Day 24: Waiting for the Snow – Of Monsters and Men
Snow is something that is soft and temporary. It usually represents peace and quiet. I know it’s not everyone’s favorite thing, but you can’t deny that. In the song “Waiting for the Snow” from Of Monsters and Men’s latest album, it’s a longing to return to peace and quiet, before things were difficult.
I’m waiting for the snow
I’m waiting for vision
So I can feel brighter
I can feel lighter
I used to make mountains
But then they grew bigger than me
I thought that I’d climb my way up high
But what if I tumble?
It can sometimes feel like our best days are behind us, especially if we’re in a particularly difficult season (cough cough now cough cough.) But the fact is there are times in our lives where we’ll fly higher than in others. This song reflects on how things have gotten difficult–we may not be as nimble or as courageous as we used to be. So how do we get back to it?
Have I said too much?
Did I love too hard?
This steel can’t carry me now that things are rough
Maybe it’s something we did or said? Some sort of karma? It usually isn’t, but the human thing is to blame ourselves. Most of the time, those highs and lows are out of our control.
Day 25: Fear – OneRepublic
This might sound contrary to some, but I think our fear grows as we grow older. When we’re young, we have very basic fears: the dark, for example. When I was little, I could never sleep without a dim lamp on in my room. Ironically, it was a clown lamp. (Clowns didn’t bother me much.) But I needed it on to sleep. Now, I sleep in relative darkness (some of the streetlights bleed into my window, and I don’t mind that.) But I have other fears that are more complex than just “the dark” (although I admit that I’ll wake up at 3am convinced something is watching me.)
You could argue there’s less to be afraid of as a child. We don’t know how big and scary the world is–we just know that our family is there and they keep us safe. OneRepublic’s song “Fear” is about how we have lost our bravery as we’ve grown up.
No sleep today
Can’t even rest when the sun’s down
No time, there’s not enough
And nobody’s watching me now
As we grow up, we lose the safety blanket of our family. Of course, they’re still around, but you go out more and more on your own. It’s always a good reminder to think of how reckless you were as a kid.
When we were children we’d play
Out in the streets just tempting fate
When we were children we’d say
That we don’t the meaning of
Fear, fear, fear
It isn’t that we should be totally careless and fearless, but we should remember that fear shouldn’t isolate us. If you think about it through the eyes of a child, your fears might be smaller than you think.
Audrey D. DeBoer 