I was only ten years old. Innocent, cute, small, and full of life. Of course, like every young girl at one point in her life has, I had a crush on an older man. He was one of my mom's co-workers. One of the youngest at her job. He was so sweet looking and cute. For some reason I was just drawn to him. His name was Jay.
One night, about a week before Christmas, my mom's job decided to throw a Christmas party. It took place at some recreation center way on the other side of town. My mom took me with her since she was allowed to bring a guest. We were one of the first few people to arrive, so we helped set up. As we started, Mary Poppins began playing on the TV hanging up on the wall. More people started coming and the party was getting started.
I mostly enjoyed sitting at the table with my mom and her co-workers, just chatting about life. They asked what I wanted to do when I grow up. I stared blankly at them and said I didn't know. One of the nice ladies said, "It's ok. You have plenty of time to decide..." I smiled with relief.
"You have ten seconds," she said jokingly, staring at her watch.
"Um..." I hesitated for a moment, then came up with the only profession I could ever imagine having. "I want to be an artist."
"So, your daughter wants to be an artist," she said to my mom.
They giggled. I smiled shyly.
Throughout the rest of the evening I caught myself getting small glances at Jay every once in a while. It made me nervous to see him there. Even though I wasn't really planning on talking to him, I just felt nervous knowing he was there. My young-girl heart was beating so fast as any girl's would seeing a handsome man within their perimeter. My mom and her co-workers even noticed my nervousness. They asked me if I was ok. I told them I was fine. I wondered if they knew it was because I had a crush on Jay. Regardless, I kept enjoying the party whether or not I was ever going to talk to Jay.
As time passed, there were less and less people at the party until the festivities were over and it was just me, my mom, and about three or four of her other co-workers left. They started to clean up as the last few people were leaving the party. I saw Jay leave with his guest, who happened to be another man which my mom had told me was just "his friend." At the time I didn't understand, but for some reason my heart started to ache when he left the party.
Instead of helping everyone clean up, I stared out the window, which happened to have a view of the freeway. I looked at all the cars passing each other, wondering which one was Jay's. Mary Poppins was nearly over as it was about to display the credits. The party was officially over. In the background, I hear a gentle song. It made me miss Jay even more.
"It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose,
Wherever it goes, I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time,
Wherever you go..."
As I heard those lyrics, I decided that the song was explaining how I felt at the moment. I missed out on an opportunity to talk to Jay (even though I knew nothing would come of it). I muttered to myself, "You make me smile, Jay. Please stay. Just for a while..."
Of course it was silly because I was only ten, but at the moment it meant something to me. I never before had a moment where a song could almost describe my feelings. I wonder if anyone else in the world remembers their first time hearing a song that described how they felt. I remember this as my first of many times.
"Creep"
Depression had struck me for the first time when I was twelve. I ended up feeling sick to my stomach many times in social situations, which lead to anxiety. I felt only comfort in my bed, where I didn't have to move or see anyone, and in my closest friends.
They had just moved into a new house in a better part of town. I had spent the night there a few times before, but this night was not one of them. It was a simple birthday party for a friend of the family and my mom and I had been invited. It was getting very late, and as the party started settling down, we started to watch scary movies. They put on the original Nightmare on Elm Street. It was the first time I had ever seen that movie. As I was already starting to feel sick to my stomach, being scared by Freddy Krueger was not helping at all. So I felt worse and worse and just wanted to go home. I kept begging my mom to have our friend, Monique, take us home already. She was mad that I wanted to leave so early. I was starting to get frustrated that she was being so selfish. I was sick and really did not want to be there while I felt so. Monique understood and agreed to take us home.
As we embarked on the car ride home, I felt a bit at peace knowing I could go back to my bed soon. I started to relax as the song Creep by Stone Temple Pilots started playing. I had never heard the song before and I really like the way it sounded. Once I found the name of the song, I scratched the name of it into the plastic plate I was holding in my lap with food from the party.
