Meredith Meyer

I have been living in New York now for a year, and what a year! I have taken thousands of small steps along the sidewalks of NY, met what might well equal an actual ton of people, and grown in ways I thought not possible, in ways I was not expecting upon arrival.

I’ve done everything from break my piggy bank to get to the last stash of dollar coins for subway fare, to hanging out on the 15th floor of a building on Wall Street drinking champagne at 3 AM; from dancing ecstatically at a club in Harlem, to hearing intimate life stories of complete strangers in quiet passing moments. I’ve made friends with artists, families, my local restaurant owners, the UPS man, my beloved housemates, and even our landlord. I’ve seen works of art that have moved me to tears, and giggled at the humor in the hoity-toity. I’ve been on a tour of the US with some of the coolest guys I’ve ever met, and had the privilege of playing music I love to listen to as well as play. It’s been a strange magical mystery trip that keeps me in suspense of what will happen next…

I had lunch with with my friend Erin today, who I haven’t seen since in too many years. We were talking about how lives change and how you evaluate what you’re doing vs. what you thought you’d be doing, and what a trap that can be; the whole “figuring it out” myth. He said “When you get into linear thinking that’s when you start getting in trouble.”

We get tied, and tie ourselves to so many labels… I do this job, I live here, I am this type of person… as if we’re characters all floating around in some universal blockbuster and we have to feel squeezed in to a certain category. The producers of reality television have mastered this, they even narrow down “reality” to types in their subjects.

I’m really excited about my new project, Young Unknowns. Besides the fact that myself and everyone in it are largely unknown (or unknown to anyone outside our immediate friends), the name has a certain freedom to it, for me, that I like. As a music artist I am constantly getting asked to put myself in a genre, or compared to things that have come before, or sized up in tiny paragraph (and that’s if I’m lucky!). I’m eyed with suspicion among some, admiration among others, and indifference to many. I plug away at music because it’s my love in life… the creation and spark of a new song keeps me alive in a way nothing else does.

When we label ourselves, we limit ourselves. We get trapped by our own inventions of who we think we are supposed to be. Call it ego, call it behavioral psychology, call it whatever you want. When we wake up in the morning we are all free spirits. We have the opportunity to choose what we do with our time and our lives, regardless of what anybody else thinks of us. We are making choices everyday to be on a path. We feel trapped sometimes, happy other times, sad at times, nothing at times. We worry about what other people think of us and we fear being alone, we spent our energy in all different directions and at the end of the day feel spent. Then we turn on the TV or pick up a magazine and are faced with a whole other world of people who seem to be super-human, with lives supposedly more interesting, more successful, and more valuable, than our own.

Reflecting on my conversation today I realize, I don’t want to be a superhuman. I just want to be a human. I want to still appreciate an ice cream cone on a hot day as a special treat. I want to smile at the mailman behind the counter at the post office who stamps my packages. I want to take my shoes off and wade in the river. I want to say those important things on my mind even if they come out all funny and jumbly and stupid. I want to have faults and frustrations that keep me striving for something better, and keep me humble too. I want to lay on the grass and stare at the sky and breathe, not sit in a fancy box and look out the glass at a 2 dimensional world. I want to cry at sad movies, and laugh at funny moments in real life. I want to believe that real miracles still happen.

As a perfectionist, it’s taken me a long time to realize, and it is with complete honesty, that I am finally able to admit, I don’t want my life to be “perfect,” and I am actually enjoying it quite alot that way. This freedom has moved me towards a whole new space for expression, and I like it.

I don’t know what’s coming next, it probably won’t be perfect, but nonetheless, it’s coming…