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 |  Entries to the Soundtrack to Your Life Challenge |
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| In the last five years of my life, I have really come to find my ‘people’. It’s been a sore subject to a lot of women think that being nerdy isn’t acceptable, or that we are doing it just to get attention from guys. This is not true. Not even a little! Nerdy chicks come in all flavors. Gamers, table topers, deck builders, comic lovers, sci-fi lovers, anime chicks… And I like a little of it all. I went to my first convention last year and cosplayed every day. It was INCREDIBLE. Being around other people who all let their nerd flag fly was so amazing. I have found a group of friends who all embrace nerd culture and whatever you nerd out about is a-ok. It’s been such a great feeling to not feel like I need to explain why I like what I like. This song is just fun and they cover just about every single nerdy love I have. Runner up, naturally is White and Nerdy by Weird Al ;) _______ Talk Nerdy to Me - K-Face Rules [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| When I was in high school, I competed in an extra-curricular event called Destination Imagination (formerly Odyssey of the Mind). This program has 5 challenges with a specific technical element to be solved each year. There is theater, mechanical, structural, science, and improvisation. In 2001, my team chose the Improvisation challenge. We took first place at Regionals and moved on to State. That was a thrill in and of itself! We had never made it to the state competition before. We took first place at State… and went to Global Finals. I can’t explain how this felt. I still feel it today when I think back to it. We were crying. Jumping. Dancing. Screaming. This was such a huge achievement! Our trip to Knoxville, TN for Global Finals was incredible. Competing there was like a dream. We were so nervous but so excited to show the Globals judges what we could do with our amazing little group of 6. The idea of taking first place was so silly. How could we among 86 other teams from all around the US and other countries? It was an honor just to be on that level! The closing ceremonies came, and to start them, Walking On Sunshine played a video of the week highlights. Our team was in the video! How cool! No, back to being nervous… waiting for the teams who won to be called… I remember them announcing the third and second place teams. I was equal parts sad and equal parts hopeful. Our projected score was really good – there had to be hope, right? When the announcer said “and in first place… from WHITE-“ We all started screaming. We didn’t need to hear anymore… WHITE BEAR LAKE, MINNESOTA! That was US!!! We had taken first place at Global Finals! I don’t know if I have ever run so fast as I did running through that stadium to the front stage. We cried for hours. We screamed for hours. We listened to Walking On Sunshine play over and over and over as the ceremony wrapped up. I can’t hear this song without smiling to myself and remembering exactly how that moment felt. ______ Walking On Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I adore old era music. The 40s and 50s just sound the best on vinyl. I couldn’t get through this challenge without adding one very, very old classic to my list – and a Precious Few it is! I had a very special relationship with my Grandma. My mother’s mom had passed away when I was only 4, so my dad’s mom got to spoil me to pieces, and spoil she did. I spent most of the weekends in the summer up at their house on a lake. I have so many fond memories of that place and the family time spent up there. My grandma had many nicknames for me, but I remember K-K-K-Katie the most. She’d always sing the first line of the chorus to this song to me – K-K-K-Katy… beautiful Katy – and I loved it. It wasn’t until this challenge that I finally went to find the song and listened to it the whole way through. It’s such an adorable song and I am so happy to have been able to have a reason to go and find it! ______________ K-K-K-Katy - Geoffrey O'Hara [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I had never really listened to the lyrics of Shake it Off when it came out and gained popularity. It was a gorgeous song, sung a beautifully as always by Flo, so I never really took too much time to digest the words she was saying. I was on a drive one afternoon when the lyrics suddenly fell into me. You can tell from a lot of what I have written about throughout this challenge that I struggled with connection, depression, anxiety, a lot while growing up and still to a variable degree today. For the first time in my life, in my car at that very moment, I felt able to accept that the past could be left behind and I could move on and work toward happiness. And I am done with my graceless heart So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart 'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn It's always darkest before the dawn I am a dweller. I drag the past around with me constantly and I let it have far too much influence over my future actions and over risks I take (or don’t take). When I first sang out loud the lyrics I placed in this entry, I choked on repressed tears. My breath caught in my chest and salty emotion came pouring from my eyes. I was the happiest I had ever been, and it felt so good to be able to say out loud that I could severe the past, learn from it, and move on into my own next chapter. I have been struggling for a way to say the same thing Flo sings for a long time, and this is the first time I ever knew a song could bring me to such joyful tears. ______ Shake it Off - Florence + the Machine [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| How can I get through Precious Few week and not mention