Talk Is Cheap

I've been beginning to drown. My lungs clench up and my heart falters and I can't breath. I sway for a moment, and have to talk myself out of drowning.

One route to not drowning has been this song by Eric Hutchinson:





I know what he's intended the song to mean: stop talking, let's do something. You want to make a change, stop complaining about the way things are and go make the change. Talk is cheap. I get it. But for me, right now, it's leaning more toward his other meaning: say what you mean.

"Some people don't know how they really feel, some people can't talk about what is real. And I could never chit-chat all day long...And everybody's talkin' while they're stringing me along. I'll go by what you do, 'cuz talk is cheap."

The whole chorus, really. It's sort of become my mantra of positivity, to evade the ever present possibility of drowning. In the past two days it's already been played 17 times on my iPod, and over a thousand in my idle mind. And in the course of typing this post I've listened to the above YouTube video three times.

I bought Eric's album in like, June. It was unfortunate for him to release his sophomore album the very same day Jason Mraz released Love Is A Four Letter Word, because, well... It's Jason Mraz. And even when Eric Hutchinson was numbered in the favorites lump (which he's wriggling his way back into), he was only ever Second Favorite.

I literally referred to him as that through sophomore year and most of junior year. Then I realized I had too many Second Favorites to individually label one specific Second Favorite. From there he fell from grace.

I tried listening to Moving Up Living Down on the bus one day sometime after meeting Jason Mraz, when my future and music taste suddenly slammed into a wall. I couldn't make it through.

I wasn't ready for this song. I didn't need it then.

I cannot stress enough how much I need it now, when everything else is reminding me of my innate need to seize up and drown, give up the ghost and float down the ravine and onward into the underworld. I need a reason to breath.

The Lord's told me patience. I need patience; a diligent patience in which I progress but still wait. That's what this song's given me. I mantra through which to accomplish patience.

"I don't want to wait for you 'cuz talk is cheap. I don't know how you spend your time; I'm done wasting all of mine. 'Cuz talk is cheap."

I'm not lending my life and happiness on other's shoulders anymore. I'm bottling up those parts of me that want to bleed and blend in with everyone unconditionally. I'm shutting down what tears me down. I've made my resolution: "From now on I'm listening and saving my breath."

Because talk is cheap.