I am a sucker for a good melody, a piano and catchy lyrics. I ’m also a sucker for songs with my name in them. I suppose this is why pop songs can get under my skin and make me groove before I know it. I can’t say I love everything the music industry churns out – Jonas Brothers, Justin Beib – but as I see teenage girls swoon, I can relate to what I used to feel so long ago, the young naive passion for something that seems so tangible and yet such a silly fantasy.
Vanessa Carlton’s song White Houses is just one of those songs that has always been a favorite of mine. In my mind I see memories of my life swirled into the lyrics like a movie playing.
“Love or something ignites in my veins and I pray it never fades”
Emotionally, I’m a sucker for memories and the past. I find comfort in the history of others and my lives. And maybe it’s sick that I replay the past for the good things and the bad.
When I moved to New Jersey my aunt sent with some of my other stuff a Trunk that I turned into a memory trap. Inside it I stuffed Palantir newspapers from my time in High school, pictures, notes, sketches, high school ids, my old drivers licenses and papers from even before high school that I had written in Elementary and Jr. High school. Oh, and let’s not forget the two 3inch thick binders over flowing with Backstreet boys paraphernalia mixed with my carefully folded Backstreet boys wallpaper stripped from my trailer park room ever so delicately. Or the glittery signs from my first concert.
“Maybe I’m a little bit over my head…”
This trunk was a trap of everything that used to make up who I was, what I thought about things in general. And it was bittersweet going through it, cleaning it out.
I stumbled upon a signed agreement that my friends Lizette, Elizabeth and I had created pledging our allegiance to moving to California together. “We promise each other it’s till the end” It’s funny how the only one that actually followed through with that plan was Lizette. Elizabeth is married with two children and lives with her fighter fighter husband in Tucson. And Lizette is living out an existence that is all too fitting for her. From what I gather through Facebook she is in her element in Hollywood California and I can’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy that they seem to have life figured out.
And then I stumbled upon a baby announcement that as I read it, a flush of geeky embarrassment flooded over me. The baby announcement was for a fictional child that I imagined I would have with one of the backstreet boys. It was one of many of the stories Laura and I concocted over a summer. We let ourselves loose in a fantasy of our lives in the future, we wrote stories with heart wrenching plots. We bonded over White Houses. And Laura was always one of those girls that seems to have it going, even now, I look at her with envy.
She has a career. She did things right, she did things the way I always dreamed I would. There was high school, the best babysitting jobs, the fun vacations to New York and then college and then graduation. She had savings, planning and financial responsibilities. I often got angry with her because I envied her position in life. I so desperately wanted to live in a beautiful home and have a mother and father like hers, her mother a teacher, strict and old fashion and a father who was a businessman with a charming sense of humor. She always seemed to have everything.
“Maybe you were all faster than me, we gave each other up so easily, silly little wounds will never mend, I feel so far from where I’ve been”
And then I think of all the people I’ve cut off, and pushed out of my life. I’ve justified my reasons but some of these losses are more painful to think about. Some of them I look back and think, maybe I was too harsh, and maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. I get caught up in the “what ifs”, and the how comes. It’s so hard to let go of these things, so hard not to replay my faults.
“I lied, wrote my injuries all in the dust, in my heart is the five of us…in white houses”
Vanessa Carlton’s song White Houses is just one of those songs that has always been a favorite of mine. In my mind I see memories of my life swirled into the lyrics like a movie playing.
“Love or something ignites in my veins and I pray it never fades”
Emotionally, I’m a sucker for memories and the past. I find comfort in the history of others and my lives. And maybe it’s sick that I replay the past for the good things and the bad.
When I moved to New Jersey my aunt sent with some of my other stuff a Trunk that I turned into a memory trap. Inside it I stuffed Palantir newspapers from my time in High school, pictures, notes, sketches, high school ids, my old drivers licenses and papers from even before high school that I had written in Elementary and Jr. High school. Oh, and let’s not forget the two 3inch thick binders over flowing with Backstreet boys paraphernalia mixed with my carefully folded Backstreet boys wallpaper stripped from my trailer park room ever so delicately. Or the glittery signs from my first concert.“Maybe I’m a little bit over my head…”
This trunk was a trap of everything that used to make up who I was, what I thought about things in general. And it was bittersweet going through it, cleaning it out.
I stumbled upon a signed agreement that my friends Lizette, Elizabeth and I had created pledging our allegiance to moving to California together. “We promise each other it’s till the end” It’s funny how the only one that actually followed through with that plan was Lizette. Elizabeth is married with two children and lives with her fighter fighter husband in Tucson. And Lizette is living out an existence that is all too fitting for her. From what I gather through Facebook she is in her element in Hollywood California and I can’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy that they seem to have life figured out.
And then I stumbled upon a baby announcement that as I read it, a flush of geeky embarrassment flooded over me. The baby announcement was for a fictional child that I imagined I would have with one of the backstreet boys. It was one of many of the stories Laura and I concocted over a summer. We let ourselves loose in a fantasy of our lives in the future, we wrote stories with heart wrenching plots. We bonded over White Houses. And Laura was always one of those girls that seems to have it going, even now, I look at her with envy.She has a career. She did things right, she did things the way I always dreamed I would. There was high school, the best babysitting jobs, the fun vacations to New York and then college and then graduation. She had savings, planning and financial responsibilities. I often got angry with her because I envied her position in life. I so desperately wanted to live in a beautiful home and have a mother and father like hers, her mother a teacher, strict and old fashion and a father who was a businessman with a charming sense of humor. She always seemed to have everything.
“Maybe you were all faster than me, we gave each other up so easily, silly little wounds will never mend, I feel so far from where I’ve been”
And then I think of all the people I’ve cut off, and pushed out of my life. I’ve justified my reasons but some of these losses are more painful to think about. Some of them I look back and think, maybe I was too harsh, and maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. I get caught up in the “what ifs”, and the how comes. It’s so hard to let go of these things, so hard not to replay my faults.
“I lied, wrote my injuries all in the dust, in my heart is the five of us…in white houses”
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