Delain

I’m going to do my best to remember the exact details of how Delain changed my life last spring. I may appear a bit pathetic, but like most other situations where I don’t come off looking so great, I speak only the truth.
A little less than a year ago, I found myself facing a ton of change in my life. By a ton of change I mean that I was coming to terms with friendship drama, deciding majors in college, some lingering insecurities I thought a lot about back then and most of all, I did not want spring to come especially April (though I did count the days until both February and March ended). I had many memories tied to spring that the trouble with my once best friend dug up. For example I was obsessed with finding the name of these pink, puffy trees that bloomed in early spring because I remember this old friend and I once sat under them after escaping from an exam review session, and I thought the puffy leaves were going to attack me. The whole atmosphere of loss and change saddened me a whole bunch and left me feeling a bit pessimistic. That’s the back story.
My friend first got me listening to Delain, I think. I remember reluctance to listening to a new band especially one that on the surface appears quite similar to some of my other favorite bands. My friend raved about April Rain’s music video I watched it once. I didn’t freak out about it at first, but I guess I watched it again because I recall falling in love with the song shortly after. In retrospect, this song helped me change my whole perspective. The hard times I had been going through caught me in a trap in which I did pity myself. I considered myself unfortunate, something of a failure, acted bitter toward friends and just generally wallowed in my situation. Thus I could relate to April Rain. I do have my moments when all I am counting on is a song, and all the major events that shaped who I am were definitely worthy in destructive power of the name hurricane. But the song made me think, wonder what I was doing wasting so much time dwelling on my past and things that can no longer exist. The changes didn’t occur instantly, but eventually, I came to the realization that no matter what sorrow I came from it lies solely on me to become who I want to be. Though I had been trying for awhile, I hadn’t quite mastered the notion that I controlled my fate. Now- a-days that thought keeps me going, but April Rain beat it into my mind. I set out to stop feeling bad for myself and try to see myself in a positive light. Within in a few weeks, I managed to feel a lot better. As I went into spring break, I remember honestly being happy. Certainly I was excited to hear the rest of April Rain!
The first night I was home from school I sat at the kitchen in the table editing a story of mine and listening to Delain in the background. The experience blew me away. I hadn’t ever been so excited about a new album before. I couldn’t listen to it enough and couldn’t decide which song I preferred. All I can really say is that April Rain made me slime and filled me with motivating thoughts. I felt like I could accomplish something, like things weren’t so bad. Then I hit a big detour, which changed my life and left me to reevaluate everything. The next day I didn’t sleep some reason I forgot, but I had been listening to I’ll Reach You all night and was thinking about my then closet friend who I had been drifting away from lately. I knew I had changed, and she claimed to have changed as well so I knew things weren’t the same. After listening to I’ll Reach You way too many times on repeat, I got the idea that even if I did grow away from my friend I could reach her by embracing the part of me that she helped create. Basically, that part of me is the creative, passionate self that I cherish most so I attribute a lot of my identity to this friend. I wanted to share the song with my friend; I wanted to tell her the epiphany I had about reaching her, but I never got the chance. Another friend told me she hung out with her that day, and all my then best friend cared about was her boyfriend. I always had issues with her not treating her closest friends well so I took that night as an opportunity to call her out on it. I wanted so much to make her know the pain I felt. A fight ensued—a fight that forever altered the landscape of both my identity. I got really depressed in the days following this fight because I didn’t know if I could survive the time it would take for things to smooth over, or if things even could work themselves out. I was miserable the whole week I was off school, and literally most of what I did was sit on my bed reflecting upon my life while listening to April Rain all the way through over and over. Then I realized I could relate to Start Swimming then. Other friends reminded me that I couldn’t stay upset about losing her, and while I totally beat myself up for being so rash in my words to her and felt like I betrayed everything I was, part of me knew life goes on, and I had to keep moving.
After that week off in which I mostly listened to April Rain, April came. I counted the days when it rained and those when the sun shone. I went out of my way to have fun and go on adventures with my friends. I remember we tried to pop popcorn with cell phones, my friend and I went for a walk in a cold rainstorm and saw some interesting campus sights, I discovered my love for tree climbing and I fell in love with the field behind the dorm. I strived for happiness and to keep moving forward because I felt like my actions could change things. I started loving the month of April because it brought me hope for rebirth and freedom. I had a new perspective: I was going to keep moving toward my hopes and enjoy every moment between then and there.
I’ll Reach You is still my favorite because it reminds me of the friends and other things that changed my life, that I will never feel the same about again and that I have lost. By staying true though, I feel like I’m reaching all those pasts that reside within me. I eventually stopped talking that friend because it got too painful, but I still dream of reaching her. Every line in that song comforts me.