25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 13: A Song That Reminds You of a Former Friend

"You have so many relationships in this life, only one or two will last, you go through all that pain and strife, then you turn your back and they're gone so fast"

I never knew the profoundness of these lyrics until recently when a lot of my friends just stopped wanting to be friends. No reason really, they just deleted me off of their account, told me to have a nice life, but otherwise no explanation. These were deep friendships too, as in a lot of them knew my deepest, darkest secrets. I've learned that you can't trust anyone to be there forever, you can only rely on yourself.

There is one that sticks out for me, mainly because I bonded with this person over a shared love of music. I'm not going to drop names, as I don't like giving real names on here, it's more of a privacy thing, but I will go so far as to say that this friendship was forged through hanging out with my brother when I got back from college. I've always had trouble making friendships and my brother invited me to hang out with some of "his" friends. Over time I started hanging out with one of them even when my brother wasn't, and we started to hang out on a regular basis. It got so that when him and his girlfriend knew I was coming over they would leave the door unlocked and I never knocked to enter his house. The few times I did, they both acted like I was crazy, I didn't need to knock. They called me family.

This one hurt more than a lot of my other friendships because I still to this day have no idea why they decided to stop being friends. One day I noticed that I had been unfriended by both of them with no explanation and no response on their cell phones. It hurt as bad as a breakup. This was a friendship that had lasted about six years, a friendship that had us hanging out almost every weekend, laughing together, crying together. We had a general understanding that we would do anything for each other. The first time I heard the artist Yelawolf was when my friend had bought the cd during a breakup with his gf and we spent all night trying to cheer him up, including an all nighter at Mystic. I immediately fell in love with the cd, especially this song.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 12: The Last Song You Heard

I was going to do this post the other night, and then I realized that I couldn't remember the last song that I heard. Right now I'm actually listening to music, so I'll post the song that's playing which is Breaking Benjamin's "I Will Not Bow."

This is actually my favorite band from the past, by that I mean that the current line-up is different than this one. They have a similar sound, as the singer is still the same, but the older stuff is still my favorite. My husband had actually never heard of them until I showed him some of their songs last week. This is one of the songs I showed him to introduce them, which he ended up liking and saying that it reminded him of Nirvana. While I don't agree that they sound like Nirvana, this was a step up from the usual response that all rock bands sound the same. This is also the band that I listen to at work when I'm having a bad day. For some reason this music helps me clear my head and makes me feel better. 

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 11: A Song On the Soundtrack of Your Favorite Movie

I've always been a fan of musicals, so my favorite movie is a musical of course. I have several favorites, but one that never seems like it gets old is Moulin Rouge. It is almost 20 years old, and I still love every minute of it. I could pick so many different songs from this movie, but the one original song from this movie, Come What May, really resonates with me. I've had a lot of ups and down in this first year and half of marriage, as anyone will tell you always happens. In our marriage counseling, our pastor explained that something changes after marriage, you would think it stays the same, but something changes in the way you relate to each other. He was absolutely right, even though we sat there and said that we wouldn't be like that, we would always communicate if things started to get hard and things wouldn't get out of hand. That's worked so far, but I think it might not have to do with marriage even, but just time. Over time you get more comfortable with someone and marriage is saying that you commit to that relationship, come hell or high water, so you shouldn't have to work as hard to keep each other's interest anymore. This is the exact opposite in my experience. People will get on your nerves and next thing you find yourselves arguing about what color white paint looks best in the garage.

This song is a reminder to say no matter what happens, you will have love. I know that this doesn't always solve things, but it does say a lot when things seem so bad that you don't know how you are going to make it. As I said in an earlier post, we had a lot of hardships with buying a house. We actually almost lost our house when our sewer broke last winter. We started researching food shelters and doing anything we could to save a buck or two to make it to next paycheck. We took out an extra loan. In our darkest time, when we weren't sure if we were going to make it, I told my husband that even if we lost the house, which would be devastating, we would find a cheap apartment, sell off extra possessions that we didn't need, and would still have our love for each other. We are still working it out every day because, let's face it, the economy is in the toilet, but we always make sure to say "I love you" to each other at least once a day. No matter what.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 10: A Song By Your Favorite Band

You can tell a lot about a person from the kind of music they listen to. As soon as you start to share your musical tastes, interests, and dislikes, people almost immediately start to judge you and question why you choose to listen to certain music. In the modern age of a song a minute, people are constantly trying to be hipsters, the more obscure the better. If your favorite band/artist is someone on the Top 40 you are immediately seen as someone that just follows the crowd. Some people will just choose obscure bands so that they can appear cool, while listening to Maroon 5 and Britney Spears on repeat behind closed doors.

