Lori McKenna is a brilliant songwriter and artist and although I don't know her, I've been a big fan of hers and her song "The Time I've Wasted' for a long time. I've probably listened to it at least a hundred times in the last ten years since the album it was on came out.
I would imagine the song was written about the time Lori or one of her co-writers wasted on a relationship that didn't work out, and the regret she has for all the time given to it someone that you can never get back... and as much as I loved the song and what it has to say.... recently, the lyrics and the story that it tells has touched me differently than it ever has before.
Like a lot of people, I have a complicated 'like, dis-like' relationship with a lot of the new technology that has come into all of our lives in the last decade or two. And how, as helpful as it is and can be to have all this power at our fingertips, it's also a tremendous distraction and disrupter of many of the most important things in our lives, including time with the people we love most, and also with God and with ourselves.
And so it was on my heart to see if I could meld together some of what I feel with the wonderful words that Lori wrote and sings. The result is this video. None of the clips below are mine, they are just things I found and pieced together, and laid onto of this beautiful, truly important song. One person's creativity, mixed with another person's creativity (who have never even met), often can create something neither one of them might have make on their own.
I hope Mrs. McKenna doesn't mind me using a song that was in her heart, to share what's in mine...
When the video was completed, I found myself also wanting to try to put into words all the things that I was feeling, that was in my heart—if I had the courage to be honest about what these amazing screens bring to our lives—the good and the bad. Thoughts that I feel sure that others have too...
"Dear devices,
You have become a huge part of my life and the lives of everyone around me. You fill my every-waking thoughts and I constantly reach out for you, checking to see if you're still there, and that you still like me. It's as if you've tapped into my soul and know what I'm thinking—know what I'm feeling inside—even before I do.
At night, I lay awake thinking of you. Wondering what I ever did without you. What life would be like if I didn't have you. If I could make it. If anyone could. Every day, I try to push you away, but you pull me back. I tell myself 'never again' and moments later, we are one once more.
At first yes, I loved you. With all of my heart, I did. I fell for you head-over-heels and told all my friends and family all about you. How you made my life better. And they fell for you too and grew to love and trust you just as much as I did. Now because of that love—because of the magic spell you have, I rarely get to truly be with, or talk deeply with any of them anymore either.
Through the years, you have brought into my life laughter and learning and we've shared some moments that I'm thankful for. But mostly you have taken and taken from me and given very little in return. You've stolen the one thing in my life that is most precious to me and the ones I love... my time. And I will never, ever get it back. Nor will my children, my family, or my friends.
You are so beautiful and so hard not to want to touch. You allure me with promises of a better life, of accomplishing more in less time. But in the end, because of you, I get almost nothing done. You tell me that with you, I can be great. That I can be more than I am. And yet, you mostly bring out the worst in me. You fill my head with hopes of what I could be and could do with my life, and then fill my heart with jealousy and envy of strangers and even those around me. You have connected me to the whole world, and yet robbed from me the opportunity to be truly connected to the world that I'm living in. You came to me with the promise of more friends, and real community—and yet, I only feel more alone than I ever have in my life.
You make me feel terrible about myself. That the loneliness and the time that I've lost is because of me, not because of you. You tell me it's all my fault and it's because of my weakness, not yours. But it's a lie. You fill me and everyone around you with fear, and anxiety. You make me hate myself for not being stronger. For being sucked in again and again, even though I know better. It's heartbreaking, because I know you can do so much good and yet, rarely do you.
Our time together the way that it's been is now over. I will still be your friend, and we can cross paths now and then and be cordial... perhaps even helpful to each other... but I can no longer trust or let you have the part of me that you desire most. My time. This is my life. The only one I have to live and I will be not let you, waste any more of it.
PS: Maybe someday, when you are wired differently or have been given a conscience or even more so a heart, maybe then... we can find a way to be close again.
But I wouldn't count on it. "
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* song recorded by: Lori McKenna
* song written by: Liz Rose / Lori Mckenna / Jesse Walker
* video elements: Envato.com
