail when I go to bed to deal with anxiety and insomnia. Apparently, my subconscious realized I just couldn’t wait until the morning to download the song so even though I was not quite with it, I managed to download the song from iTunes.

I listened to it four times before needing to fall back asleep. It’s definitely a different sound for Daughtry and I’m a little worried about how it’ll be performed on stage because I’m not hearing certain instruments. It has a rock essence to it but not in the same vein as TABA or YDB. I’m wondering if this might be the song where JP, Brian and Steely get their ten minute break and we get a goofy Twitter pic. We’ll see when the tour starts (and seriously, come to SIOUX CITY so I don’t have to travel for a change. Please and thank you.).

Anyway, I like the song even if it’s not like my security blanket. It’s just one song so it’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the album is like.

Chris had mentioned that the “lyrics are inspired by real life experiences of incredible women.” I blogged yesterday that this left me a little down because I don’t feel incredible. But sleep, at least mine, is an interesting thing. A lot of time while I sleep, my mind is working on a story and I’ll wake up with the next scene or a plot problem fixed. I also, apparently, churn over lyrics and when I woke up this morning, I knew how “Waiting for Superman” related to me, an unincredible woman. I’ll warn you, how it relates to me is not all unicorns and rainbows.

For me, the song is metaphorical in my battle with my depression demons and those awful gray days that have me chained tight right now and my fight to just be normal and have a life of my own instead of a life that is haunted by events of my past. So, here we go (pun intended):

The taxi, for me, references life itself. I’ve been watching life drive away since April 2010 and being locked up in my apartment hits on different things for me. One of my diagnoses is agoraphobia so that reference hits deep with me. After my suicide attempt in September 2011, I rarely left my apartment for six weeks but life around me kept on going. I still wish to win the lottery so that I never have to leave my apartment because so much of the outside world scares me. People scare me. Situations scare me. Sometimes, I just don’t know what to do. If I stay in my apartment, I don’t have to worry about people and situations.

The ‘he’ that is referenced next is Superman and Superman to me is not a person but an entity, a something that I want, yearn for, to lift me from my gray depression. I thought that by starting therapy the summer of 2010 my life would sort itself out and I would be normal but I was far from normal by the time September 2011 rolled around. I’m still waiting for that entity as “I watch the clouds roll by.” Is my name in the clouds? Yes, because clouds are another metaphor for my life that is just passing me by as I wait for Superman.

I don’t take the reference to smiling like the woman has a beautiful smile. For me, it’s a façade smile; a smile that hopefully tells everyone who sees me that everything is hunky-dory. The alternative smile, my real smile, is a sad one because I see how gray everything is. It’s a weepy smile often but mostly, it’s sad.

I do talk to angels, mainly my grandma and my mom (my dad would NOT be an angel). I tell my grandma I miss her and I ask my mom questions such as ‘Why did you never give me a hug?’ or ‘Why couldn’t you let me live my own life?’ I realize, though, that my purpose in life up until Mom’s death was to take care of her and that really was more important than having my own life. She passed away with her daughter beside her and knowing she was loved until that very last breath.

But now, I’m waiting for Superman. That car I’m making a wish on is that taxi again. I’m wishing to get my life sorted out so I could have some sort of happy life. When I dance with strangers, it’s the people around me. They know me but don’t know me. They are strangers to my pain, to my gray. And falling apart? Oh, hell yes I am falling apart and have been for over three years. I’m trying to put my pieces together but damn it’s hard especially when I’m doing it by myself (along with a therapist but when you have to pay someone to listen to you, that negates a few things).

Some days I feel like I’m failing at putting myself back together and that’s when I’m waiting for Superman to help me. For the most part, Superman is not a man but that entity I referenced before but I’ll be honest, I would love to actually feel the arms of a man around me. I’ve blogged a couple times recently how I’ve needed a hug badly but I have no one to give that hug. But for the most part, this song is metaphorical (but if George Clooney or Hugh Jackman wanted to stop by for a hug, I wouldn’t say no LOL).

Chasing answers in the abyss is what I’ve been doing since April 2010. Answers to why certain things happened to me when I was young and why I have been through so much in my life from possible future blindness, cancer, this damn depression, among other things. Most people have one or two bad things happen their entire life; I seem to have them happen constantly. It gets old after a while and I’m constantly asking ‘Why me?’

I do, surprisingly, have hope that things will turn around although sometimes, that hope is teeny tiny, as if the laundromat is just so busy. And my life is definitely not a movie because not many people have so much happen to them. And I don’t want my life to end in a couple decades in the gray. There has to be some color coming up but a small part of me believes that the gray is permanent and again, I put on my fake smile because the crying in public thing just isn’t really cool.

So I wait for my Superman, wait for my chance at a colorful life before the gray is permanent. I wish every day for my day to be better than the day before and there are days that are better than others but never a string of them. I realize that ultimately, while I wait for Superman, I am my own Superman, however. Someone else can’t change me. They can support me, give me that hug, ask me how I am, and remember that I am around. But the depression inside of me is ultimately a one on one battle. It’s tiresome and scary but it’s me and it’s me that I need to fight it back. I can talk to my therapist, I can take the medications but those two things can’t change me. And is it really a change or just the pulling back of the gray so that I can see the color that is there but I feel too weak most days to pull the gray curtains back and see it? My writing is color and I’ve seen that color in having my first novel published. My writing is gray right now mainly because I’m at the point of trying to get a book trilogy published and the rejections are trickling in and I’m trying to get the next book started. But writing, when I’m not struggling at it, gives me color. So that makes me wonder – is writing also my Superman?

Dana