For me it's hard to pick a favorite band. It's like choosing a favorite food, it's impossible to distinguish between different regions, just like with music it's hard to distinguish between genres. Usually my favorite has been hard rock in the past, so I'll go with my favorite band in that genre. Currently one of my favorites is Set it Off, which is a lesser known band, but I first fell in love with their music when I listened to one of their songs and thought I was listening to a new Panic At the Disco song. Since I posted about that group in my last post, you can listen to both and see how similar they sound sometimes. The name of the song is called Duality from the album of the same name, the video showing how often there are two sides to every person, and also serves as a warning to anyone that treats you wrong, you might get the evil side. Sums up how people are often a combination of things and can't be defined by just one characteristic, in other words, don't judge a book by its cover. Just because you listen to Top 40 doesn't make you shallow and listening to obscure bands at the local cafe doesn't make you a hipster. We are a little bit of everything rolled into one.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 9: A Song That Makes You Hopeful

This is a song that I've just recently discovered, appropriately named High Hopes. I sometimes put on Spotify radio and just play random songs, which is a good way to sometimes find new music. As soon as the horns blare in on that first note I knew I was in for a treat. This song couldn't have come at a better time as well. Lately life has been really looking down, but I knew that I shouldn't complain. I have a job that pays well, a house, a loving husband, but things are always bringing me down. My job gets on my nerves, most of the time I'm made to feel incompetent, my house has had issues since we moved in with sewer backing up and breaking and trees falling down, and all of this puts stress on my relationship with my husband. I think the hardest part sometimes for me is to remain hopeful when things have been bad for so long that you don't think you deserve to be happy.

This is something that I've struggled with in the past, and is a benchmark for anyone with anxiety and/or depression. When things always seem like they are falling apart and Murphy's law is working against you, often it feels like you don't deserve good things happening. Recently something really wonderful happened in my life, and I was given an opportunity that I knew I shouldn't pass up. Even though this was a dream come true, I was still trying to justify why I shouldn't take the opportunity, that I had other obligations that were more important. It took some friends, and my husband of course, to convince me that sometimes you have to take care of yourself.

Back to the subject of this post, the lyrics sum it up for me best:

Burn your biographies,
Rewrite your histories, 
Light up your wildest dreams

In summary, break the mold! Have hope that you can be that one in a million! In order for us to achieve greatness, we have to have hope in our hearts that we can do this, otherwise we are destined for a very mediocre, routine living.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 8: A Song That Reminds You Of Your "First Love"

I've always been a very career driven person throughout most of my college career, having little to no time to think about falling "in love." By the time I graduated I still hadn't met anyone that I really would describe in a capacity such as "first love." I had fallen a couple times for guys, but never developed into a relationship and usually once the dating phase was over, the love as well was gone. It wasn't until I met my future husband that I really felt that connection. We didn't fall in love from first sight, as a lot of people describe, in fact we both pinned each other as a little aloof and uninterested after the first date. It was one of those relationships that develops over time gradually, which I think helped us fall in love and keep the spark going. 

Back to the song, We're In This Love Together, this was one that he "introduced" to me, as I had heard it before, but had not heard it since I was a kid so didn't immediately recognize it. We actually almost picked this song for our First Dance at our wedding, but ended up going with a different song, but due to some issues during the reception, I can't really listen to that song anymore. So in a sense this song is still pure, somewhat of a private song that we can call ours. 

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 7: A Song That Reminds You of the Past Summer

This past summer has absolutely flown by, I don't even remember much of anything besides working and trying to keep up with bills. This post is easy, however, because when I hear a song I usually can trace it back to something going on in my life including what year it was and sometimes even the season. For this reason there are a few songs I can't listen to anymore, as they are songs associated with very sad or dark memories. There are also quite a few that I trace back to very happy memories and give me a sense of relief to remember these times fondly.

The song I chose actually came out almost one year ago on September 22, 2017, called "One Foot" by Walk the Moon. In April this year (I know, technically spring) my husband had a heart scare, which turned out to be stress, and he had to spend four nights in the hospital. That first night I knew I had to go home to take care of the cat and couldn't feasibly spend the night, as we had gone to urgent care, only to be sent to the ER, so had no idea he would be bunking the night in the short stay wing. As I drove home that night, with tears in my eyes, this song came on the radio. As I listened to the lyrics, it really hit home, that my future was uncertain, but I had to keep moving forward. Later, during the summer in July, my husband injured his back and had to be carried out of the house by EMTs, spending another couple nights in the hospital. Once again, I came back to this song, which will always remind me of this past summer, and the moments that we had to dig deep and find strength together, growing as a couple during our first year of marriage.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 6: A Song That Reminds You of a Best Friend

As I move forward with life, specifically married life, it seems like friends are few and far between. I have almost no friends left after I got married, which is what a lot of people say happens, but you don't believe it until you experience it yourself. I do have a few close friends left, and this song will always remind me of one of them. This is a song that we would usually play this song to get the party going at the start of a fun night. We would take turns pulling up music videos on youtube for people to listen to, and this one was very frequently heard. I also had never heard this song until she introduced it to me about three years ago. Just a fun song with a contagious hook and humor that only Eminem and "his band" can pull off.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 5: A Song that is Often Stuck In Your Head

