A Life in Measures

To conjure up the hazy memories of high school in my dusty hometown is something I hadn’t wanted to face so readily. At the proposition of moving to a much larger city with my wife, I’ve been staring down a long and violent barrel of nostalgia.

Music has fueled my drive for life as long as I can remember, from my formative years with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Pantera resounding from my dad’s basement den while we worked on model planes, cars, and Christmas decorations, to Country classics on repeat while I helped my mom paint, sculpt and create trinkets for her to share with her loved ones. As I grew, so too did my taste in music and while those classic hits from my early childhood still reside, unmoved in my soul, The music I chose as I crept closer to adulthood has shaped and changed me forever.

2006 - 2007

Growing up in a Southern Baptist Church, I was well acquainted with the “hidden messages” laced through the sounds of artists such as Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Britney Spears, and eventually, Justin Bieber. Artists whom I was urged by members of my church and my parents, to avoid. Regardless of their warnings, I craved the feeling that washed over me while I worked with my dad in his room on various projects and Rob Zombie blared on the old speaker that rested on his workbench. The sound of Megadeth and Metallica hung over me in the daytime while I was in class, and the snippets of songs I’d heard on Fuse echoed in my head. I was ravenously obsessed with heavy music, even back when I was a child. Just before I entered High School, I joined a social media site called Shoutlife, which was for all intents and purposes, a Christian knock-off of Myspace. While I had my own Myspace page too, my parents guided me and kept a close eye on my activity on all forms of social media, and my mom personally encouraged my use of Shoutlife. There, I met a handful of people who have remained in my life even to this day, and because of that site, I found some of the music that has changed me forever.

I had begun “dating” if you can call it that, a girl from Bakersfield, CA who I met on Shoutlife, and who introduced me to all manner of new artists I’d never heard of before. Korn, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Aiden, and Atreyu to name a few. Eight months into our relationship she sent me a collection of her favorite tracks in the mail, with a little stuffed animal and a bottle of her perfume I probably still have somewhere in my unpacked boxes.

I devoured this music, completely unaware that it was somewhat of a premonition that would predict our “relationship”. Every morning, due to our conflicting schedules, I would wake up as the sun rose and talk to her on the phone. This girl, through no fault of her own, was suffering from a tremendous amount of trauma and at the height of the Emo movement, was regularly self-harming and contemplating suicide. She sent me “Self-Conclusion” by The Spill Canvas one night and told me, “I’ve never felt like a song was more accurate to my life before.”

I spent hours talking her down and trying to calm her heart, and the playlist she sent, became a cathartic release of that stress of trying to save someone’s life. She was adamant that our song was “Your Guardian Angel” by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus because she believed that God sent me to help her, to heal her. Despite the good sense of my mother who told me that I should be careful, (advice I promptly disregarded.) I threw myself into the “good” work of trying to heal her, all the while building relationships with people on Shoutlife that in the end proved to last many years.

My relationship with Bakersfield was short-lived, as the Summer of 06’ came around, she told me she was going to go on a cruise with her best friend’s family and would be out of service for a few days. Our talks by then had worn away from passionately trying to learn more about one another to ask what new bands we’d found and sharing playlists with one another on Myspace. I felt the distance between us for the first time since we’d begun dating and half-heartedly sang “our song” to her as she drifted off to sleep.

A week passed and she returned from her trip, yet was completely out of reach. I called and texted and she never replied, until her friend messaged me and told me that she cheated on me while she was on the cruise.

Seven Times.

It’s safe to say that the instability I felt in our relationship was warranted, as her best friend broke the news to me she apologized a thousand times for what Bakersfield had done and I hung up and called a friend to release all of the sorrow that had spooled up and released in the course of an hour.

My friend from Boston, MA was a few years older than I was. In 2006 I was heading into Freshman year and she was heading to her Junior, and we had bonded over another band whom she adored, All Time Low. The Blink-182 cover band who became a worldwide sensation played in the background as I told Boston everything that had happened between myself and Bakersfield, how hurt I was and how I didn’t know what to do. She and I spoke for hours that night and she talked me through my first big heartbreak, and from that moment on we became close friends.

As the Summer came to a close and I had done nothing but listen to “Put Up or Shut Up” by All Time Low, and “Coffee Shop Soundtrack” became the anthem for our friendship, she lived her own life in Boston and I lived mine in Nevada and we always felt like we’d hold on to one another. She and I grew close as I carried the remains of my heartbreak to Utah for school shopping before my Freshman Year began, where we stopped at two places that would propel my love of the scene deeper than it ever had been.

At a Christian Bookstore, I found a copy of “Define the Great Line” by Underoath, and “The Triptych” by Demon Hunter and promptly bought them on aesthetic alone. I’d never heard either of the bands, but I’d saved a handful of cash from chores and decided to spend it on those albums. When I popped the CDs into my player and heard the visceral screams of Spencer Chamberlain for the first time I fell into a deep state of elation and knew I would be a fan for life. Underoath and Demon Hunter became the soundtrack to that four-day trip until my parents swung past a Best Buy and I found something that would become the soundtrack to my entire life.

On a rack, I found Coheed & Cambria’s second album “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” and begged my mother to buy it for me. Despite its content, even though she didn’t have time to research the lyrics,

“You don’t understand how bad I need this.” I tried to persuade her.

“This is the album with that song I listen to all the time.” I continued.

You see, while Bakersfield was changing my music tastes with her lies, and Boston changed it with her friendship, I was on my own discovering new music that would come to root itself so deeply inside of me that I couldn’t separate from it if I wanted to. The first was Coheed & Cambria, who had a music video on a demo disc for the Sony PSP which I’d gotten for Christmas the previous year. Their track “Blood Red Summer” from IKSSE:3 was by far the most played song in my life at the time. I would regularly turn my system on and listen to it in my bedroom between calls with Bakersfield and gaming sessions. Claudio Sanchez’s insane vocals and the strange melody that infiltrated that song became the method by which I identified myself, and I craved more.

Eventually, she gave in and added it (as well as their following album “Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV Part One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness” or GAIBSIV:I for short), and if I thought Underoath’s album was good I was in store for something even greater and more profound. I popped the CD in as soon as we got into our car and listened non-stop on the four-hour drive back home. When I finally made it home I listened once more and though I didn’t know it then, my life was changed forever.

2007 - 2010

I entered High School with a grand sense of sensibility, some months had passed since the implosion of my relationship with Bakersfield and I had picked up a new long-distance relationship briefly with a girl who lived in Georgia, a girl who, to be honest, I never really cared much for. At the time, I figured long-distance relationships would be easier to deal with, as I craved love and attention but didn’t have the self-confidence, or the desire to pursue it in reality. My relationship with Somewhere in Georgia ended almost as quickly as it began and shortly after, I met Southside, a friend of a friend who quickly assimilated herself into our group. Her birthday was March 3rd, and she invited me to her party where I promptly asked her out. Whether due to peer pressure or sheer stupidity she agreed and we struck off into a relationship that evolved quickly. During this time, I fell out with a huge number of the friends I’d made on Shoutlife save for a few, who stuck around and reunited on Facebook. Among them, a friend in Port St. Lucie, FL introduced me to Bayside and New Found Glory, and I became rapidly obsessed with both bands as I explored my relationship with Southside.

I spent most of my Freshman year with Southside in earnest trying to help her heal from her own personal traumas and become(in her words) a better person, her family was relatively unstable and her father was extremely abusive and to help pay their bills, she took a job at the local movie theater. I provided (what I thought) was an ample amount of support, as I shared the things with her I cherished more than anything else, my playlists.

