A few people have heard the first track off my two-song EP, Cost of a Boundary. Nobody's heard the second — until now.
All I'll say is: wait for the synth to lift. What you hear in the vocals is the cost of the boundary — I paid something real to set it. But in the synth and the melody, you hear what it bought: freedom. Bright, soaring, house music from the future: CYBER-J - COST OF A BOUNDARY (FREEDOM EDIT).
It's called "Cost of a Boundary," and the title is honest. Boundaries cost something. They're hard to set and hard to hold. But the cost is the doorway. After the boundary, there's play. There's fun. There's access to the parts of you that only come out when they feel safe.
I wrote before about the masculine and feminine in creativity: the feminine, the soft and feeling part, needs the masculine to feel safe. Not controlled, protected. A boundary is the masculine doing its real job. Not dominating, but guarding. And when that guard is in place, the feminine relaxes. It plays.
I've been learning to trust my clean anger, the kind that says this doesn't work for me before resentment has to say it louder. Every line I draw loosens something in me. More room. More lightness. More want to make things.
Sharing music under this name still feels tender, but slowly but surely, it's happening.
You pay the boundary, you get the freedom. If you're standing at the edge of a hard no right now, I hope you say it.
Give CYBER-J - COST OF A BOUNDARY (FREEDOM EDIT) a listen, and reply to this email to let me know what you think.
—J