the happy accompaniment to the depressing lyrics-

07/19/2024: I very purposefully do things. I very purposefully became a mother. I very purposefully choose songs for each of my entries (even when I was 18, I did this, and I am 24 now). I just really want to stress why I choose these songs; they mean SO much to me. And what better way to do this then to put my beautiful creation as the first photo on this part of my website. I will be posting my reasonings in chronological order. So, let's start with arguably the DUMBEST entry there is on here: the first.

To The Person Who Can't Love Who's In The Mirror:

Age I Wrote This: 17                                       Inspiration: The Popular Kid in My Specialized Class 

Song Choice #1: Rag 'N' Bone- Human 

I can't tell you specifically whether or not I started placing the artist in front of the song title immediately, but I do remember the thought process. I can also absolutely attribute my need to make people feel special to this entry and to the thought process I had with putting the artist first. I like that. Because as many people don't realize, authors write books and throw them out into the universe. Without rhyme or reason, they untangle their brain from their work soon after, forgetting bits and pieces of what exactly they put in their books. They register in their brains that a past version of them wrote the piece, even if it’s them subconsciously doing such. So, I prefer to highlight the artist. And also highlight connectivity in the same breath. This song is such a catalyst. I love artists that aren't conventionally attractive and who push their words out from the deepest parts of their soul. You cannot tell me that you don't believe every lyric in this man's song. He emphasizes the ideology that we all make mistakes, and we all have given to our bodies, we all give to our brains, we all feel like we just can't get life right sometimes. And, with the popularity of the song came my response to put this as the first song suggested on my music page. I wanted to scream at this guy, who was popular for a reason (many, he's kind of a loser now for actions I won't disclose on here), that this song was popular for a reason. You are not alone in your battle within yourself. Lean into that battle and use it as a step on the ladder to the way up, not an entry into the abyss your teenage ass wanted to be swallowed by. FUN FACT: He reposted this entry on one of his personal pages, and took my entry as a compliment, which quite literally, wasn't a compliment but honestly a way to relax my frustration with him and the world and that class. I'll probably elaborate sooner or later on why he's a cornball to me now, but it's looking like a millennium will pass before I talk about him specifically again. And it won't be about him, but about me, and how he took a piece of me with him that year. As did a lot of people that year. Moving on....

Song Choice #2: James Arthur- Recovery

I LOVE THIS MAN. I will obviously never personally thank him for how much he made me feel seen in this time period of my life but thank you thank you thank you, you talented specimen and the team you have behind you. This was me very much still yelling at the popular guy, that you design your future, and you fight and choose yourself every day even when all the odds are lined up against you. This song comes from an urgency you won't find in my first song choice. The way the verses are sang. The rhythm sounds like he's checking items off a list, like I acknowledge all of my odds, I acknowledge that I have been ignoring them lately, and I kind of should stop doing that. But I've got to go, I've got to get away from all this hatred, all of this adversity, and I HAVE to pave a way for myself that only works for me. I have to also be proud of that shit and OWN it. Something my popular kid never did. In that time period. Now, he's doing the best he can do career wise, I guess. Congratulations, buddy. Keep going. As much as that 17-year-old me deserved to be acknowledged and deserved friendship that you couldn't offer me, 24-year-old me does love the updates that I get from social media. 

Song Choice #3: Linkin Park- Breaking The Habit

This one stings a little. Hi Chester. When I am writing this, you've been gone for seven years now, as of yesterday. A little creepy if you believe in numerology, also my uncle shared a birthday with you, and also took his life, and I am aware I could be finding a coincidence where there isn't one, but I honor you and him and your loved ones you left behind. I feel like this song choice stings just a little more too because I was speaking to people who struggle with mental health issues in writing my entry, and you spent a whole life fighting your inner demons and there is no way I will ever be okay with saying you lost your battle. Yes, that might be what is written on your death certificate, but each battle in a war means something, if not everything. This song is evidence that as much as depression pulled you one way, it can be pulled the other way as well. Chester gave us gifts and gifts with all of these songs and this band, and so did the others. HE's helped break the habits. I placed this song choice in here with the intention of wanting Mr. Wanna Be Phenomenon to break his habits. Again, to choose himself and all that he deserves. Do it for Chester. For Jeremy, my uncle. For Aubreigh, in today's world. I hope he spreads mental health awareness now in his everyday life as much as our classmates did for him. The support they showed him is admirable to this day.