This isn't that great of a story, I know. But I realized that some songs were just made for depression, even if they weren't written about it. And sometimes when you have no idea what's going on with your life, you find comfort in small discoveries or event moments like these. I'm sure I had felt bliss that my friends had cared for me enough to take me home, and this song just happened to come along with it...
"Mad World"
As I scoured the internet out of boredom, I had come across a video that disturbed me a bit, but also grabbed my interest because of the way it was made. I will not describe the video, but it was a bit depressing to say the least. Maybe that's why I was intrigued by it.
The song in the video was what really grabbed my attention. I had never heard anything like it before in my life.
"All around me are familiar faces,
Worn our places, worn out faces..."
The song was odd to me because of its depressing nature. It scared me at first because it was so depressing. But once I had heard it, it was burned into my mind.
"Bright and early for their daily races,
Going nowhere, going nowhere..."
I remember walking my old dog as I kept playing the lyrics over and over in my mind. I never talked to anyone about the song. I never admitted to anyone that the song scared me. And for some reason I kept going back to it.
"The tears are filling up their glasses,
No expression, no expression..."
At the age of twelve, prior to discovering I was depressed, I probably subconsciously related to the song. After a while, it started to seem that way. The line that really struck me was:
"And I find it kind of funny,
I find it kind of sad,
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had..."
That line scared me. It was so daring to me that somebody would ever write those words into a song. And as I sank a bit deeper into my depression, the more I began to like the song. It also scared me that I started to like the song. It started to give me comfort rather than scare me. As I started to understand it, the less I was afraid of it. It was a song unlike any other that I heard. The first song I had heard that was truly as depressing as I was.
"Working Class Hero"
At the age of eleven, I was going through a phase where I believed I was hippie. I listened to a lot of music from the 60's and early 70's. Hippie culture was so fascinating to me that I studied it quite often. I grew to admire people like Jim Morrison, John Lennon, and many others.
But I was still too innocent and didn't really understand what the real hippies were going through at that time. I didn't fully understand the power of their expressionism, meaning I didn't realize how freely they spoke their words. I was just too blatantly innocent, so I didn't understand their need to swear or to talk about sex. I hated both of those topics, being as little as I was. And I also didn't agree with the "free love" concept, or at least I didn't understand it well enough.
You see, I thought it (mostly) meant that the world, as a whole, should just learn to love each other as brother and sister. Now that I am older I realize this mostly meant to make love with as many people as you wanted and that it would be okay. I believed in love only between two people. This thought made me cry when I found out Sonny and Cher had gotten divorced. I used to hear I Got You Babe and think, "Wow, they're so in love." I know that Sonny and Cher had other problems and they they didn't cheat on each other (as far as I know, so if I'm wrong please forgive me). But at eleven things like this matter to you for some reason and it makes you cry. Love is what mattered to me most, and when I found that Sonny and Cher had lost the love between them, it mad me sad, so I would cry every time I heard I Got You Babe.
But that's not what this story is about. I was only giving you an example of how innocent I was. And that brings me to the real story here, as it relates to Working Class Hero by John Lennon. I had gotten a John Lennon CD for Christmas when I was twelve. I had only heard a few select songs from Lennon, so most of the songs on the CD were knew to me. Once Working Class Hero came on, I didn't want to hear anymore from Lennon. I heard all the swearing and started to cry. I had never heard John Lennon swear before that. I know, this probably makes some of you die-hard Lennon fans laugh, but hey, as I had shown you I was VERY innocent. I cried quite a bit over the F-words. I even told my dad how I felt about it. My dad sort of scolded me for crying over such a silly thing.
"That happened more than 30 years ago..." I remember him saying.