I constantly have music running through my head any given day, and it's often different music for different days. About six months ago I went to the movies and saw the movie The Greatest Showman, which was so good that I went and saw it again a couple months later. I later went to the library to borrow the cd and listened to it on repeat for several weeks. It hasn't been stuck in my head for a little while, but whenever I go back to it and listen it takes several days to get it out of my head. I also used to go dancing at the YMCA in New Hope where we had a routine to one of the songs, "This Is Me," which is the song I chose for this particular exercise, although the opening number is also one that gets stuck in my head just as much these days.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 4: A Song That Calms You Down

As a music therapist I believe in the healing power of music, the ability it has to calm, excite, or stimulate thought. I spend a lot of time thinking about different kinds of music that can help do each of these, while making sure that I am sticking to a person's personal preference. What might be calming for one person, might anger another person, or even drive another person crazy. For me, anything by Breaking Benjamin will almost always help calm me down. Usually it's a band that I will listen to when I've had a long day, something to destress, and eventually calm myself down. Since I am supposed to pick one song, though, I picked "Rain" because it definitely has that calming quality to it. It is one of their few acoustic songs, really highlighting the vocals so you can hear the emotion.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 3: A Song That Reminds You of One/Both Of Your Parents

For this song, I chose "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon as it reminds me of both of my parents. This song also conjures up a memory of sitting in my grandparents living room in the late 80's watching music videos on VH1 (yes, they used to play music videos all day) and this was one of the more frequently played one. I also have a recent memory of about a year ago when my mom sang karaoke for the first time ever and this was one of the songs she chose.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 2: A Song That Reminds You of Your Most Recent Ex

The second part of this series is to pick a song that reminds me of my most recent ex. This is one of the harder ones to answer, mainly because I've never really had an official boyfriend until my husband. A lot of the guys I went out with for casual dates before him also had completely different taste in music. My most recent "ex" was a rude, conceited person that insulted me on multiple occasions for being a little thick. Needless to say, we didn't make it past three months of dating. We did share one common interest with music, though, we both liked 30 Seconds to Mars, by which I mean I think they are pretty cool and he thought they were gods of the music industry. I can't help but think of some of those memories whenever I hear this band, especially their big hit "The Kill." Luckily this is the only song that reminds me of an ex.

25 Songs, 25 Days - Day 1: A Song From Your Childhood

Day 1 challenged me to pick a song from my childhood. I grew up in the 80's, which means that a lot of the popular songs are making their way back into movies and tv shows, almost an 80's revival, so a lot of pop songs are not just from my childhood anymore. Instead I picked one that I learned while attending Hope Nursery School for preschool in 1988. This song was actually written in 1974 by Mission Hills Music, a music publisher that writes a variety of children's worship songs.

We performed this song at one of our concert programs, I think it was the Christmas one, and I still remember some of the actions that went with the song, as that always made songs way more fun! I picked this song because I remember it was one of the more fun songs that we sang, the action for "crocodile" was to open your arms like a crocodile mouth. Below is a concert program from graduation, which includes a lot of songs that I couldn't even find on the internet.

Time Flies (Two years later)

Life has changed a lot in the last three years, as there inevitably always is. To update on the cat from my post three years ago, we ended up surrendering him July 2017 to the humane society. His tail was still not healing and we had already paid in about $5,000 to help him out and were ignoring other bills to come out even. We don't know what happened to him, as you surrender completely, including any knowledge of what happens after, but we're pretty sure they put him down. It was one of the hardest decisions that we have ever had to make, but it was time to take care of ourselves.


Since I'm all about lists, here are some of the changes in the past three years, quite a few, but most of them good:

1. Started new job in March 2016
2. Adopted original cat's girlfriend (they had a litter when they were kittens)
3. Got married!
4. Bought house
5. Best friend cyberbullied and unfriended me
6. Adopted a dog
7. Learned the value of the Home Warranty in our first year (sewer pipes were replaced, huge tree fell and had to be removed)

There's probably more details I'm forgetting about, but it's definitely been one crazy ride in life. This blog was started when I turned 30, and now I'm getting close to 40 (!) which is hard to believe, but I'm going to start being more active on here. To get myself in the habit of journaling, I'm going to start a new challenge every month, so I have something to write about every day. For September I am starting something called the 25 Songs, 25 Days challenge. This will give me a little leeway if I miss a couple days, since there are only 25 posts for this challenge.

I'm also going to try to start a printed bullet journal. I know it's supposed to be "analog in a digital age" but I know if I have to write too much I won't stick to it. This way I can print out checklists and write in a planner that I didn't have to create with lines. A lot of advice out there warns to start out small, just like with any hobby, so I'm starting with a daily planner with to do list, menu planner/shopping list, cleaning schedule, and of course a habit tracker.

Look for my next post for the 25 day song challenge!