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Why Being a Stan to Something is So Important

Age I Wrote This: 17                                   ___________________________        Inspiration: Me, Myself and I 

Song Choice #1: Troye Sivan- We’re My OTP

Firstly, the inspiration for this one I am unreasonably proud of. I was always boy oriented growing up. Seeking validation from a population I remain having a hard time understanding. So to focus on writing and to branch out is so important to me and this needs to be noted. Moving forward, I have a hard time keeping up with trends and abbreviations for things that our generation has come up with. For the life of me, I couldn’t stop saying “On The Phone” reading the abbreviation above, but somehow it was created to stand for “One True Pairing”. Which contradicts itself in a million ways. One True Pairing supports the existence in soulmates and people who are meant to be together, no matter what hardships they face or who they see in the middle of everything. Personally, I loved me some One Direction (influenced heavily by my best friend, who turned on her mom’s computer one day and pointed out 5 young men and told me to pick one to which I gladly did). Being a fan of them opened up so many avenues for me. And for my best friend. We could really disassociate from the world around us and delve into lives that we didn’t know. We could cope with so many hard feelings by just ignoring them and listening to catchy songs, and watching interviews, and critiquing vocals. Seeing the advocacy they’d attempt to have, the cultures they would try to acknowledge. How rapidly they became a global phenomenon will always stay a shock to me. But to see it happening from my corner of the world, was something I’m thankful for. Troye also was a quick phase in the maze of our fangirling. Him and Connor Franta, along with JC Caylen and Kian Lawley. Throw Tyler Oakley into there. Troye had a humility to him that was hard to replicate, especially with having any type of status in the media. When he started singing and really leaning into that world, I was so proud of him. It surprises me that this specific song isn’t on Spotify. However, I am afraid that I am finally starting to age myself with these songs. 

Song Choice #2: Rixton- Make Out

This is also one you cannot find on Spotify. I felt alone when I ventured out and started liking bands on my own that my best friend didn’t like or know about, but I still did it. These guys are not very mainstream; however, they do have a song a good amount of people would know. Some people might know Hotel Ceiling by them, but Me and My Broken Heart would be the one you might get away with playing in a public place and having people sing. These guys ended up only having one album as far as I can tell on their discography on Spotify, but I am not willing to take the time to find out just right now. I would’ve been able to do so when I was writing this, but I didn’t. Putting this song here just mainly tells me that I really enjoyed Rixton at the time and wanted to plug them into this entry as representation of my interest in bands spanning out. 

Song # 3: One Direction- Nobody Compares 

I loved listening to their music and letting the idea of this type of love flood the gates of my brain and put me into a delusion that I’d find this somewhere and I’d find it fast. Spoiler alert, I did not. I think, at 24, I’m closer to finding a fairytale love than I was typing on a purple laptop and shamelessly believing what the tabloids wrote about these poor innocent young men just trying to live their best lives. I think they are just as grateful for this part of their lives as they are grateful that it is over. So, to an extent I can relate. Being 17 sucked. I’m glad it is over. But the gratitude I have for this time in my life also stems from me admitting that I deserved more than to just obsess over bands and crush on boys that are astronomically out of reach (not out of my league because as wise women once said, “can’t a bitch tell me nothing!”). Wise words to live by as well in this song. Nobody compares to you. Or your mother. Or your cousin. They just don’t. 

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To The Boy Who Used to Be The One:

Age I Wrote This: 17             ___________________ Inspiration: My First Relationship After My Mom Died

Song Choice #1: Naughty Boy ft Bastille- No One’s Here To Sleep

To be blissfully reminded of this song brings light into my life that I didn’t know was possible. This was my jam. Bastille’s singer is in the top 10 list of my favorite vocalists. The intention behind his voice, the accent he has, the content of the songs he sings. The best thing everyone thinks to sing about is love but all of the other song topics in between is really where it’s at. Or to even compare your love to other outlandish scenarios, like comparing how tumultuous your love could be to Pompeii is crazy in itself. But people took to it. I believe that’s why I chose this to be one of the songs. This boy wanted a mature relationship with me, in such a way where I could say “you were always faster than me, I’ll never catch up to you,” like the lyrics in this song say. The dramatic sounds in this song too also help me sit with the fact that my feelings were intense, my defensiveness prefaced all of the future situations I’d find myself in, and that my passion and drive for something more but at MY pace, is still here. Don’t mind me while I put this song on replay for the next few days. 

Song Choice #2: Breaking Benjamin- Breath

I am so excited to express my love for this specific music genre. The turmoil, the screaming, the breathy vocals. The passion, the fear but the strength to tread on anyway. The mere principle that men dominated this genre, with emotions so ferocious and tenacious it seems a woman is behind the meaning of them all. I was angry. Mostly at myself. I was angry that I was presented with a guy that wanted me and wanted all of me, and I was nowhere near ready for that. I do hold accountability for the breakup (I have since late November 2016) but I also hold grace for myself and understand that I had lost my mom a month prior. I constantly dabble in dividing my life into two. Before my mother and after my mother. He was a casualty in the transition process. He wanted a butterfly out of a caterpillar. We have both done some immense growing since all of this. However, I am still angry. And this song is still very much applicable to my life, just not this situation anymore. 

