When I was on my way home from work today, as I exited the highway, one of my favorite songs came on and I got way too excited. I sang along, felt all the emotions. Thought about the recent article that I had read about Alanis. She was only 14 when she was dating ‘Uncle Joey’ and he was 30; that pisses me the hell off. She must have been pretty young when she wrote this song.

The next song that came on continued to make sparks in my heart. I continued to sing along. As the words carved out the stories in my bones; I questioned, “Is music the reason that I am the way that I am?” It can’t be only the music, but I have been listening to these songs for more than 25 years… Did I become them? Either way, its not hard to see why it’s so easy for me to reject society when I listen close enough.

This is how Canada will eventually take over the United States…

If that were even remotely true; this country would be a much softer and safer place.

I can’t think of the first time that I heard Jagged Little Pill but I have cherished it ever since.

“Hey Leonardo” on the other hand, I remember exactly when that was playing on the radio. It must have come out during the summer. I had lost my grandfather the summer before and our worlds were still turned upside down. I feel like grandma still had the day care but it must have just been for a few family members at that point. She didn’t continue on with the full day care without grandpa.

I took driver’s ed that summer and I was so scared to get my license but I knew that I needed it. At that point, I felt like I needed to get a job to help my dad. I don’t remember paying for anything other than my insurance but I am sure that I helped out somehow or at least paid for my own things that I needed.

There were a few other songs that played often on the radio that summer. Nine Days – Story of a Girl is also a big one on my walking to drivers ed play list. That walk was so sad to me. I stayed the summers at my grandparents house and this summer was the first one without grandpa. The first one without our safety net and the person that did everything for us. He would have driven me to driver’s ed and taught me to drive, but he wasn’t there and I was terrified. I didn’t talk much that next school year to the point it was noticeable. I still remember the boy that exclaimed “Holy Shit, you talk!” when I said something. We were all standing around a hacky sack circle at the time. His name was JR. I have no idea what I said but I remember his reaction. I don’t think that I had even realized my selective muteness up until then but at the time, our house was very quiet and sad. We barely spoke to each other, and I lived in a single wide trailer with 2 other people so that was nearly difficult. My grandfather’s death was a complete shock and totally unexpected so it sent shockwaves through my entire family. My aunt went back to school and became a counselor. Somewhere down the line my brother lost complete faith in everyone and everything and I just kind of stared into space and had a lot of very intense dreams.

We are going to pause for a song break while I collect myself:

It’s been over 26 years now and it’s still difficult to talk about. That is why I decided to shift my writing on this site. I started it 14 years ago when I came home from work after crying on a phone call.

Shifting gears and subjects for a moment

She had told me that we couldn’t talk anymore, the first time. I am sure that I argued, I don’t go look back at that email, if it was one. I think that it was. It was just before my lunch break and my boss was micromanaging me about sells offers on a phone call because my former position had recently been decommissioned. This was before I was training or managing. It was a little old lady on the phone and you can guess her name which I am sure that I had to say a few times on the call. As I was trying to hold it together, there comes my boss asking me why I didn’t try to make a sale to her. She was listening to my call and she heard damn well that she was struggling financially and some other sad stuff and then she came at me with that, I started to cry right there in front of her and everyone else. I logged out, said, “I’m going home. I’m sick. I’ll go to the doctor” and just walked out. She was probably caught off guard by my response and didn’t say shit to me but I did go straight to the doctor, told them that I was having anxiety issues and needed to get medicine again and I think that they put me on zoloft this time but I don’t really remember. I have taken a few things. Lexapro was the first and buspiron was thrown in there at some point but then I basically tried to control my emotions that way. I can’t say that it ever worked well but it was likely muted a lot. I continued to take whatever I was given (when I could remember to) up until somewhere during covid.

I was always getting this medicine from my PCP but after an incident in January of 2018, I started seeing a psychiatrist or something, I can’t attest to the actual title. It was at an MHMR place in town. That made the world of difference. He actually talked to me, and I met with a case worker afterward each appointment. She was my favorite; I had actually met her before starting to go there but we just didn’t talk about it because I would have had to move to someone else. She was great and helped me develop coping mechanisms. The doctor would talk to me about a lot of things, always wanting to go back to high school and younger. Didn’t even really care about the current issues, symptoms, wanted to know why – which had never been discussed with a PCP before. He ultimately explained to me that I didn’t have clinical depression; that I had situational depression. He said that anyone in my position would struggle with the things I was having issues with. He encouraged me to continue working on my coping mechanisms. He explained to me that clinical depression is when people are depressed or anxious over nothing or perceived threats that don’t even exists. Just having those conversations with him gave me a direction and hope. He suggested that I stop taking the medicine because it was really just a crutch and masking the pain, not fixing anything and then he talked about the reasons why I shouldn’t take them which were about in line with what my aunt and many other intelligent people had said.

With that said; I am the absolute worst at interrupting her when she is about to say something incredibly important. It leaves me frustrated with myself for decades to come but once – when she found out that I took some kind of medicine like that, she started to tell me how it wasn’t a good idea but like I always do, I interrupted her and confirmed that I knew the dangers or agreed, something like that. It may have been.. a while ago. Maybe it’s buried in these ‘pages’ somewhere.

But the main thing I need to say about that is – that I never forgot. I can only hope that she can understand better than I can, why I think that I can read her mind and then accidently talk over her. Somehow, I get so excited thinking that I know what she’s going to say, I don’t even let her say it – and I really hate that. I really want to know what she was going to say – not the feeling that I could just tell. that’s… rude as hell of me. she’s so sweet, she’s never even said anything. But I can tell you, I have really missed out on words that I would have cherished so deeply.

Especially the night at the pool parking lot. Sometimes, I want to ask her to tell me more about what she was going to say that night, but at this point, I can’t even ask such a thing. But I always tell myself, ‘She was there, she knows what happened.’ My coping mechanisms may be weird but they get me by and I try my hardest not to cause any trouble for anyone in the process.

When people want to understand why I am the way that I am, I hope that they understand that it’s the 90s music and I wish it upon all. Here’s one more for Blessid Union of Souls. This was before I got into rock music, as you may notice.

Here is a possible walking driver’s ed from grandma’s house play list.

The story will be continued. This is because I am terrible about talking about myself but have plenty to say. I feel like the long off topic information about the medication is wildly important to the timeline of this site. 12 years later, I feel much better and know why I could not give up.

This song has some stigma after the ASPCA commercials, but you know that I love it.

My world crumbles when you are not near

The songs above were all from the top 40 that year. Last Kiss was redone by Pearl Jam that year but I can no longer handle listening to that one, especially with the way that he drives.