Alright! Here we go. Blog #2 of Gyna ‘n Nehney’s bloggy topic sync. As yesterday was explained, Gail is awesome and got me into blogging. We have decided that on the nights we work together, We’ll blog together. It helps to pass the time and for me personally, I’m enjoying just being honest and free somewhere. So tonight’s topic struck me pretty early in the day and its been a good hassle to get all the thoughts and feelings out. I’m a music freak. I absolutely live by it. Its only natural that with music there has to be something somewhere that helps my music define who I am as a person. Tonight’s subject was pretty simple. Five songs that would be considered your soundtrack to your life up to this point. I never thought that I’d think of something so hard. Almost 7 hours of whittling down songs and being able to work through why those songs defined me as a person. I even put links to youtube videos to listen to the songs in case you don't know them. They're pretty standard songs. Without further Ado… I am again blaming Gail!
Lynyard Skynyrd
–Simple Man- Listen closely to what I say//And if you do this it’ll help you some sunny day. Why this song? This is for my dad. You can say what you want about me you can say what you want about my childhood. And sure we always remember the Bad more than we remember the good. But what I remember, what I’ll always remember is this song is my dad. He’s held me up in ways that no one can ever truly understand. My dad is everything in my universe that I love. He’s displayed characteristics that I know are inside of me. He’s got a heart beyond everything. He is the voice I listen to most often.
The good inside of me that he gave me is what keeps me anchored to the good in me that fights all that negativity. My dad.. is my dad. And that’s coming from a girl that’s very much a Daddy’s Girl. I’ll admit it. More so.. this song is beyond the lyrics and the rifts. That amazing whirlwind of guitar that is just the very Jesus Christ of guitar playing isn’t enough to make this song the first reason on my top five. Its here because somewhere inside my chest, every time I hear it, it twists something inside of me. I imagine that one-day, when I lose my dad, I’ll never be able to listen to this song without crying. That’s how deep this song is for me. Because its tied to him. It’s the words, the lesson.
The heart that comes from a parent to a child. A little bit of everything my dad tried to teach me, the good things I keep with me are a part of that song. Every time I hear it, I imagine my dad’s voice. His advice, his caution to be simple; to love myself; to understand myself; above everything else in my life resides in those lyrics. Its my dad’s words to follow my heart and nothing else and to find satisfaction on this road that I’m taking, no matter what it is. Anyone can take this song and say “That’s the whole song” But that’s it exactly. Because somewhere in the music, everyone can hear that, but not everyone feels the heart, the love that I got from my dad the first time we shared this song.
He had said he always wanted that from his parents. To have that connection so that he could look back on those words and keep them close. Instead, he gave them to me. Through everything, this song is what I am. I follow my heart, I follow my soul, I remember that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that I do without his love and support, his want to be happy. As I said before, the day I lose my dad, I’m probably going to lose this song because that bond will be broken physically, but the lessons are never lost.
The love, the firmness, the blood, sweat and tears it took to make this person is always going to be there because this is all I am and all I can be. Its something I take with me and keep with me even when I feel like everything’s been taken from me. Thank you Daddy.. even if you never read this. Thank you.
Johnny Cash
–Hurt- I hurt myself today, To see if I still feel//I focus on the pain, The only thing that’s real Oh boy. This song is beyond incredibly personal for me. This is me at my worst; me at my most masochistic. Lets face it. Since I’m being honest beyond all honest on this blog: there have been one too many times in my life that I’ve done something to hurt myself. Beyond what the song speaks to in my need to punish myself, it’s the fact that there’s a moment in one’s life where they look back, they question. They go over, time and time again who they are, who they’ve become, who they want to be.
There have been so many times that I do things both consciously and sub-consciously that ends in my suffering. My best friend would call it my martyr complex. In truth, I believe that I can suffer because I can take it. It makes me stronger. It keeps me stronger. Even if I don’t want to be that monster. Even if I know what it can do, what its capable of, I have to lie to myself. I tell myself that without pain we can’t know what relief feels like. I justify that I’m capable of hurting myself in that way. Its not just the selfish end either. Its not just to end the things that drag me to that monster’s doorstep. Its suffering in the small ways for those I love. It’s putting up with more than I think I can handle.
I have to look at it positively. If I don’t, the monster may surface. In the end, this song is my darkness. I’ve always been told that the people that care about me the most worry about my sanity, worry for my sanity. Sometimes, I feel like they should, like they have a right to. In the depths of my soul, I feel this song. This is the final anthem after the monster has taken over and done its worst. This is the aftermath to the worst act that could be done, good or bad, sacrifice made. “I will let you down, I will make you hurt” … Because I can. Because you love me, and I still don’t love myself. If that makes any sense.