this song? In 2012, I walked down the aisle to an orchestral version of Falling Slowly as performed by the Vitamin String Quartet. From the very moment I heard this song, as performed by Glen Hansard, I was in love with it. It struck s deep chord with me and made my chest tight with emotion every time it came on the radio. It has this gorgeous sway and swell to it that infiltrates your heart and brings our so much from within. I chose this song for a very specific reason. I thought that it illustrated the path my husband and I had gone down together all the years we had known each other; the path that lead us to the moment I began my walk down the aisle. I don't know you But I want you All the more for that We met online in 2000. It wasn’t a dating thing – we were only 15! We just happened across each other and a friendship formed. Granted, we met on a site where you rated people based on their looks, but our communications were never about that. We found common interests. His heart matched mine. We were old souls with big, deep thoughts, well beyond the common wisdom of 15-year-olds. We found respite in each other, sending long emails with all our biggest hopes, dreams, and other more inconsequential topics. Words fall through me And always fool me And I can't react When we were 17, my husband admitted he thought he had feelings for me, but being the rational kids we were, we understood that a boy in New York had no future with a girl in Minnesota. We were in high school, we had no money, so these feelings were aired and then brushed aside. After he admitted he had a crush on me, I felt relieved. I had felt it, too, but I wasn’t one who shared my heart easily. I felt that after this happened, we both sort of lost contact with each other. Maybe it was because it was hard to be friends. Maybe it was because we graduated and college was so different. Either way, I lost him into the void, but I never forgot about him. The internet growing as it was birthed a site called MySpace. I imported all of my contacts when I signed up, and low and behold… there he was. We picked up right where we had left of. We wrote letters to each other, sent long emails, and spent a lot of time catching up. Again, life happened, and our communication dwindled. He had a pretty serious girlfriend, and I had a pretty serious boyfriend. She didn’t like him talking to me or writing to me… so things faded away. The advent of Facebook occurred. Once again, I imported all of my contacts when I signed up… and there he was. The first post he made on my page was “holy shi*t! It’s you!” We had talked about meeting years ago. About what it would be like. Was it even feasible? Was it something we really ever wanted to do? In 2008, it became a reality. After 8 years of friendship through letters and email, he booked a plane ticket to Minnesota and we met face to face. It was three days of so much overwhelming emotion and confusion. At that point, we had agreed we were friends and that’s all we ever could be. Being with him and being about to physically touch him, hear his voice, and see him… It changed a lot of things. And games that never amount To more than they're meant Will play themselves out We were both flirtatious over the years toward one another. It seemed safe to play these games with him, because it was never going to amount to anything. He was in New York. I was in Minnesota. Nothing would ever come of this. Yet all those years of pent up emotions were only fueled by our meeting in person. We spent three days like bashful teens together. He slept in my bed, but never tried for anything more. He just held me. We held sweaty hands while we walked around the Mall of America together. We tickled. We cuddled. We flirted… And on the day he left, he finally kissed me. We joke that it was like a punch to the face. It was that “why did I wait so long to do this?” moment… and then he was gone back to New York. What happened after that meeting was a bit crazy. He wrote me a long letter, in which he professed all of his feelings to me. He told me that part of him wanted us to meet to see if he really had as strong of feelings as he had suspected he had. He told me he was in love with me, but did not expect me to feel the same. He just needed to tell me, because he couldn’t just not say anything any longer. He ended his letter to me with a quote from a mutually loved movie, Love Actually - To me, he said, you are perfect. To this day, this is the only one of his letter I intentionally threw away – and I deeply regret it. His words scared me. I knew how I felt about him, but I was terrified. I wrote back, telling him I loved him, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. I wasn’t sure what kind of love I felt. And then we stopped talking. I dated a guy for awhile. He went back to his ex-girlfriend. Falling slowly, eyes that know me And I can't go back Moods that take me and erase me And I'm painted black I went to Boston to visit my boyfriend while he was finishing up college. While I was there, I tried to make plans to see my now husband again. He was avoidant. I pushed. He pushed back. And after a huge fight with my boyfriend, my now husband told me he couldn’t stand to see me with another guy. It was then that I realized I had been pushing to see him because I wasn’t happy in my relationship anymore. My boyfriend and I continued to fight the 8 days I was in Boston, and I felt my heart getting pulled further and further back toward New York. When I returned home, I went into a depressive spiral. I knew things needed to end with my boyfriend. I knew I needed to come clean to my future husband. The months that followed were so hard. My husband tired hard not to push me to make up my mind, but in the end he made a ultimatum. He told me that he had taken a huge risk laying out his feelings