"I don't want the world to see me, cuz I don't think that they'd understand when everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am"*

Day 13 : A Band or Artist that has gotten you through some tough-ass days

Dear City of Angels Soundtrack (Specifically songs 1, 2, 6,7,8, 13 & 14):

I've always been one for music, but can't remember any special allegiance to a particular band or artist. There's been a lot of tough times in my life, and music has helped me through them, sure enough. But never any one group, never any one artist that stood above the rest.

However.

Do you remember that period during my sophomore year of college, and the summer immediately following it, when my educational advisor advised that I think about a "career other than education"? When the resident advisor advised me that I would "have to live in a building without an elevator: everybody has to!" and that I wouldn't be able to get an earlier number in the housing lottery "just because I wasn't feeling well" ?

When two out of four of my sisters weren't speaking to me because I was ruining their lives by demanding that they not spray perfumes in the house, or because they had to be quiet over the weekends, while I was home resting? When my Grandfather died, and my alcoholic father was a jackass to me at his funeral?

When I really was so sick that I thought, for sure, I wouldn't be able to go back to school come the fall? And I was literally bedbound to the point that watching Jeopardy with my mother and Nana became the highlight of my day because it was the only time I could be involved in something that didn't require me to move at all but was still entertaining?

Yeah: that was a pretty tough time for me. And the tv was too loud and too bright and it hurt my eyes and my head, so I couldn't really turn there. And the radio would get boring after a few hours, or I'd get too fed up with the commercials. And there you were, sitting in a stack of my sister's CDs.

I managed to catch her on a good enough day that she said I could borrow you, and I think I kept you for about 5 years after that. But it was that first year that really mattered. That first year were I felt like "This is music that understands that not all the world is awesome and happy. Thank god." Because I really, really, needed something that wasn't sugarcoating it, and something that wasn't going to ignore the very real pain I was in.

Looking back, it seems kind of absurd that all those songs about angels and spirits and a cheesy Nicholas Cage/Meg Ryan movie could possibly have meant anything, but they did. They were just the right amount of melancholy for a girl who felt like the whole world was moving on without her, who was mourning the woman she was supposed to have been.

"the news that truly shocks is the empty empty page
while the final rattle rocks its empty empty cage
and i can't handle this"

Truth.

"For a break that would make it okay
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction"

More truth.

"God has got his phone off the hook
Babe, would he even pick up if he could?"

Truest yet.

So thanks, purloined soundtrack from a movie that I only watched once and couldn't bear to sit through again (sad. Sad movie.): I appreciate the angst of your songs just enough to listen to you on repeat, endlessly, for the better part of a year. Life was kicking my ass, and (while it has not yet decided to stop) it was nice to have a partner in my malaise, somebody who understood that world was HARD, and SAD and it was ok to feel it. Thanks for letting me stew in my funk for as long as I needed to, because eventually I came out the other side (mostly).

*Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
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Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself