I needed the music. I would have needed it no matter what it was. If I had been relegated to only hearing opera or reggae or cheesy 80's hair bands, the music would have meant just as much. We need music, like we need air and water.
A long while ago I told Courtney that I would make her a CD- my life story in music. I attempted several times, but found it difficult. And quickly realized that it was going to be a sad album. But at most moments in my life, as is the case with everyone I think, there was often a song that just said everything perfectly. Better than I ever could.
Bear with the cover songs if they are not your preferred versions- they are the versions that struck me.
I began with the characters in my life.
First there was my mother...
And my father...
And life in our secluded home. (I'm bummed the original video was pulled from Youtube :(
Martina McBride always resonated with my mother. After 33 1/2 years of marriage, she picked a new song for herself. She chose this one:
Though there was plenty of running and flashing lights, it wasn't as fiery on the outside as it was on the inside. I spiraled into suicidal hate.
I sat on the bus on the way to basketball games, my head against the window and clutching my discman, spinning a copy of Silverchair's Frogstomp. I daydreamed.
(Video is pretty gruesome, don't watch if you find gore triggering)
That place was so dark. For years, the only image I could muster that brought me any joy at all was to picture myself lifeless in a pool of my own blood. When I was 16 one of my friends, the most alive and joyful person I had ever known, was killed. I couldn't understand. Why her and not me? Why did she have to die when she loved life so much, and I had to go on hating mine?
I wanted this song played at my funeral:
My existence was so precarious, every day was such a struggle to simply survive. I teetered along a very fine line... and might not have survived if not for Alanis and her least popular record, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.
She knew where I was, and she was fighting too. She gave me hope.
Years later I would have the opportunity to meet her and tell her this. She looked very deeply into my eyes and we understood each other in a grand cosmic sense. Her chords resonated through us both, connecting our hearts and brains and consciousness in C major vibrations.
My lyrical relationship with her never failed me. Wherever her album was, I was. She expressed my thoughts with an uncanny accuracy. When she was angry, I was angry. When she was suffering from crippling depression, so was I. When she began to grow and work through it... I did too. I started to understand.
When she found peace, I found peace.
By the time So-Called Chaos came out, I was in college and had spent years in therapy. I left my home town and never went back again.
I tell people that I remember taking my first breath.
I was 18, outside my freshman dorm. It was a warm spring day and the sun was shining through the leafy oak trees. My heart swelled in a way that I feared it might burst. I had never felt this before! It startled the tears from my eyes when I realized what the sensation was... I was happy. I had never felt it before. I then knew I could survive anything. And I knew how.
"Out is Through," I tattooed across my right foot. I see it every day when I shower, and it reminds me to put my best foot forward. No matter what you've been through or what you're running from, there's only one way to make it better. You can't hide from it or ignore it or tuck it neatly beneath the couch. No matter what you do, it's there. The only way out is through.
On the first day of my junior year of college, I fell in love. Having considered myself heterosexual (unsuccessful though that was) until this point, it rocked my sense of self. My first true love was a woman. And a woman who could never be mine.
My confusion and depression returned in full force. I began drinking heavily and was hospitalized multiple times. My feelings came to light and things went from awful to worse. I lost a friend and a mentor along with my pride and self-esteem.
I tried to make light of the subject by stating that this was our song:
But in reality, Alanis was right again. She formed the sentences that I could not.
"If I had a bill for all the philosophies I shared
If I had a penny for all the possibilities I presented
If I had a dime for every hand thrown up in the air
My wealth would render this no less severe."
I was at more risk than I had ever been. This time I had my own gun.
It was a Ruger.
For years I saw Lisa's face in crowds, driving in cars I passed on the road. Even when I moved to the other side of the country, she was all around me. Grad school was the perfect excuse. I ran.
The song is cliche and overplayed. It would be on every Boston college student's list. But it's perfect. And it's beautiful.
And I did start a new life. I left Colorado and continued to work on myself. I fell in and out of love. Beautiful people touched me and changed my life. The more I loved myself, the more I was finally able feel. I understood what my father had done to me, to us, and I could finally put my anger where it should have been all along.
Apocalyptica (who I like to call "the male Rasputina") released a song in 2009 with the help of Three Days Grace vocalist Adam Gontier that made me realized how I now felt about my father. The shame and sadness was but a small footnote to how it really felt: vindicating.
Corey Taylor sang with them for "I'm not Jesus," and it was brutally honest as well. But there was one difference in the lyrics... I will forgive.
I have forgiven him.
It's been years since I've felt suicidal. It's just not an option anymore.
I am happy.
All I want now is so simple...
And I am.
OK, that is.
:)
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