Faith

I was going through some George Michael videos today on Youtube. The last time he was in Toronto was in July 2008, nearly ten years ago, on his 25Live Tour. What a voice. What a talent.


I was looking at some blog entries from that time. It was a whole other life. So much of what I had then is gone or dismantled. 2008 is as relevant to me now as a lunar landscape.

I've been thinking a lot about George Michael and what he went through in his life. I think sometimes life smooths out our sharp edges too harshly. I think of him as a lonely, talented kid, gaining incredible fame at a young age, feeling he had to hide his sexuality, losing his partner, then losing his mother shortly after and how he generally hated the tenets of fame, the cameras, the attention and felt trapped by it all.

I remember a time when that was what I wanted and felt like it was an answer, that it would fill some hole in my heart. It's probably a good thing it didn't happen to me when I was younger. It would have eaten me alive.

I think we all go through periods that are difficult in our lives, but George Michael seemed to have that experience in a very amplified state. And a result, it created fissures in his heart that never quite healed.  I wish he could have stopped hurting himself. And that's something I'll write more about.