BALENCIAGA

I’ve always been on the perilous quest for fame. It’s called to me even before I understood what it was. The desire to be loud, different…Special. Even as a child, I knew I was “different”. I never quite fit in with anyone. I think differently than most of the people around me… deeper, philosophical, inquisitive. 

Two days ago I wrote about the hacking of my Trew Love facebook, which at the moment felt like the internet overlords were smashing my sand castle. It broke my heart. I cried, I whaled, and something old and stuck broke free through my chest and heart as I did. 

What is the point of all of this? Do I even rebuild? I asked myself. Why do I even try anymore? An ominous cloud of apathy rolled over my conscience.

In my frustration and despair, I drove to pick up my nephew about 40 minutes away, crying out to God via Kid Rock. “Only God Knows Why”!

That night, I came home to my boyfriend Nick, who in his own despair about his pending jail sentence, sat with me and said the words that I didn’t know I needed to hear. 

Initially, I resisted his wisdom. I have a daily spiritual practice that I’m devoted to even more-so than my brand. And he, without such practice, still began to offer his words; “I think when you get over yourself, you’ll experience a whole new reality.”

Am I not over myself?? I thought. Have I not been surrendering daily for the last six years? When, for fucks sake, is enough healing enough healing?? Anger built in the pit of my stomach. In my mind, I’ve been devoted to God diligently, and I AM over myself, right?? I’m kind and patient with people, I give when God asks me to- often at the expense of myself. Is that not enough??

This message, coming from him- a severe alcoholic- felt like hypocrisy. As the resistance began to subside, I began to surrender and listen. What I didn’t realize at the time, is that those words would be the catalyst for the awakening I had this morning. 

I flipped the page open to my daily step for today. Step 243: I do not need to be special to give. 

This is my sixth year following these steps, so this isn’t the first time I’ve come across this message, yet this morning, it hit different. Like the key it was offering finally met the right door. 

After the crash of my Trew Love page that I made in Los Angeles in 2018, I was in a fresh place to receive the lesson that was now being reiterated both by the practice I’m devoted to, and the man I love most.

“The attempt to be special underlies all human ambition, and all human ambition that is not born of Knowledge (God), is born of the attempt to offset the grave disappointment and anxiety of separation”. 

I opened instagram, and there stood a man on a stage in prisons, preaching and singing to the people who too have found themselves caught in the egoic loops of self destruction, only not on the quest for fame. I saw them moved by the Spirit. I felt the message myself, and I knew that I too have more to let go of. 

I saw them sing and dance together for God, liberated by the message as they raised their hands to the sky. 

That’s when it hit me. In my cry of despair singing Kid Rock in my top-down convertible, I felt freed as the notes unleashed themselves through my voice. 

This is what I need to be doing. Music. And not just any music. I need to sing to and for God. 

Not for fame, not for recognition, not to be special. I need to sing because it unleashes me too. 

**

Yesterday, as I sat in melancholy about my internet conundrum, I pulled a track I made a year ago for a collection that never came to fruition. It was for a micro-collection/ music walk-through called “Yours Trewly”. A journey to share my back story through music and correlating paintings. One of these songs is called “Balenciaga” - a tribute to when I started realizing how dark Hollywood is, and that maybe God saved me by pushing me out of LA and back home to Kansas City. 

I made six tracks for this collection about a year ago in exchange for two paintings, and they’ve been waiting in my files for the moment I knew what to do with them. In my typical over-the-top fashion, I envisioned a music video in full studio, costumes, rotten tomatoes and the whole nine yards. Yet yesterday, I just wanted to work on something that was not painting. 

I compiled a series of images from the internet painting the picture of the demonic worship in Hollywood, the symbology, messaging, and correlation with child trafficking, an issue near and dear to my heart. 

The series of images painted a much clearer picture of what the song is about, and I found myself deeply satisfied with the absence of my face at all. 

Let the music speak for itself, I thought. Easier, simpler, and not ME focused… What a novel idea. 

The truth is, much of my journey as an artist has been an attempt to be a ‘better’ version of myself. And that can only come as a result of feeling like my self is not enough. Not good enough. Not polished enough. Not rich enough. Not known enough.

Even after years of spiritual work, therapy, ayahuasca journeys and more, my ego still leads me to self-aggrandizing ideas that serve my pompous idea to demonstrate my wit and intelligence. 

Maybe just maybe… that’s what changed this morning. Maybe, just maybe… I’m finally getting over myself. 

My Step continued: “You are freed this day from attempting to make yourself special, for in this way you will find the true relief that you have sought in all your previous endeavors.”

Relief indeed. 

So as of today, all of my work will evolve to serve God, and finally…so will I.

The void still lingers as this foundational reconstruction of my Self continues, yet for the first time in my life, I trust it is a foundation that will withstand the test of time and the storms that will inevitably form in the future. 

If security exists in the world, it only exists within. And maybe…surely… this is the right place to begin again. 

Trew Love

Also Known as Adrienne