Staind
–Please- And please, I’m still wearing this miserable skin//And it’s starting to tear from within I just want to know what you want from me. Is that so hard a question? Everyone has an agenda. I think that in the end, even if it’s the worst way to put it, the song for me is expectation. I do everything I can to be good enough for someone, anyone. I go through so many things and strain for such aching approval that I forget that there’s no one better to please than myself. I ache and I tear myself for acceptance.
Since I was a child I can remember wanting to be everything to everyone. More so, this song is the anger of falling short of that acceptance. So many times I feel like I’ve failed, that I’ve not been able to meet up to someone’s standards. As much as I hate it, I really think this was for my mom. For the anger that I carry around, I do find that I blame her. I felt as a child the only way that I’d be good enough was to be good enough for her standards, and I never felt like I was. Sure my mom pushed me to my grades to expectations but I never felt like I got a “Good job.” I honestly can’t say that I remember my mom ever saying, “I’m proud of you” unless it was the night that I graduated high school.
A sad thought actually. Maybe I’m also remembering the bad things over the good things, but again this is what its left me with. Also, I guess, as I got older, as I saw her for a person, I really didn’t let the anger go that I felt about the lack of praise for meeting the things she wanted. Even to this day, I’ve lived with so much of that anger, so much of that knot inside of me, that it’s a part of me. My anger has become as much of me as my heart. It’s no secret that I’m angry. It’s no secret that I’m afraid to let it go. I’m afraid of what I become without it. I think that also created this misplacement that I put on everyone.
I try to be everything to everyone. I try to make myself, strain myself for people that may not ever realize what I do for them. I cut myself to pieces, I tear myself down.. just for someone to look at what I do and say “Gina, you’re awesome.” And maybe I don’t appreciate that I do get that from some people. This would be my validation. The need in me to be validated to be good enough for someone on any level and the anger that stems because I don’t feel like I get enough of it.
Matchbox 20
–Real World- Strange, where were you, when we started this gig//I wish the real world, would just stop hassling me Ahaha, so true. In truth, I’m a child a heart with an imagination that rivals most major director’s fantasylands. Inevitably that day dreamy look goes away from everyone’s faces. Maybe not mine, but everyone else’s. In the span of a moment I honestly find myself wondering what it would be like to be an ice cream maker, a superhero, a princess, a bouncer, bartender and a blackjack dealer.
There’s more than a few moments on any given night that I feel like this real world of cell phones and headsets, a world of internet and television, the existence reality is just too much to bear. Instead I give myself a vacation where I’ve won the lottery. I daydream of creating a new life, a new person to be that wasn’t mean. New characters take on shape and form in my own mind that develop their own personality. Their story is just a hop skip and a jump away in the depths of my mind and twine on the very cusp of a life that make sense, then my phone goes off at work and I have to take a call. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come out of that reverie only to find that I’m Gina again and Gina has to work.
Its fairly disheartening to be on a boat somewhere off of what would be modern day Seattle chasing pirates that have been murders to my kind and my family only to come back to someone needing my help. Even if I can create these worlds and these characters I find that in the real world I still exist. I still live here. Here is sometimes the pits but its mine and it makes me grateful for the things, the people that still do work with such a day
John Mayer
-Edge of Desire- I want you so bad, I’ll go back on the things I believe//There I just said it, I’m scared you’ll forget about me. So this pick was really super hard because there are so many more things that I can be, that maybe I am, but I think that the passion that’s unbelievably displayed in wanting someone so much like this is really what I am. I think that its not only just the love and desire for one person but the people that you have in your life. It’s the desire to make them happy, to know that someone’s life is far more important than your own. What I’ve always wanted, what I’ve always craved and what I live to, is that sort of love.
I want to be wanted by someone enough that they would do anything for me. That passionate burning that courses through your veins that can only be put out by the other’s touch is something I crave only to have from someone but to be able to give to someone. Its beyond lust, beyond desire. It’s the absolute necessity to be essential to someone else. Its not a lot to ask and I think through my path, and my most recent scarring, that its more important now than ever. There used to be a line in a movie “Settle for anything and you’re doomed” I’ve settled. I know what it is to tell yourself that “This is the best you’ll ever do” not anymore not ever again. It’s a resolve to burn someone so deeply and to be burned in return. Its not without consequence, its not without its pain. But what a pain!
To feel that crawl under your skin, that itch you wouldn’t dare scratch because you’ve found it. The person that put their half of their soul, their being, somewhere so deep into you that there are a part of you as much as you are of them. Let it never be said that from here, from 25 I lived without passion. Its what I want, its what I’ll give and without regret. Its not lust, its deeper than just love. Its absolute need..
Alright… so there are my five. The five songs somewhere in the universe that I know sums me up. From darkness to passion. From sentimentality to anger. Its all me. Much harder than I thought, I even changed around that last song at the last minute. Maybe this has helped, maybe it hasn’t maybe no one reads this. But for the universe, there it is. I hope you’ve enjoyed! Comments are welcome.
Cheers!
~Mous
