a year of co.yh

I have been told many times in my life that I am very eloquent and do a great job of expressing my emotions – of laying them out on paper in a way that makes everyone understand. I think what people don’t realise when they say that is that I only reach that point after what feels to me like endless thinking about it, making notes about it, rolling out analogy after analogy, writing and rewriting, agonising over word choice and punctuation, cutting out sidebars, rearranging my thoughts. It’s fair to say that most of my best, most effective pieces of writing about my emotions – particularly my experiences with anxiety and other mental illness – have taken years to produce, and I don’t just mean years of practice. I mean years of work on how to express that one single emotion.

I say this because I’m an emotional person in general. The more emotional something makes me, the more I find myself trying to articulate those emotions. And in this age of the internet, I often feel compelled to share what feels finished. But that can lead to me becoming repetitive over time because I struggle over and over to express something and I never quite manage it, but I might feel like I’m getting close enough to share every couple of months.

The point is that I’ve written thousands and thousands of words about flor – in tweets, in tumblr posts, in blog posts, in journal entries, in my damn book – and I’m certain I’ll write hundreds of thousands of words more. This band and everything about them is so central to my life right now and makes me feel so much, all of the time. And I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to do justice to those feelings in terms of how I express them.

I don’t believe in soulmates, at least not in the romantic sense. But can you have a musical soulmate, in the form of a musician or band? Someone who makes art that fits you so perfectly it doesn’t feel real?

Today it’s been a year since the release of come out. you’re hiding, flor’s first full studio album. It’s my favourite album in the whole world. It’s changed my life almost as much as flor has as a whole. When co.yh came out I was still a fairly new flor fan (though quite thoroughly in love), and I had no idea how much of an impact it would have on my life in the coming months. flor’s music is an incredible tonic for me; the musical equivalent of some kind of cure-all snake oil: sonically it’s my favourite kind of music. Lyrically it’s stunning, and Zach’s words have a way of getting right into my heart and setting up camp there, both lending their expression to the things I already feel and inspiring feelings I wouldn’t have otherwise known. Where my poor ADHD-riddled brain can rarely focus on any writing or reading when I listen to music with vocals in it, flor never distracts me, and sometimes even improves my concentration somehow. I can listen to flor no matter what mood I’m in, and I genuinely do listen to them every single day. When I’m happy they amplify that joy; when I’m down they comfort me. They have songs to soothe my anxieties, to help me see direction when I’m lost, to fill my heart with love.

co.yh deluxe album artwork by Kaitlin Sweet / @sweetiskaitlin on Twitter

Perhaps most notably, co.yh is such an emotionally evocative album that it dragged me out of a long spell of writer’s block and inspired me to write a whole entire book. Four O’Clock is far from a perfect piece of writing, but it means the world to me, and accompanied me up from the lowest place I’ve ever been to a bright new part of my life. It served a vital function for me during several long months, and I could never have written it without flor and co.yh. And still, that’s only one reason I’m so grateful to flor.

On the 31st, it’ll have been a year since my first ‘real’ flor show – I heard them (and fell in love with them) for the first time when they opened for Hayley Kiyoko the previous March, but in May when they did a mini-tour to celebrate the album release, I went to see them for them. It’ll also have been a year since the first time I met flor’s frontman, Zach Grace, who instantly became one of my all-time favourite humans, and has only been climbing the ranks since. That night was a lot for me, and I’ve written about it before. But to sum it up? At the time I was buried deep under the weight of untreated depression and spent probably a good 90% of my time dissociating. Seeing flor live and speaking to Zach made me so happy and brought me back to myself in a way I didn’t know was possible any more. It was overwhelming, and it was the feeling I hung desperately onto for the next several weeks, until I finally told my doctor that we needed to approach my depression medically. Trying to fix my sleep schedule and get me to exercise more was not enough.

this is a photo from that first meeting. what you can't tell is how badly I was shaking, or the fact that I was one minute from bursting into tears.

