The 10 Days of Paramore – I Caught Myself

Day Two

So my wonderful nephew sent me an email for the first time. Weird, and holy crappola, I feel super old, because it seems like just yesterday the kid was the size of a football in my arms. Now, he and my troublemaker of a goddaughter are almost whole people, speaking full sentences laced with sarcasm which they have no doubt learned from my brother Mike. Suddenly they’re calling me on the phone and sending me emails from their own personal accounts about how I owe them a guitar lesson or two and that they finished the third Harry Potter book. Actually, I’m going to digress for a bit and talk about Harry Potter for a while, because let’s face it – the magical land of Hogwarts is far more interesting than the whole me-getting-old thing. So for those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading the books or watching the movies – haha what have you been doing with your life? And remind me again why we’re friends? Just kidding, but no seriously…do yourself a favor and go remedy this immediately, because you are really missing out buddy. I’m not sure which is my favorite, but the third installment, Prisoner of Azkaban, is up there on my list, mainly because this is where they introduced us to the idea of dementors.

So dementors, as explained to Harry by Professor Lupin, are described as the following:

Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.

Haha, so I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but in my own life I definitely have come across a dementor or two, haha or three. Maybe mine didn’t look like the grim reaper variety the movie depicted them to be, but the effects seem comparable. Problem is, that here in the real (Muggle) world, we have to come up with our own version of a patronus charm in order to shield us from these vicious, soul-suckers. In talking with one of my best friends the other day, it hit me that there IS a real-life equivalent. She was talking about her own personal dementor (though we definitely didn’t use that term, but this certain character definitely epitomizes the very essence of one) and how she had just made the decision to cut this person from her life. I guess you just get to a point when you realize that certain people no longer add anything positive to your life, and you have to go into self-preservation mode. For those of you who feel at the mercy of your own dementors, try applying my friend’s wisdom as your own patronus charm – when you feel yourself getting sucked in, you just got to catch yourself. Remind yourself of what you really want, or if you don’t know what you want, just know that you deserve something more. Anyways, this friend over the last year has been kind of an inspiration and a personal hero to me, which is why I am dedicating this post, and today’s Paramore song to her. The song is called I Caught Myself, and it is basically about the danger of not knowing what you want. Enjoy this awesome live version. Sigh…dear Paramore, we keep missing each other. Please come back to the US soon so I can finally see you in concert. Shpanks!