One of the writer’s workshop prompts this week was:
Soundtrack of your life: Pick 10 songs that you would have on a soundtrack for your life, pick a line from each that you most identify with and write a short statement of why this song made it.

I immediately decided to give it a shot, figuring if it came out lame I’d just pick a different prompt, as I liked a lot of them, but after a lot of editing and humming and hawing and trips down memory lane, here’s what I came up with…

Track One: Daughters by John Mayer
Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made
…
On behalf of every man
Looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world

This is a song I’ve always loosely related to, being raised by a single father. But unlike most kids in my situation, my mother didn’t die – they simply got divorced and for whatever reason, my father got custody of me. The whole situation is probably more dramatic in my mind than it was in real life (or maybe just dramatic in different ways?) but I get that idea of feeling kind of permanently messed up romantically.

My husband comes from a perfectly functioning family with little divorce. He’s had that understanding from an early age that love works out, mommy and daddy love each other – and home is a stable, constant thing you can rely on. Me? Not so much. My father has always been the rock of my world, but romantic love was never a thing I trusted instinctively and the love of a mother was not something I understood until I had children of my own.

Track 2: Evolve by Ani Difranco
I walk in stride with people
much taller than me
and partly it’s the boots but
mostly it’s my chi

The rest of this song is very cool, very deep – with a lot of different topics, per usual for an Ani Difranco song, but it’s those lines that really resonate to me as a person – a five foot two inches tall person. I never really considered myself short growing up – except that for years my family would say, “Look how tall you are getting!” until they stopped. Then in high school or maybe college I met tall people seemingly for the first time in my life. Still, I never felt truly short in comparison to most people – like I never felt I had to look up to talk to people who were taller then me – until I married into my husband’s family of veritable giants, anyway.

Track 3: Allergies by Barenaked Ladies
Allergic to cats, allergic to bees
Allergic to dust, allergic to trees
Allergic to mold, allergic to weeds

I am actually allergic to most of those things (not sure about the bees, knock on wood). I grew up in a home with cats but didn’t realize I was allergic until college. Growing up I had a permanent case of the sniffles that drove my dad up the wall, but wasn’t diagnosed for years. After going away to college and coming back my allergies flared up larger than ever – and now every time I am gone for a long time and come back, again, worse than ever. Which is a shame, because I love cats.

Track 4: Lovefool by The Cardigans

Lately I have desperately pondered,
spent my nights awake and I wonder
what I could have done in another way
to make you stay
Reason will not lead to solution
I will end up lost in confusion
I don’t care if you really care
as long as you don’t go

I was a pretty big “lovefool” growing up – or boy crazy you could say. I tended throw myself into and out of relationships at the speed of light. I loved the idea of love, but didn’t seem to understand it for a long time. So I kept looking everywhere for it, getting my heart broken frequently but bouncing back quickly as teenagers frequently do.

Track 5: A Long December by Counting Crows
And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

In college especially, the winters were tough. I don’t know if it was seasonal depression or just dealing with that constant change. Every semester it felt like life started all over again. New friends, new relationships, new classes, and often a new dorm room. But come January, I was usually renewed with optimism, sure that this year I’d get it right.

Track 6: Why Georgia by John Mayer
I am driving up 85 in the kind of morning
That lasts all afternoon, I’m just stuck inside the gloom
Four more exits to my apartment
But I am tempted to keep the car in drive and leave it all behind

The only thing weirder than the changing semesters, was those brief vacations that never felt long enough but also felt too long at the same time. I felt like an outsider, who was never really home anywhere. I frequently fantasized, while coming or going from any given destination, about just staying in the car and going somewhere else, starting over from scratch. Anyone else?

Track 7: Home by Michael Bublé
And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home

By my senior year of college, I’d officially had my fill of it all. I was mopey and depressed, sabotaging friendships left and right and basically just ready to leave. I missed my friends from back home and was tired of “pretending any of this matters” – I had the rest of my real life to get on with, you know. Senior year was a pretty major dark cloud in my college career, but as it ended and I began packing up my dorm room for the last time, I gradually started to become normal again.

Track 8: Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles
Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it’s all right

A trip to Europe, a new job that I would later refer to as “the best job I ever had” and meeting the love of my life – it was like the sun coming out again after the longest, longest night.

Track 9: Don’t Get It Twisted by Gwen Stefani
I’m not a mathematician
28 days, a normal cycle
If I’m not mistaken
I think he might have made a goal

I was launched into marriage and motherhood at warp speed. Our relationship advanced very quickly when we found ourselves pregnant not long after dating. It took a lot of faith and understandably trying times but in the end, someone up there clearly knew what they were doing because becoming a mother was definitely the best thing that ever happened to me – and the father of those children is my best friend, soul mate and well simply put, we’re…

Track 10: Better Together by Jack Johnson
There’s no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepiatone loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it’s so hard?
It’s not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I’ll tell you one thing it’s always better when we’re together

I’ve been in a lot of relationships and I’ve seen a lot of other people’s relationships and I have to say, I think my husband and I really have something special. Not to brag, but my husband? He’s kind of a big deal. With him by my side, I’m pretty sure I become Super Woman.

*~*

The surprising thing about this writing exercise is how short my life seems written down like this – it really is just the beginning. My children are still basically babies, my life only just begun. The really good stuff, I’m sure, is just around the corner waiting for me, stuff I can only imagine…

Stay Tuned for … My Life: The Sequel