Song Choice #3: Alicia Keys- In Common

I really devoured with this song choice. Especially going on to see my dating life and how much I searched to find people of the opposite sex that I related to. Stemming from my childhood of religious, domestic, and sexual trauma, men just weren't in the cards for me. Or so I thought. But when 16 came and went, parading boys around me that either got sick of dating the same girls, or saw me as a challenge, I finally considered the possibility that boys might just like me. For my frizzy curls, my uneven front teeth, my curves too mature for the eyes of men my age. My dark, beaty eyes and bushy eyebrows, and lips not too small but not very big. I even went on to find a boy (after this one) where our lives felt shockingly parallel. So much so, we even looked similar. Carried ourselves similar. Let's bookmark that one though, because I am certainly getting ahead of myself. Alicia even being biracial and having a point in her life where she was attending public events without heavy makeup on, inspired me enough to use her song. Because what is a strong beautiful woman without the pretense of understanding that if you don't have a friend group or a home, MAKE ONE.  

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An Open Letter to My Mom on the Anniversary of Her Death

Age I Wrote This: 17              ____                                 Inspiration: Mama Being Gone for a Whole Year

Song Choice #1: Ed Sheeran- Supermarket Flowers 

This song is so touching, but as much as it is touching, I kind of feel wrong for using the song to dedicate to my mother's passing. My mom didn't pass from an illness that she couldn't help, at least that is what a lot of people perceive what her situation must have been. Overdose means you had options. But it was an illness. It took my mother. It took someone I needed and that I need. I think that time will harden me, but if anything, it makes me incredulous. This 17-year-old girl that wrote this was going through this loss with only a year dividing seeing her mother's physical form and then her being gone as quick as she was here. This girl wanted a clear cut, perfect, cookie cutter grief journey. One the older version would find honorable. But that shit plays out in my head as a damp, lonely, isolated time. I thank Ed though, for creating something that still makes me feel validated in my grief, and makes it feel tangible and like I am not alone in missing someone that I have to spend more than half of my life remembering and not seeing.

Song Choice #2: Metallica- Enter Sandman

The sole reason behind putting this song in the entry is because my mom loved Metallica. My mother’s music taste is by far one of my favorite attributes of that woman. She could party her socks off (I am aware of the corniness of that phrase but alas I will leave it). However, I will add an anecdote regarding my sister and going to the state fair last year. What I’d give to do something as little as go to the New York State Fair with my mother. Anyway, my sister as we were walking back to the car heard the same thing in the distance as me. Rock music. It was dark, warm, our faces full of makeup that started to blend and smudge on our faces. It took everything in us not to cry, but reassurance seeped in her broken voice as she said, “I knew we were going to miss who was playing at the Chevy Court.” And unbeknownst to her, I had also wanted to stop and just sit to listen to music that my mom enjoyed in her lifetime. My anxiety of the uncertainty, paired with what to not expect in the mass of people that are at the state fair, I placed my want to connect with my mother on the back burner. In instilling that, comes the fear within me to forget the fire that kept my mother alive for so long. I have a fucking responsibility to never forget such and her memory is a constant reminder to live life to the fullest. To stay longer than 42 years here, my fire is so important and I wish hers wasn’t put out as quick as it was. 

Song #3 G-Eazy ft Bebe Rexha- Me Myself & I 

This song choice I find hilarious. Dark humor hilarious though. I have a memory, very distant in comparison to events I know for a fact happened, where my mom is singing this. Is she in the car? Is she in the store? Is she walking down the road with all of us? I very much appreciate my memory, however I doubt it quite often. Who is telling me my mother sang this song once offhandedly? Is it my inner child who remembers her loud booming voice chastising me? The same child who constantly sought refuge in the same person with their kisses and “I love you more”s? Or is it the hopeless adult clinging with white knuckles onto their son’s grandmother and wanting everything in the world for them to interact and just knowing but never accepting that this will never happen? Two people who changed my life and their lives are parallel. I just want to scream. Time is bullshit when it comes to a grief journey. Almost 8 years later and I’m in tears over the aforementioned thoughts. I need my mama. Where does all this fucking love go? I’m also grateful for this song because I can apply the lyrics of it to my mentality and my hardships. Understanding that it’s been only me, that I work hard and strive to do better every day. I am so proud of myself and you cannot tell me any different, only person I listen to is looking back at me in the mirror. 