Though she was primarily a country fan, she listened to “Too Good to Be” by New Found Glory with me while we sat outside of the theater and watched the night sky and she told me she never wanted to be like her mom, that she refused to allow someone to abuse and manipulate her the way her father did. I listened and tried to help, but no matter what I did nothing changed and I started to wonder whether or not I was the person who could really help her. In my youth, I believed I was much more powerful than I really was. Somewhere in my heart, I believed that because I held these religious secrets I could cure everyone who had problems, I could fix all of the bad things that fell over my friends, and I wasn’t alone.

Early on Freshman year, I met New Mexico. A sloppy, nerdy guy who shared a love of music with me that no one else did at the time. He and I rapidly grew close as we spent hours trading songs and playing games, and as luck would have it, his family moved in just up the street from me, so my early Freshman year went as I spanned my time trading songs, writing poetry and playing Halo 3 with New Mexico. It was good, but all good comes to an end, eventually.

As Winter break approached, Southside told me that her parents didn’t have money for Christmas presents, and my mom and I gathered up a bunch of folks from church to deliver presents to them in secret. I left a leather jacket there with a note to her to let her know how much I loved her, and it was the first time I’d said that to someone who wasn’t family and meant it. We spent the remainder of winter together as a friend of hers began popping up more and more in our lives, this guy who had long had feelings for her, asked her out and told her I wasn’t good for her, but she denied him for weeks until eventually, she asked if we could go out as a group and she could get over it. I agreed, not thinking much of it, and when we sat down, I could feel something in the air. An uncomfortable tension as they laughed and joked and had a great lunch while I sat there, basically alone at the table. Afterward, Southside and I got into a pretty intense argument and we decided it would be best if we took a break. On the walk home, I called New Mexico and we went on a walk that lasted eight hours. The whole time, I listened to “I Don’t Wanna Know” by New Found Glory and cried.

By the time the snow thawed and spring was on its way, I had recovered for the most part. Southside and I agreed it would be best if we stayed separated and I recoiled back into the places that I felt most comfortable, Horror Video Games, and Music. Around this time I picked up the guitar myself and signed up for my High School’s guitar class, but as the school year drew to an end and my own life was more unstable than I’d pictured it, I took the summer to spend time with New Mexico and Boston and decided to go to the Vans Warped Tour.

If I were to list each song that affected me that summer, you’d never be finished reading. The summer of ‘08 and my attendance to Warped Tour bookmarked my adoption of the Emo Scene and everything that came with it, skinny jeans, fatalist thoughts, and black dyed hair, as well as the indulgent self-righteousness of the religious hardcore music scene, which I was an adamant supporter of. Despite the ups and downs of the Christian Hardcore scene, there were moments that I will never forget as long as I live. Under the beating sun with New Mexico and a handful of other friends, we moshed and screamed and sang our hearts out and as Haste the Day stepped up on stage, they said a prayer and dived into a violent, and incredible performance of “Long Way Down” which I will remember for the rest of my life. In the middle of the song, rain opened up on the festival and the rest of the day was pure bliss. New Mexico and I continued around the rest of the day and caught performances from Chiodos, Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, The Used, and more before we eventually retired with mild sunburns and full hearts, I spent that night talking to Boston about the experience and she promised that one day we would go to Warped Tour together.

As Freshman year turned to Sophomore year, my personal life only grew more complicated as I reunited with Southside and we began our relationship from the start, this time with more care and more caution. She told me from the get-go that my savior complex was too much for her, and she would rather have been with someone who just wanted to live and experience life together. It was the first moment where my worldview was put into perspective as she gave me a ride home from school and blew me a kiss. Our relationship began again as if it had never ended and for the first time, I really had something on my plate that I didn’t know how to deal with.

