I had notions of doing something more intellectual with this post but life is what it is and as such I have delayed my effortpost about The Indigenously Produced Unmagnified Gunsights of Cuba once again. I’m going to talk about music again this time.
Oceanlab was a side project of Above & Beyond and vocalist Justine Suissa, who was also the primary songwriter. Sirens of the Sea was their sole album and it is very, very important to me.
Ok so it’s EDM okay? To be precise it’s some particular style of vocal trance but its singer-songwriter vocal trance. Above & Beyond does this really cool thing where they tend to actually collaborate with their vocalists by getting them involved with the creative process, writing lyrics, production and all that. Now, the lyrics aren’t particularly complex and they won’t impress any pretentious nerds but they resonate with me and that’s what it’s about yeah? Oh yeah and they do acoustic versions sometimes??? which is wild??
I was lucky enough to discover this group twice, the first time was on some lonely night when I was a teen. I came across Clear Blue Water (a single) on Grooveshark (rip), checked out the rest of their discography, thought it was pretty, and proceeded to forget about it for a decade and a half.
I am almost embarrassed to admit just how much Sirens of the Sea affected me when I rediscovered it in the autumn of ‘23. It was like a hug, a cup of coffee, and a sit-down with the Jungian archetype of the kind of woman I admired the most and wanted so dearly to become. The kind of woman who carried empathy, knew failure, was capable of struggle, yet always embraced the love and joy of life. I can’t really articulate how, but this album helped me lay down my grieving for the years I spent otherwise.
My favorite track is “On a Good Day”, and I consider it to be the theme song of my post-transition life. I just cried listening to it, like actually right now, as I write this I still got a little bit of tears drying on my cheek. “If I Could Fly” is a total bop and they did something to the rhythms towards the end of that one and it does really good shit to my brain. “Miracle” is about climate change, it slaughters me HARD because it came out over two decades ago and nothing has changed.
Under this spoiler there are the lyrics of “On a Good Day” because I thought I should include them.
a little bit lost and
a little bit lonely
little bit cold here
a little bit of fear
but I hold on and I feel strong
and I know that I can
I’m getting used to it
lit the fuse to it
like to know who I am
I’ve been talking to myself forever
and how I wish I knew me better
still sitting on a shelf and never
never seen the sun shine brighter
and it feels like me on a good day
I’m a little bit hemmed in
a little bit isolated
a little bit hopeful
a little bit calm
but I hold on and I feel strong
and I know that I can
I’m getting used to it
lit the fuse to it
like to know who I am
I’ve been talking to myself forever,
and how I wish I knew me better,
still sitting on a shelf and never
never seen the sun shine brighter
and it feels like me
on a good day
This is the end of this post. Take care of yourselves. Tomorrow needs you, as does the next day, and every day after.
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Love the way you put this.
Like, even when someone is being supportive, sometimes it feels like it brings attention to the fact that they instinctively expect me to follow some script. I appreciate them trying to be supportive, but still…
Tbf, I feel like there are people who just treat me as an individual person, rather than a gender script (maybe they treat me as a genderless AuDHD script, but I’ll take that). Of the 5 people I’ve hung out with this year semi-regularly (excluding parents and sister and other family), only one of them I feels like they think of me as someone who should fit into one of two boxes. Family otoh…
I hope your close friends eventually learn better or you find more close friends who do treat you like you!
Thanks. I’m trying.
Weirdly, I haven’t actually changed friends since realizing I was trans/agender nor do I think they’ve really changed in how they treat me for the most part. Wonder how much of it was me just subconsciously avoiding people who seemed to put me into a gender box or if my neurospicy personality just pushed people away who would also happen to expect me to follow gender scripts or just taught them to not expect that from me.
If I didn’t already have those kinds of friendships, I’m not sure how I’d try to intentionally find them at this point. I’d imagine neurodivergent or ace/aro people to be better on average. But no clue what sort of learning curve to expect for people. Its annoying how common it is for people who barely know to immediately try to put you into their mental “girl” or “boy” box (even if different people will put you in different boxes at the same time). The only person whom I’ve met who immediately put me into a not-boy and not-girl box was a creepy chaser.