for me, and if I couldn’t say I felt the same, he wasn’t certain he could remain even my friend – it hurt too much to be strung along. You have suffered enough And warred with yourself It's time that you won Without going into the long version of my break up with my last boyfriend, I took some time to really think about what I wanted and what my gut and my heart were telling me. I chose my husband. He moved to Minnesota, within a year we were engaged, and today we are married and planning a family. You've made it now Falling slowly sing your melody I'll sing along This song covers my journey with him – through thick and thin, in good and bad. We found our way to each other, finally. And it all started with a silly message on the internet. ______ Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I have struggle my entire life with putting on a good show. It was by no fault of my parents that they were unwilling to accept that I was clearly depressed and that I needed help. I resented them a lot back when I was younger for not acknowledging how much pain I was in, but as an adult, I understand how scary it is to see your child hurt and not know how to help. Different people deal with these things differently. My parents took the “it’ll get better let’s not talk about it” approach, and later in life have told me how wrong they were to do that. In middle school, I was a part of an acting club called FACES. I can’t remember what the acronym stood for, but we were a group of kids who came together to learn about acting and wrote meaningful skits about problems youths faced. My best friend and I wrote a skit that ended up being a core part of the troupe’s performances. While it was really neat, it was also deeply personal. The skit was about a girl who puts on a different mask each time someone asks how she is, layering them and layering them until the burden is so heavy that she breaks down, throwing them off of her and screams “I’M NOT OKAY! I NEED HELP!”. The goal was to show how sometimes people get too caught up in trying to be what others want them to be and they end up losing themselves. For my best friend and I, it was a clear cry for help. Things have gotten better for me. This is a fact. Still, I feel myself always pulled into that “just act happy so they will leave you alone” mentality. Mental illness is still such a taboo that I feel so vulnerable and petrified even admitting I still struggle with depression and anxiety on a daily basis. Sun is up, I’m a mess Gotta get out now, gotta run from this Here comes the shame, here comes the shame Often my actions would lead me into what I have deemed my “anxiety doubt spirals” – those moments the next morning where you’re over-analyzing every conversation, every drunk action, every response… And shame and doubt overwhelm you. Help me, I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down, won't open my eyes Keep my glass full until morning light, 'cause I'm just holding on for tonight There was a point in my life where I was literally just hanging on, one day at a time. I was the ‘wild’ girl. I was the easy girl. I was whatever everyone wanted me to be… because I was so afraid of embracing how much pain I was in. I buried myself in masks trying to just get by one more day. Sia’s Chandelier hit me in a place it hurts. I was taken off guard, reading her lyrics, and now this song constantly brings me to tears. _________ Chandelier - Sia [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I previously mentioned how Fall Out Boy is one of those bands that has such well-crafted, cutting lyrics that I just can’t get enough of them. Well, Pete and Pat, it’s your time to shine. From the chords to the lyric delivery, there is so much emotion in this song that you get caught up in it. I'm the kind of kid that can't let anything go So you wouldn't know a good thing if it came up and slit your throat I first heard this song while going through a tumultuous period of digesting and coming to terms with an emotionally abusive relationship I had been in. I’d spent three years under the thumb of a narcissistic control freak who belittled me and kept me down in the classic way that abusers do. So much so that I didn’t even know it was happening until I was nearly a year out of the relationship. And did you hear the news? I could dissect you and gut you on this stage Not as eloquent as I may have imagined But it will get the job done, you're done This song was catharsis for me. Every time I sing along to it, it was like I took back my control and I finally told that bum how I felt about him; how I felt about the way he left me. The song has applied itself to other relationships I have had, but every time I belt it out, I feel so much pent up anger and rage I have carried with me finally getting its release. It’s the penultimate YOU DON’T CONTROL ME ANYMORE fury I get to scream out, usually to the walls of my car in classic car karaoke style, and each time I feel a little bit lighter. _____ My Heart is the Worst Kind of Weapon - Fall Out Boy [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| Let me start out by saying that I usually listen to songs I am writing about while I write. This isn't the case with Bed Song. The first time I listened to Bed Song was after reading Neil Gaiman's blog where he talked about the night Amanda Palmer wrote this song. I hadn't heard it yet, but his writing of it got me so intrigued. I set off to the internet to find it an listen. It's been a long time since a song has evoked so much emotion in me that I literally cannot listen to it anymore. Just thinking about this song makes my heart ache. I feel my body go into a flight response. Anxiety and pain and sadness just waterfall through my veins. Yet I love this song so much. I wish I could listen to it more, because it's just so