Of course, now that I'm older I understand the use of swearing in the song. An eleven-year-old would never fully grasp the concept Lennon was trying to convey. But the song and the tears I cried over it, I feel, mean something. It shows how much I've grown and how much my values have changed over time. As now, I wouldn't give a second thought to saying the F-word. It wouldn't even matter now. It's funny to think how silly we can be as children. But the beauty of innocence, that's what I cherish most from my younger years...
"I Wanna Be Free"
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had began to learn about The Monkees. Of course, I had always known who they were, but I never knew who the members were individually, except for Davy Jones. I can recall loving tunes from the Monkees as early as eleven years old, and constantly belting out Daydream Believer as a very happy kid.
I discovered one Saturday afternoon that their television show came on a TV station called "Antenna TV." At 2:00pm every Saturday and Sunday I would drop everything I was doing to sit down and watch The Monkees. The more I watched the more I began to learn about who they were individually. I developed crushes on each of them at least once, like most young girls who have ever seen The Monkees experience.
One day I even managed to convince my mom to buy the Monkees' CD called The Monkees Greatest Hits. It brought me such joy to have this CD, as it made me feel like a true Monkees fan. I would listen to it whilst doing homework. One song in particular stuck a chord (no pun intended) with me, and that was I Wanna Be Free. I had always described the feeling it gave me as "hugging my soul." I loved it so much I would put it on repeat.
Unfortunately, Davy Jones died about two weeks later after I bought the CD. It was truly devastating to me as a new/old Monkees fan. Davy was the only Monkee I had known and loved my whole life. His sudden passing made me blue beyond belief. I had never cried at the death of a celebrity so much before. I actually grieved him. For two days I spelled out his name on my knuckles and wore it as if it were tattoed on me. For nine days (yes, I actually kept track) I avoided listening to I Wanna Be Free, and the whole CD in general. Just the thought of the song would make me tear up. Everywhere I went, somebody was talking about his death or somebody was playing the theme song of the show. I never would've thought hearing "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees!" would've ever made me so sad and frustrated at the same time. I guessed that it was just me grieving. Those words were everywhere. I didn't want to think about them after Davy's passing. I even avoided the show for a long time. Just the intro would make me tear up enough to say, "Nope, I can't handle it." Hearing even their happiest tunes like Last Train to Clarksville and I'm A Believer made me depressed. And Daydream Believer...
Forget about it.
I didn't even want to remember how much I loved that song.
But don't get me wrong, I still love the song and it's very dear to me. Now that three years have passed since Davy's passing I have gotten over all that. I don't watch the show anymore, though, because I honestly just don't have the attention span to watch it anymore. I can hear the songs without crying. I can now just smile and remember the princely Davy Jones the world once had.
"True"
The exact day before Davy Jones died, my high school marching band held a kareoke night. There was one song I heard two people sing that I enjoyed. It was so soft and delicate. But I wasn't paying too much attention to it, so I had forgotten about shortly after.
The song did haunt me for a while, though. In the back of my mind, I faintly remembered what it sounded like. I wanted to hear it again, but I didn't even know the name of it. I couldn't even hum it if you had asked me. It was troubling me, but it wasn't a priority so I chose to just forget about it. I figured I would eventually hear it again some day.
And I don't remember how it happened but one day I did hear the song once again and fell in love with it. It was True by Spandau Ballet. I would find myself singing it at random times during school. I would play it in mind at happy moments. There is one memory I have of this song that I hold dear to me.
I had a friend named Layton, who was very shy but very sweet. He wasn't all that social and seemed to be drawn to me. I would always sit with him on the bus to our field trips during sophomore year. He would talk my ear off about the songs he liked and the funny stories he had. I listened because I knew it meant the world to him. Nobody else really took the time to hear his stories or even sit next to him on the bus. He was a smart kid with a good heart. Some of my happiest memories from high school come from those field trips, especially the last one we had sophomore year. We went to the Hoover Dam. As we headed back to school on the bus, Layton and I relaxed while I mentally played this song.
And I should've cherished this boy more.
At the beginning of my senior year in high school, Layton stopped coming to school. We were told he was in the hopsital. I was never told what for, until one day a friend of mine posted on the internet that he had died of leukemia. I still to this day have not cried over him. I have no idea why, even though I do miss him. I guess the grieving process was different for me this time around. But I do miss him, I know this much is true.
"Nightshift"
My grandma had shown signs of dementia since I was ten years old. When I was sixteen, her symptoms had gotten much worse. My godmother had been taking care of my grandma for a while after she was diagnosed. It eventually got to the point where my godmother couldn't take care of her anymore because she became too high maintenance and my godmother is a very busy woman. So the decision was made to send her to a nursing home. This was in March of 2013.
The nursing home made it actually much worse on my grandma. She was too used to having her children take care of her. She would scream or try to leave when someone in the nursing home staff tried to touch her. My grandma had forgotten how to walk, so she had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair. She was incontinent, so she had to have her adult diapers changed every so often. She couldn't clean herself, so someone had to bathe her. My grandma was too used to either one of her children, or her personal caretaker, Rosa, doing those things for her. Rosa was hired by my godmother to help take care of my grandma when my godmother couldn't. But if I remember correctly, Rosa was fired for some reason (nobody would tell me why).
My parents and I had taken a small trip to visit her so she would feel more comfortable in the nursing home. We lived in a different state than she did, so it really was a trip. My godmother had suggested that everyone in the family take turns visiting her throughout the day so she would never feel too far apart from her family while at the nursing home.
One day - I'll never forget this day - my godmother had us all sit down in a private room with a doctor. She had the doctor talk to us about my grandma's condition. The only thing I didn't understand is why she had my grandma in the room with us.
The doctor was very straightforward with us. My aunts and my father would not believe just anyone telling them that my grandma's condition was only getting worse and that she didn't have much time left. The doctor said that that year would be her last year of existence. I appreciated the doctor just telling it like it is. I accepted it and knew it long before he even said anything. My grandma was obviously showing signs that she wasn't going to make it much longer. Sure people were telling us to be positive and that we should have hope that she could live a bit longer than expected. But I remained realistic. My grandma was 83 years old and had lived a long and good life. She was already suffering from a terrible disease that was eating up her mind and her consciousness, why would anyone want to prolong that? I loved my grandma very much, so I thought it would be okay if she had passed before the year ended. Maybe my family would've hated it if I had said that before she had passed, but it was with the best intentions.
Eventually we discovered that the nursing home just wasn't going to work out for my grandma. She just wasn't getting used to it no matter how hard we tried and how many times we visited her. They made the decision to have her stay in one of my aunt's houses. They had a hospital bed moved into the spare room of her house for my grandma to sleep in. And after that had happened my grandma's condition worsened dramatically.
We visited her once more before she had passed. When we saw her, she was practically unconscious. She couldn't open her eyes, she couldn't eat, she couldn't move. She had just laid there in her hospital bed. They had her on a feeding tube so she could still get her nutrients. Everyone in my family that had visited her would hold her hand and whisper in her ear that they loved her. We always felt that she knew who was speaking to her and she had felt our presence.
I had missed school for a week because of this trip, so my mother and I had to go back home while my dad stayed behind. He was there for about 2 weeks. She passed the night I came home from my band trip that year. The funeral was arranged accordingly.
But during the time I had visited her, a song played for me that resonated with the situation. The song was Nightshift by the Commodores. I had always admired the lines:
You found another home,
I know you're not alone
On the Nightshift...
Gonna miss your sweet sounds,
Coming down,
on the Nightshift...
And every time I hear that song, I feel proud. My grandma left behind a legacy for my family. She left behind 10 children, 34 gradnchildren, and 67 (and still counting) great-grandchildren. She raised us all on love, and she's the reason our whole family has stayed so close to each other. And even in her passing we had all come together to honor her life. And to cherish the greatest gift she ever gave us, her love.