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Love & Its Intensities

Age I wrote this: 17                       Inspiration: I thought I proved the world wrong in having a guy best friend

Song Choice #1:  MAX ft gnash- Lights Down Low

To preface: I officially found a typo of mine that I did not hyper-fixate on, which is rare for me. That’s how delusional I was at this time in my life. Canon events were happening left and right, with it being my senior year in high school. I met so many diamonds in the rough these two years. I had a favorite one at this point. I gravitate towards the quiet, distanced people. Oftentimes, they openly display a lot of my inner feelings. So this was no different. I was so happy to finally find someone who would get to know me on a deeper level, as I was usually the shy kid at my home school and didn’t have any friends there that I hadn’t made in middle school. He was literally my mirror image. This song may speak of love, and I only put it in there because of the lyrics mostly. The love MAX sings about in this song is so tangible. My favorite lyrics are: Now I’m feeling you breathing slow… ‘cause baby were just reckless kids…” I was calculated, not reckless, but all the more I asked him if he would ever be reckless with me (PLATONICALLY, believe it or not) and he said, yes. Kind of cool sentiment if you ask me. 

Song Choice #2: Love is: Houston Kraft

This is not a song, but a video of songs put together to spell LOVE out! If you couldn’t tell by the title. I love this unique choice of mine. Unique, yes, but also intentional. For the life of me, I could not get this experience out of my head. I want to say this was my second student government conference. I cringe literally just writing those words, but those definitely played a part in my escapes from reality. We’d stay in a hotel for two days, hear adults talk about how inspired they are by life and what got them there, go to this semi formal type pregame of a club experience, and then pack up and dip the next day. This man was one of the speakers at this particular conference. They usually had a main speaker, and then workshops with a few more speakers, I would like to say he wasn’t the main one, but he very well could’ve been. I was so intrigued by his usage of the word love, and this idea that love was all around. That intimacy existed in all walks of life in all types of places with all types of relationships and backgrounds. I was so validated in my right to love, and ever since that conference, I’ve been obsessed with leaving things (people, even) better than you found them. I’d like to say I made a positive contribution in the life of this newfound opposite sex friendship of mine. Him making a positive contribution to my life on the other hand? Debatable, to say the least. 

Song Choice #3: Randy Newman- You’ve Got a Friend in Me

This song gives this entry the playfulness it needed. I threw the word friend around 3 million times and expected for these songs to come to the surface, and without failure this one came up. The Toy Story movies play such a fond part in my childhood, the entertainment industry babysat us quite often. Being put in front of the Tv was the norm for us. To have that active thought about personifying your toys was fun to go through as well. Personification is still one of my favorite tools in my personality. Friendship is so lovely. I often find myself searching for wholehearted examples of platonic relationships between individuals. A book that I read recently emulates such. The whole time you are thinking the focal point is her potential relationship with another suitor, but the whole time the most important love of the book is the love shared between her and her best friend. My heart is full. Makes me want to get to know hundreds of people. But to find those special connections and to drive alongside bopping your heads to classics such as this song is really what life is about. I’ve had this ideology set for as long as I can remember. Prioritizing true connection is natural to me. In friendship though, I must highlight. Because if we’re talking about significant others, I’ve struggled in that department. It’s always slapped my ass. And when I met this guy it was choking me. 

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Dreamin’

Age I Wrote This: 17                            Inspiration: Really thought I was in love with my soul tie

Song Choice #1: Imagine Dragons- Dream

Another song that I was elated to remember again. I felt so spoken to upon listening to this song for the first time (and for the umpteenth time when I got to hear it live in concert). This song was my baby. From a young age, I just wanted to be left alone but also simultaneously listened to. Maybe there’s a selfishness to my thought process here, and I feel completely validated in that sense. Especially if the selfishness comes down to defining songs for your personal consumption. This song is in my bone marrow. The surrealism I feel on a daily basis is nodding its head at the acknowledgment of time and what exactly I am doing with the time that I have. You mean to tell me that I have to keep living in a world where there has to be a million uphill battles and journeys to be taken and I have to somehow be grateful for it all?! Bologna. I was grateful to find someone who loved my words. Who loved my dreamy thought processes. Who talked and talked and talked and listened and listened and listened. My heart really felt heard. No one could’ve bursted this version of me’s bubble. Until it was bursted. 

Song Choice #2: Bishop Briggs- Dream

 First and foremost, I might be able to convince myself that this song was chosen solely because this is a lovely woman with a beautiful bellowing voice that I would have no trouble pulling inspiration from. 24 year old me is okay with that depiction. But no, let’s suck ourselves back into being vulnerably 17. As if I want to relive that bullshit again. Anyway, I was stuck around this time being hopelessly in love with my friends-to-lovers trope first boyfriend. I wanted to do everything to show my love for him. The desperation in the lyrics does attribute to my fondness of this boy but boy do the lyrics tell a story that I was struck dumbfounded by. The lyricist(s) says, “I know you won’t stay anyway” (I’m paraphrasing) and to think I just put this song in here because it shared a title with the first. Come to find out it was warning me. Bishop Briggs is so badass though. River is superficial compared to the woman’s discography. Androgynous as hell. I love it.