“Months and Years” by Abandon Kansas, Tuesday, April 25, 2023 (partial repost)














Prior to signing with Gotee Records in 2009, Wichita-based band, Abandon Kansas garnered radio play on RadioU as an indie band. The band recorded with Gotee for five years before going independent, partnering with BadChristian Music to release their final project, Alligator, an album that lead singer Jeremy Spring talked about with the BadChristian Podcast as an album dealing with his personal struggles in the band/Christian band circuit, dealing with doubt, substance abuse, and depression. To some Christian music fans, Alligator was too profane compared to their previous works and other Christian Rock bands in the scene. To others, Alligator proved to be a refreshing take on authenticity which the confounds of most Christian record labels censored. After the album was released, the band planned to tour with the album, but ultimately personal issues forced Spring to cancel the tour. The band went on indefinite hiatus, but in 2019 they renamed the band to Glass Age, releasing a three-song EP titled Bloom and taking the band in a different direction. 

 MOMENTUM IS HARD TO GAIN IN THIS KIND OF RAIN.  "Months and Years" is Abandon Kansas's first radio single, and talks about the passage of time when people are separated. It also chronicles the dreams and struggles of a band trying to define their purpose. It reminds listeners to look back on their dreams and look to the purpose that brought them to the point of pursuing those dreams. Today this song speaks to me as I'm reevaluating my role as a writer and if it's something I want to pursue. When I started blogging every day, I thought that it would be easy: just research and write about the songs that I love. I could discover new music and introduce my readers to my tastes in music. But little by little, I realized that the songs were shedding light on dusty corners of my soul that I felt compelled to explore. One of the reasons why I started writing again was to learn how to talk about myself, to tell my story--why I think the way that I do, how I adapted and shed certain beliefs. Yet, the process is terrifying at times, leaving me vulnerable to what the Internet has to say. I've been reflecting on my recent posts--since I started fictionalizing since I stopped making every post about facts that I drummed up online--and I wonder what kind of writer I should be. Does this project continue into the next year? Do I continue to use it as my practice canvas? And ultimately, how can I ever find the time for rewriting when just writing a first draft takes up so much of my evening?

A COUPLE OF MONTHS HAVE TURNED INTO SEVERAL YEARS. I've been busy the last two months and only now have been catching up on the existential dread that I've been deferring. I wonder how I can get stuck on autopilot, not processing my life. And when I get a little bit of free time, I'm paralyzed on the couch with my worries about where it's all heading. I have a lot to be thankful for but I realize just how much further I have to go to pursue my goals. I feel stuck in arrested development when I get these moments, and I really don't know what to do about it. There are certain markers of success that I hear about from other people, and that triggers me to feel unaccomplished and to belittle the accomplishments that I have made. And then I think about all the unfinished projects I've started around the house, the unfinished grad school application, the better jobs that I really should be applying to but I fear rejection. All of this seems like a very shaky foundation, and I'm talking myself into a very dark place. Things should be better tomorrow when the rain stops. 



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