My computer loves Savage Garden.
My computer used to love Santana and "Mr. Tinkertrain," so I took its Santana and Ozzy away because there's only so many times you can hear a song before you want to die--excluding, of course, Pete, Roger, John, and Keith. Now it plays a whole lot of Who and Tom Petty (because those albums dominate my collection), but it also loves to frequently mix in Savage Garden. I only have one Savage Garden album, "Affirmation," but I will hear two or three of their songs a night when I play music.
For now I'm okay with that. Despite the fact that they're not my particular cup of tea, I have good associations with their songs. They remind me of that brief flash of high school before everything and everyone became disappointing.
I don't look back on my childhood and think of smiles and carefree days. This is not necessarily to say that I consider myself to have been an unhappy kid. I certainly had my fair share of bright spots. But I was a ... tense kid, I guess is the best way to put it. I usually felt like most people--including my family--didn't like me or were, at best, shining me on. I wasn't comfortable with kids my own age, but I hated the way adults talked down to me. I spent a lot of time by myself because it was so much easier than risking getting stomped on by people I would confuse as friends. I was tense. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. In many ways, it's a predisposition that I still struggle to free myself of.
And then there was junior year of high school. Seventeen was a good time. I was in good classes with good people; I had relative autonomy to make my own decisions; I was a scant year from my long held desire to get the hell out of Hamilton. Everything hadn't disappointed me yet. And I remember during that short but lovely lull being at a party in Julia Vernot's basement and jumping up and down with G. Clark and Kayla to Savage Garden's "The Animal Song." It was this silly little thing that kind of encapsulates the ... what? The ease, after sixteen preceeding years of ill-ease, just being myself with people who didn't seem to mind me so much.
Then, of course, senior year happened and literally everything (with the exception of being admitted to NYU) conspired to disappoint me at roughly the same time. My dad started getting sick more often; his drinking became an even more obvious problem; he began spiralling into early-onset dementia, saving his bouts of lucidity to scold and/or mock me for wanting to move to New York. My friends kind of fell away. Granted, I wasn't in the best headspace to be hanging onto anyone, but I just felt more and more like I looked around and everybody was looking away just like they had for my first sixteen years. Academically, I was a point short of being named a National Merit Scholar; I was an honors class (schedule conflict with orchestra kept me out of the necessary course) from being the valedictorian. These things are paltry now--besides which whenever it has come up since, I say that I was valedictorian because I fucking was, thank you--but to a kid who felt like she had only ever had school success to point to for an identity, they were devastating in a very real and terrible way. And time stopped. For the longest time, it was just like the days wouldn't pass and let me through to whatever positives the law of averages guaranteed me on the other side of graduation. I wanted to die in a completely non-hyperbolic sense. Ultimately, the thing that kept me from going through with it was the idea that I didn't want to have spent my whole life in Ohio, letting other people dictate my unhappiness.
So I went to college and took my CDs with me and started learning how to be a person. I forgot I even had a Savage Garden album until I was reloading music onto my computer a couple months back and found it in one of my lesser used CD wallets. I figured what the hell, I liked them well enough back in the day. And now my computer loves them and plays them two or three times a night. And I will hear one of their jaunty, slightly trite, beautifully sung songs, and I get this image in my head of jumping up and down in Julia Vernot's basement with G. Clark and Kayla. And I can honestly say to myself that it wasn't all bad, which is a lot more than I ever expected to be able to say about high school.
For now I'm okay with that. Despite the fact that they're not my particular cup of tea, I have good associations with their songs. They remind me of that brief flash of high school before everything and everyone became disappointing.
I don't look back on my childhood and think of smiles and carefree days. This is not necessarily to say that I consider myself to have been an unhappy kid. I certainly had my fair share of bright spots. But I was a ... tense kid, I guess is the best way to put it. I usually felt like most people--including my family--didn't like me or were, at best, shining me on. I wasn't comfortable with kids my own age, but I hated the way adults talked down to me. I spent a lot of time by myself because it was so much easier than risking getting stomped on by people I would confuse as friends. I was tense. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. In many ways, it's a predisposition that I still struggle to free myself of.
And then there was junior year of high school. Seventeen was a good time. I was in good classes with good people; I had relative autonomy to make my own decisions; I was a scant year from my long held desire to get the hell out of Hamilton. Everything hadn't disappointed me yet. And I remember during that short but lovely lull being at a party in Julia Vernot's basement and jumping up and down with G. Clark and Kayla to Savage Garden's "The Animal Song." It was this silly little thing that kind of encapsulates the ... what? The ease, after sixteen preceeding years of ill-ease, just being myself with people who didn't seem to mind me so much.
Then, of course, senior year happened and literally everything (with the exception of being admitted to NYU) conspired to disappoint me at roughly the same time. My dad started getting sick more often; his drinking became an even more obvious problem; he began spiralling into early-onset dementia, saving his bouts of lucidity to scold and/or mock me for wanting to move to New York. My friends kind of fell away. Granted, I wasn't in the best headspace to be hanging onto anyone, but I just felt more and more like I looked around and everybody was looking away just like they had for my first sixteen years. Academically, I was a point short of being named a National Merit Scholar; I was an honors class (schedule conflict with orchestra kept me out of the necessary course) from being the valedictorian. These things are paltry now--besides which whenever it has come up since, I say that I was valedictorian because I fucking was, thank you--but to a kid who felt like she had only ever had school success to point to for an identity, they were devastating in a very real and terrible way. And time stopped. For the longest time, it was just like the days wouldn't pass and let me through to whatever positives the law of averages guaranteed me on the other side of graduation. I wanted to die in a completely non-hyperbolic sense. Ultimately, the thing that kept me from going through with it was the idea that I didn't want to have spent my whole life in Ohio, letting other people dictate my unhappiness.
So I went to college and took my CDs with me and started learning how to be a person. I forgot I even had a Savage Garden album until I was reloading music onto my computer a couple months back and found it in one of my lesser used CD wallets. I figured what the hell, I liked them well enough back in the day. And now my computer loves them and plays them two or three times a night. And I will hear one of their jaunty, slightly trite, beautifully sung songs, and I get this image in my head of jumping up and down in Julia Vernot's basement with G. Clark and Kayla. And I can honestly say to myself that it wasn't all bad, which is a lot more than I ever expected to be able to say about high school.