gorgeous. And so real. And so honest. The video only amplifies the pain I feel while listening to this song. So - let's talk why this song breaks my heart into a million pieces. I have a recurring nightmare that my husband leaves me. He decides I am not what he wants. He decides we aren't happy. He decides he can't take my special kind of crazy. He thinks I cheated. He wants out. He just doesn't want in on this game anymore. I have bone-chilling fears of having to lose everything and start over because I cannot be what he wants from me. We've talked about these dreams, about my fears of us growing apart, or of him losing his interest in me... He worries it's because he isn't doing enough to show me he loves me; enough to make me feel secure. Listening to Bed Song, you go through the lifespan of a relationship. They excitement of first being in love and living that boho squalor life. The middle part where things are good, but communication starts to break down. The late life where you've grown so far apart, but neither of you know what to do to fix it, and the end... Where you ask "what was wrong all these years?" And the key line in this song that makes me bawl every time is "I would have answered if you only asked me". Communication is hard. Relationships are hard. Love is hard. And every time I hear this song, I am reminded of my biggest fear in my marriage -- that we will grow apart, no one will say anything, and we will never be able to fix it. I am getting choked up even writing about this right now. It's so deeply personal to me that I am getting flustered even trying to write about this emotion effectively. If you've ever struggled with these same emotions, this song is guaranteed to make your heart shatter. _______ Bed Song - Amanda Palmer [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I have a big romantic bone in my body. Stories of love triangles, forbidden love, love conquering all bounds... I am such a sap for them. I devour them. Growing up, I remember telling my mom that I needed someone to love me who wasn't obligated to love me. She wondered why I was so depressed and felt so unlovable when I had such amazing family support and all of the love I could possible handle from them. I told her it was different. They were meant to love me. I needed someone to come along and see me... and choose to love me. When Moulin Rouge came out, I remember it being the first movie that ever made me cry. I'd seen sad movies before, but something in Moulin Rouge just broke me when Satine and Christan have their final scene together. The movie poster for this film followed me from my bedroom to each of my dorms, and it is still one of the immediate choices when I need to curl up and cry over a pint of Ben and Jerry's. _______ Come What May - Moulin Rouge [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I was a teenager that was obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I never missed an episode, and if I had to, you bet your tush that the VCR was set to record so I could watch when I got home. I became so immersed and so enraptured with the Scooby gang. I wept for them. I laughed for them. Joss Whedon has such a knack for creating relateable, flawed characters within a sci-fi universe. Sure, I'd never fight a vampire or slay a singing, dancing demon like Sweet, but the struggles they went through were so real. I loved the dynamic between Anya and Xander. They were such an odd couple. He was the comic relief, big brother to everyone type. She was an ex-vengeance demon with a hyper-literal mind. They went through a lot of the normal ups and downs of couples, Xander sometimes having to act more like a babysitter to Anya while she tried to understand why humans acted the way they did. Still, they got each other. They loved each other. When they got engaged, it was amazing. They were they first couple on Buffy to make that kind of commitment to each other. Willow was trying to figure out her sexuality, Buffy was just too busy being the slayer, and Giles... was pretty scarred after Jenny died. Seeing Xander make the move to settle down was so awesome. When the musical episode - Once More with Feeling - aired, we peeked into Xander and Anya's life as they dealt with their engagement. Naturally, they have a song together. In it, they discuss all the things they will 'never tell' the other person drives them mad. I think this song meant so much to me because it showed that all relationships are flawed. There isn't a perfect movie or big screen romance the way the film world depicts it. being driven nuts by habits of your partner is normal. Being scared of commitment is normal. It brought a real sense of reality to the characters that gave them such depth. Later, in the episode Selfless, we hear a song that Anya sang to Xander while he slept that was not a part of Once More with Feeling. She swells and swoons around the house about how she will be Mrs. Harris. How her life has changed because of him. How things are finally right... When Xander very suddenly leaves Anya at the alter, Anya goes mad with depression and heartbreak. She meets up with a former vengeance demon friend and convinces her old master to let her get back in the game. And the camera pans back to the current day, where we see the (not know to us) newly re-demonified Anya impaled by Buffy with a sword. Spoiler -- she isn't dead. But the shock of that moment and what had to have happened to bring Buffy and Anya there when they had been practically family... It was such a strong moment. I will always been a Buffy love, through and through. My heart belongs to Sunnydale. _______ I'll Never Tell - Buffy Cast [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Mrs. - Buffy Cast [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
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