Miss you love you – my love song to my music.

I recently wrote a love song. About a relationship that could be described as dysfunctional. I tried to leave once, but I ended up not being able to stay away. I wrote my newest single, “Miss You Love You,” because it was the best way to process what I was feeling and going through. I’ve been in this relationship ever since I can remember, and probably even before that. It’s my love affair with music. “Miss You Love You” was written for Music, as if it were a person. This is how the story starts, and how it may continue to go on.

Although a lot of my childhood is a blur of things and places I don’t remember clearly, one memory that is solid is when I was about 4 or so. I was sitting cross legged on the floor with about 10 other kids, in a circle. The teacher asked us all to go around and say what we wanted to be when we grew up. I remember eagerly welcoming my turn because I knew absolutely, that I would say “When I grow up, I want to be a singer.” I remember feeling this big sense of relief, like I’d for the first time said aloud this truth that had been sitting in me.

I can’t really recall a time in my life when I didn’t feel this pushing need for music. Almost like if I didn’t do it then I’d swirl down a big drain. It wasn’t like I decided one day that I’d be a musician, I think it was just a given.

I sang constantly. Anywhere and everywhere. I was always in chorus at school – I’d stand tall and sing the best I could every time, even if I couldn’t really be heard among the sea of kids. I’d try out for all the solos, I’d sing in talent shows, I’d sing on long car trips with my family – my siblings and I would make up ridiculous songs and sing them in three-part harmony – and I’d sing for friends at any gathering I could. I sang even if I was told my voice wasn’t that great, I sang even when people told me I was just trying to get attention. I guess I just kept at it because I knew I could sing even if my voice may have not appealed to everyone, and I definitely knew I wasn’t doing it for attention. Music and singing was just what I was, I didn’t have a choice.

Throughout my school years I was painfully shy and felt odd and alienated most of the time. But where the music was, was where I gravitated towards, and there I didn’t feel afraid anymore, I could breathe. I ended up winning a wonderful music award in high school, and after graduating I had many opportunities to perform. I toured across the US singing, as well as Japan and Korea. I had the opportunity to sing for Foreign Ambassadors and members of the UN.

In college, I studied classical voice, music education, and studio composition. I wrote and recorded a 5 track EP, released it, and when MySpace was at its peak I was on huge banners splashed on top of all the pages, as well as on other major websites. I was asked to be on local TV shows and radio stations. I performed with my band constantly. I received so many messages and comments every day from listeners from all over, that I had to set time away daily because I wanted to answer them all. It was an exciting time.

In 2011 I released my full album, Child In Me. The release was not as splashy as my EP release. Social media shifted to the next new thing which meant I’d have to learn to navigate a new platform yet again. People stopped buying music. I had all these voices in my head of all the criticisms I’d received during the years of putting myself out there. I started to get scared of being mocked yet again, and I started believing that nothing I did was good enough. Making myself vulnerable with my art started to appeal to me less and less.

There was also the money factor – musicians have to spend tons of it to do their music, and oftentimes there isn’t any return for it. Not only does nobody buy music anymore, but even to perform your own music, you have to pay to play. It just all started to be too much for me. I wondered if it was all just a waste of time, energy, and resources. I wondered if I should just start acting like a “grown up” and stop investing so much of myself in my hobby. I remember after an especially stressful gig, it dawned on me that I just didn’t want to do all of this anymore.

So I stopped. And as many endings of love relationships are, it was pretty painful. But I had no fight left in me. I isolated myself and entered a state of mourning.

Several years into my break up I started writing “Miss You Love You” about this time in my life. The lyrics are as follows:

As I lie here and stare at the candle flame
I wonder if you ever feel the same?

Hey, you over there, it’s been a long time
I’m here again, coming to you and I don’t know why
You pull me out of hiding, now I’m finding we’re not through
So talk to me I’m listening, sing to me I’m tuning into you

You, you make it so hard to stay away
Cuz when you’re gone, my imagination turns to gray
You can stir within me, what I try to hide so carefully
Tho you make me cry, you surely make me see, and I am free

And you say something beautiful, and I can’t help myself
And you sing a song so magical, and it won’t leave my head
And you make my life colorful, and I’m back in you again
Miss you, love you, always

It’s true, that I love you, do you love me too?
Tho may I admit, sometimes I don’t really like you
But I thank you for listening, and for understanding all my fears
It’s taken so much, all of me just to get here

And you say something beautiful, and I can’t help myself
And you sing a song so magical, and it won’t leave my head
And you make my life colorful, and I’m back in you again
Miss you, love you, always

Turns out I was heartbroken without Music. I started to write a song here and there. I started to let myself be exposed to beautiful music again instead of hiding away from it, for fear that the wall I’d built around my tears would break. And I let the tears fall. As I made more little brave moves, more paths appeared in front of me, and more people showed up to help me. I met my beautiful teacher Tina Shafer, and through her I met my amazing producer Kevin Bents. I let myself start recording again simply because it made me happy, and I felt more and more alive. I started to feel free again.

I guess I now know that Music is not just a hobby of mine, and it could be just the right amount of dysfunctional. Seems we may be soul mates of some kind. And it also seems my time off from it was never a waste. I learned so many necessary lessons during it. It’s possible I may have needed to sit in a cocoon alone for a bit so that I could grow inside of it. Into the person I needed to become, in order to enter the next stage that life has in store for me, whatever that may be. But I know at least that in this phase, I’ll have Music by my side.

“Miss You Love You” on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kiyomi/01-miss-you-love-you

For more info on Kiyomi Hawley: http://kiyomihawley.com/

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