The Crashing Down of Hollow Years

Carry me to the shoreline
Bury me in the sand
Walk me across the water
Maybe you'll understand

Once the stone you're crawling under
Is lifted off your shoulders
Once the cloud that's raining
Over your head disappears
The noise that you'll hear is
The crashing down of hollow years

 - Hollow Years by Dream Theater


I hadn't heard this song in ages but this part rolled through my brain while I sat at work today. I've always loved this song but it never really meant much to me, you know? It's a beautiful song and the lyrics are well-written but their meaning didn't hit me until today.

"Once the stone you're crawling under is lifted off your shoulders, once the cloud that's raining over your head disappears, the noise that you'll hear is the crashing down of hollow years."

That's what I'm living right now. I've been living under all this bitterness and anger and depression and letting it sit heavy upon my shoulders like a huge rock. I've been living like Eeyore with a rain cloud over my head and gloomy outlook on everything. Now I'm walking out from under that rain cloud, leaving the boulder behind, and I can just feel my old world come crashing down.

In the best possible ways.

Hollow years...that's a very good description of the past couple years. It's confusing at the same time because I have never felt more emotion than I have in the past few years. Hopelessness, desparation, anger, depression, passion, desire, excitement ...I felt nearly every emotion known to man...and probably a few my hormones decided to create. I have loved and lost, hoped and failed...yet all those feelings left me hollow. I used up everything inside me just to feel those emotions. That kind of intensity left very little.

I don't want to be hollow anymore.

I want to feel all those things, the good and the bad, but I want them to honestly mean things now. I want to remember why I felt them, not just the fact that I felt them. I want them to be real, not just reactions to situations and people.


Please, don't take that to mean that everything I have felt in the past few years has been unreal or pretend in ANY fashion. Like I said, it's confusing. I felt things but...it wasn't enough...does that make sense?


Anyway...I'm ready to be done with my hollow years. I'm ready to move on.


Bring it on, world. Chrissi is ready.