The re-opening of our relationship inspired a collection of old songs to resurface as “I’d Kill to Fall Asleep” by New Found Glory became the anthem to my daily life. My relationship with Southside continued on as I formed a friendship with a girl who lived in Alabama, who I’d been friends with for some time, and we began talking more and more as I probed her with questions about what kind of person I am, why Southside said what she said, and the small circle of friends I’d collected reaffirmed to me that I had nothing to change, in the words of these people I never knew, I was perfect as I was. All of them save for Boston and St. Lucie, who both told me that I was a child and needed to grow up. I took it pretty hard but considered that they were right, and sought out in small ways, methods by which I could be a better man.

Months passed as New Mexico and I continued our tight friendship, and on this course, we discovered the Microsoft Zune, as well as the Windows Music Pass which was Spotify before Spotify existed and opened up worlds of discovery for me, as I delved into the breadth of music I never knew existed. This year I spent a lot of time reflecting on myself through the lens of Christian Hardcore music (Oh to have known then what I know now about what those guys were really like, so many idols that didn't deserve the recognition they claimed.) and As I Lay Dying, Haste the Day, Demon Hunter, and the like invaded my mind, I tried to be a better person for Southside. To the tune of “If I Cut My Hair, Hawaii Will Sink” by Chiodos, I made promises to people that I intended to keep, that I would be there for them forever, and so forth. You know the kind, the stuff you promise in High School that barely stays consistent. About halfway through Sophomore year, New Mexico moved into a house right behind mine where I unknowingly would spend many, many months to come.

Eventually, during a conversation with Boston about college and our futures, she shared “Stay Awake (Dreams Only Last For a Night)” by All Time Low with me, and I fell in love with the band officially, between their music and Panic! At the Disco I was all the way in on the pop-punk scene, as it began to grow to be what it has become today. I told Boston that night that eventually, we’d get to meet and we’d get to actually be friends in the real world. Another Promise.

While spending time with New Mexico I met a girl who lived across the street, who’d moved to our town from Ohio. I was immediately taken aback by her personality, and how cute she was. We’d spent a lot of time together and visibly began to grow feelings for one another when I knew that if I really wanted to be a “good person” I would need to break up with Southside again. I called her one day and rode my bike to meet her at the park where I quickly cut the cord and broke her heart into a million pieces when I told her, and this is not a joke, “I don’t love you like I did yesterday.” From the song “I Don’t Love You” by My Chemical Romance. She didn’t cry or even shrug. She asked me what day it was, and I realized that it was March 3rd. Then she told me the last words we shared, which I still remember to this day.

“You will never have me again, and I hope that you never have anyone else.”

I rode my bike home in tears that day, still not understanding that my own actions caused the pain I felt and went to bed. The following days my group of friends distanced themselves somewhat, and I saw most of them less and less, save for a core group who I had known since I was in elementary, and New Mexico, who immediately called me on what I’d said to Southside. They didn’t hold it against me, and I struck up a relationship with Ohio sometime later. While our relationship lasted from the summer of my Sophomore Year, it was short-lived and hollow when I realized that she was in a long-distance relationship the whole time, I broke ties with her immediately, but not before she showed me Say Anything, who I’ve loved ever since.

I made my way once more to Warped Tour and met Boston in the flesh, and we had a great time for a while before we went our separate ways and promised to meet up again soon.

That summer boiled out a lot of my relationships as New Mexico began dating someone who I personally felt was toxic for him, and another pair of our friends began dating, (one of whom had a real, legitimate, Burn Book, you know like… from Mean Girls?) and fights blew out and I felt alone for the first time in a long time. That loneliness was complimented by the fact that I hadn’t heard from Boston for a few weeks since Warped Tour, and one friend convinced me to try out for the school choir.

With “Woe” by Say Anything and “From a Mountain in the Middle of the Cabins” by Panic! At the Disco on repeat for audition day, I tried out and somehow against all hope, made it into the choir where I met two men who would help me realize what was wrong with me from the get-go, and I began my junior year.