"Beautiful Boy"
After Davy Jones had died, I was a little scared that all my idols would eventually end up dying sooner than later. I came to the utter realization that most of my idols were old or already dead, which made it hard for me to enjoy anything in this generation. Eventually I had accepted this fact and moved on.
John Lennon's death had affected me at early age, even though he died years before I was born. I had already accepted it, but it became a little harder to accept after learning more about him. I had a book on his life that was given to me years ago. It's a very thick book, so I never had the attention span to read it, until I saw a documentary on Lennon.
I saw mostly the ending of this documentary, part of which they talked about his son, Sean Lennon. I heard the song Beautiful Boy for the first time in this documentary. (It actually wasn't the first time I had heard it, I had heard it before in a movie called Mr. Holland's Opus and I never gave much thought to it after that. ) This song was probably the most beautiful song I had ever heard, hands down. I loved the way it sounded, the way it was written, why it was written, and who it was written for. Never in my life had I heard such sweet words sung or spoken to a child. I admired the song in all it's entirety, and I still do. I immediately learned all the words and would sing it to myself every day for about a whole year. (Yes, a year. I loved it that much.) There is not much of a story for this song, but I felt it was important. It will always mean something to me because I plan to sing it to my future son(s) if I ever have any kids. The song is just so special, I could never forget it. For those of you who are parents and you don't know this song, please acquaint yourself with it. It's so lovely and heartfelt, you can't help but love it.
"Best Day of My Life"
Graduating high school was a fear of mine when I was a senior. As the day came closer, things became more real. Time just seemed to go by so fast. And it seemed as though nobody cared. Almost all of my classmates were so hyped and ready to graduate, they were practically begging for their diplomas on the last day of school. They just wanted to be done with it so bad, all they could do was talk about it. It concerned me that they were so ready for it and I wasn't. I wanted so badly to stay in high school and remain a kid forever. I didn't want to grow up too fast. I wasn't ready to be on my own yet.
But nevertheless, graduation day came whether I wanted it to or not. And once that day came I accepted it. Time wasn't going to stop for me, as it never does for anyone. Life moves on. Never miss a beat.
My graduation song was Best Day of My Life by the American Authors. The song will always be special to me simply because it was my graduation song. As much as I dreaded the day, it was one of the best days of my life. The things that mattered during high school were now unimportant. All the drama and issues seemed to just come off our shoulders as if water off a duck's back. The strongest of athletes cried and hugged their best friends. Everyone slowly started to cry and rejoice as they muttered the words, "We did it! High school's over..." Even the unhappiest people were smiling and laughing as they took pride in all of their hard work paid off.
Maybe you can remember the day you graduated high school. It's one of the best and worst feelings ever. To finally be an adult and to have some more freedom to choose what you want to do with your life. To be able to move out and go explore the world. But it's also scary and sad because you'll miss your friends. You'll miss the familiarity of walking through the halls of a school you've been to for four years. You'll miss having everything for free. It's such a bittersweet feeling, and you'll always remember it. You may not always think of the feeling, but when you look back on it, you'll definitely remember.
Epilogue
I wrote this to tell people how music can affect you in powerful ways. There are so many songs that I like and have memories associated with, but couldn't tell you all of them. Music is the universal language and everyone can relate to it.
My stories may not be the best and might even be a little boring, but I wanted to share some of my most fond memories with you all. Music has always been a big part of my life and will continue to be until I take my last breath. I thought it would be a cool idea for me to take the memories I have with certain songs and put them in a story. I encourage everyone to do the same, as it may make for some interesting stories. Life is full of treasures and surprises. The smallest things can make the biggest impact. Even when you're not fully aware of your surroundings, something is always there in the background helping you along. I just can't stress how crazy and cool life is.
We'll have our ups and downs and whether we realize it or not, they'll always take us someplace new. And that is the wonderful journey of life.