I think it’s reasonable to say that in that way, flor saved my life. I wouldn’t have died without them, I don’t think – I was numb and apathetic, not suicidal. But I also definitely wasn’t alive any more. Because of flor I remembered what ‘alive’ felt like and the motivation to achieve that feeling again finally came back to me. Because of flor I have spent the last year slowly becoming a person again, becoming myself again. Things are so much better than they were last spring. I’ve made it through a lot of things I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through.

(This past February, the next time I saw the band, I was able to tearfully and inarticulately tell Zach how much they had gotten me through, how much better things were getting. The things he said to me in response were kind and understanding and beautiful and I still cry thinking of them. I’ve also considered tattooing the sentence “you got yourself through so much” right onto my body because I think it might be the most important thing anyone has ever said to me.)

I also want to talk about the amazing community of fans surrounding this band. I’m a shy person and it took me a long time to connect with other fans, and for a long time I only spoke to a few people – until the release of my book garnered some attention and I finally dove all the way into the florfam in January. And… wow. I don’t know if I have ever felt so immediately welcomed and appreciated. The florfam is an absolutely beautiful group of people, just as loving and accepting as the band that brought us all together. I’ve become close to many of them in no time at all.

That sense of community segues really well into the other way that flor has really helped me grow – I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone in a lot of ways because of them. I don’t know if it’s always immediately obvious to people, but I am an incredibly anxious person who almost never pushes herself beyond what’s comfortable. Back in February I travelled alone into Toronto (a big deal not because of the distance, which isn’t huge, but because I always get lost there) to attend flor’s show all by myself. I would never have done anything like that before flor. And even more importantly, this past week I travelled all by myself across the border into Buffalo and met up and stayed with a bunch of internet friends so I could see flor again.

I’ve never travelled without my parents before, unless you count one one-night trip up to Ottawa that I took with my best friend and her mom. I never did overnight trips with school. I have serious separation anxiety and being away from home and my family is very taxing for me. On top of that, I haven’t been to the US since I was about five years old, and I don’t know a damn thing about Buffalo. But I did it, all by myself – renewed my passport, bought the bus tickets, and went. When I first decided to go I didn’t even know for a fact that I would know anyone in the audience; I was just really determined to see flor again. Finding out that Haley, Jenny, and Maria would be there and would be happy to share their car and accommodations with me was just a bonus. (An incredible bonus, for the record. I spent about 28 hours with them in total and it was amazing and I miss all of them like crazy.)

the four of us - Maria, Haley, myself, and Jenny, from left to right - spent the day after the show at Niagara Falls (the American side) and took the Maid of the Mist, which was really fun.

A year ago I could never have even imagined making a trip like that. But now I’m heartbroken to have only made it to one date, and I’m super-motivated to save up money so that next time flor tours, I’ll be able to join my friends and follow along for a while. I never would have guessed this was the kind of person I’d be or kind of life I’d live one day, but here I am.

There’s so much I could say about flor. I could talk about how crying through their whole set on Monday night, dancing with the friends I’d made because of them, seeing Zach’s whole face light up with pure joy every time he looked down at us, made me feel the most profoundly at home I’ve felt in a long time. I could talk about how I’ve already made friendships thanks to flor that I’m certain will last for life. I could talk about Zach greeting me with excited hugs and warm words, McKinley knowing me on sight the first time we met, Kyle’s happiness to put a face to the fanart, Dylan being thoroughly impressed by the appearance of a real-life book inspired by the music he made. I could talk about how this band and this album have been at my side and gotten me through so much of the emotional fallout of this four-year rough streak my family has had, the likes of which you would not believe. I could talk endlessly about healing, about growing, about joy and comfort and coincidence and surprise and the spectacular unpredictability of life.

But this post is supposed to be about come out. you’re hiding. So maybe I’ll just tell you again that this is one of the most beautiful albums I have ever heard, made by four of the most beautiful souls I have ever met. Zach, McKinley, Dylan, and Kyle deserve all the love in the world. After all, everything they make and everything they do for fans is so infused with their own love. It’s impossible to hear their music or see them perform without feeling that love rolling off them in waves. If you haven’t listened to them yet, I implore you to sit through this album just once. Let it wash over you and wrap you up like a warm blanket from a loved one. You will feel better for it.