1996 Revisit

1996 was not one of my finest years and yet it seems like I slept through it. My father died in 1996 I was 16, and became obsessed with Fiona Apple. I graduated from Tori Amos understanding my feelings and expressing them better via music to someone who was angrier, and not afraid to sing about it. Musically and definitely life wise it felt like a new chapter for me.

I must have listened to Sullen Girl a million times. I would fall asleep listening to Tidal. It was one of the few things that brought me comfort. My friends didn't get it some were total jerks, and others tried to be kind, but none understood the weird place I was frozen in. I was heartbroken but not emotive. I spoke at his funeral and didn't cry. I went to school and while people waited for me to cry or show something I didn't. A friend approached me once about three months after it happend and said I see you out, I see you smile, or laugh but I wonder what's really going on up here, or here pointing to my head and heart. I barely spoke to her after that. It was scary someone saw past the mask that I was working so hard to maintain. No one really wanted to hear that my heart was so broken I felt a physical pain. That I had nightmares almost every night. That my mom was hanging on by a very thin thread and my brother was so angry and depressed he was like someone auditioning for the role of angry teenager in a lifetime movie. No one wanted to hear it, and I certainly did not want to say it out loud. I was living it, I felt like in order to survive it I just had to get through it, but I certainly did not have to share it. Numb became my safest and most treasured state. I just sort of floated through my days trying to get through and exist and then at night I would be somewhat free for a while to free something before sleeping.

I remain a Fiona Apple fan. I have listened to all of her albums, they have had different roles in my life soundtrack. Now I think it resonates with me less, but I enjoy it more. It gets to be music instead of catharsis. Experiences changing, it's need and place has evolved. I still think back to when my first love totally broken my heart and how much I wanted to go have coffee with her because clearly she understood my exact situation based on Love Ridden. That was college, I was almost 20 and in some ways that heartbreak started another chapter. One where I wasn't wasting my time trying to impress him or be seen by him. I started worry less about what he thought and more about what I did. That being said I could be totally wrong because in the song Left Alone of the most recent album she sings, "How can I ask anyone to love me, when all I do is beg to be left alone?" Hmmm...this may just may be relevant to my present day because a boyfriend would really cut into my alone time and mature young adult reading. 

I didn't decide to just go on a Fiona Apple tangent though. I am seeing her tonight and both anxious and excited. I am excited to see her live because I never have, but I am curious to see if I lose my shit. Regardless of how much I have tried to lock away how I feel, suppress, or deny it music has generally made that an impossibility. Aurora better get ready to have a hot mess on her hands, and I better put on some waterproof mascara.