2010 - 2011

I began my Junior Year having thrown myself into music and with a (mostly) new group of friends, the relationships I’d held on to from the previous year were still strong and we regularly bonded over Guitar Hero and Rock Band sessions on the weekend, trying to complete the achievement for playing every single song in one sitting. Regularly we failed, but the memories we made always come back when I hear “Prayer of the Refugee” by Rise Against, and “F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.” by The Fall of Troy.

My friends and I began spending a huge amount of time together, and while we were there I questioned a lot of what I had learned growing up about life and people and how to treat them, I learned a lot working through the choir and trying to start a band, and those lessons have stuck with me just as well as the lyrics to “Punch-Drunk Love” by The Summer Set, “Every Road” by The Maine, and “Therapy” by All Time Low have been.

By the time summer rolled around, I found myself staring down Graduation and the final year of my youth, my two friends, the Two Musketeers, and I went to Warped Tour and vowed to spend as much time as possible seeing the bands. We spent the entire day there, where I picked up a collection of new records, and a sunburn so bad that my doctor told me “You shouldn’t go outside anymore.” There, I met the lead singer of Anarbor, and their songs “Useless” & “You & I” became a regular rotation in our jam sessions, and eventually, Senior year came.

Finally, the moment I had waited for and dreaded had arrived. It was time to graduate and we were in the home stretch, my life had spun wildly out of control, and after the end of the relationship with Ohio, I didn’t pursue anyone as seriously except for Alabama, who was a princess in another castle that I discovered wouldn't work out some number of years later. As graduation neared, New Mexico announced that he and his girlfriend were getting married and that she was pregnant. I was shocked and scared, but I attended the wedding and celebrated with them to the tune of “Swing Life Away” by Rise Against, and as the day boiled down and graduation was one step closer I clung to the music that had molded me and shaped me, and then something happened that I didn’t expect.

Southside came to me and apologized, and in her apology, she remarked that I always thought I was better than other people and that I always held that over their heads. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but I realized that she was right, and I thanked her for her apology. The morning of senior sunrise I’d made plans to play songs with my friends and enjoy the final moments I was constantly told I’d have to be with the people I loved so dearly, and before I knew it graduation came and went and we grew up, and I still listen to all those same bands. I still pray that I can be a better man, but in retrospect, I understand why all that angst and frustration and disrespect existed in my heart unbeknownst to me.

I was filled with a desire to do something big, important, and impactful. I wanted to make the world a better place but couldn’t look past my own desires. I was as lost then as I’d ever been, and the truth of it all is that in high school no matter how much I thought I was a good person, I wasn’t. I don’t know that any of us are.

I’m thankful, though, that at my wedding not so long ago, I watched the longtime friends, from back before I was dating Southside all the way to my most recent job stand in a circle, arms linked together and drunk out of their minds sing “Swing Life Away” and I realized that sometimes, the best thing in life you can do isn’t something big, it isn’t something extraordinary and impactful, it might not change the world. Each of those people now, I associate with music. One of them, with Rise Against. It’s the only band he ever really liked. Another pair with All Time Low because we spent so many hours in basements and house parties trying to get laid by playing their music. Another, because of AC/DC, because it was the only band he’d ever spoken to me about. One friend reminds me of Rob Zombie, which has always been funny to me as he is a straight laced, long haired blonde stick-boy, and I realized something about myself in that drunk moment of bliss that I never could have in high school.

Sometimes, the best thing we do is to outgrow ourselves, and share that the new version of us with people we truly love. It won’t change the world, but it will change yours, I know it changed mine.

If that angsty, selfish, sorrowful teenager saw the man that is sitting at his desk and penning this today, I don’t know that he’d be proud, because I am not who he wanted to be, he outgrew the need for attention and to be heralded as a hero, so that he could focus on himself and really truly change for the better, and his music stayed with him. Thirteen years later and I listened to “That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)” by Panic! At the Disco the night before my wedding, and I’ll be damned if I know what the song is actually about, but I know what it’s about to me now.

Things have changed for me, and that’s okay.