If Nothing Else, I Was Creative

The year 2000 should have destroyed the world as we knew it. At least, that's what a lot of people believed and told me as 1999 drew to a close. As if Y2K wasn't terrifying enough, imagine knowing that your coveted "teen" birthday took place in that year. It was dramatically fated.

I was born in 1987, making 2000 the magical year to wait for. Along the way, I began learning that conspiracies were ravaging my parents' contentment about my special year of finally becoming a teenager (which means, as you know, obtaining this age immediately grants you all forms of knowledge.) It felt so utterly predictable to realize that my life could POSSIBLY END before I ever made it to being able to announce an age in the teen years. Of course I'd be robbed of the experience. That's my luck.

At midnight on January 1st, 2000, I was on the phone with my mother while I sat in my dad's kitchen playing a board game and feeling giddy over my verbal predictions that "literally nothing will happen." I mean, of course I knew that, the conspiracies were just pointless! However, they needed to exist for emphasis on how horrific my life luck was, so we'll go ahead and keep those around.

Since I escaped sudden death and an entire apocalypse, the year 2000 became much brighter. As predicted, I turned 13 years old and gained all the worldly knowledge of exactly who I was and who I intended to be as I got older. I definitely wasn't wrong in any way, because how could I possibly be wrong? I was a freakin' teenager, finally.

Life opened up, and opportunities were endless. Those opportunities were explored through music, and as I listened to my favorite songs, I used their messages to guide me through the ups and downs of being in the coveted age range I'd been so eager for. The year 2000 certainly gave us a plethora of gems, and the ones I leaned into landed chiefly around the idea of love.

I've always loved to love others, and that part hasn't changed as I've gotten older. Before I really knew a lot about love, my music taught me, and I created some interesting understandings about the songs along the way.

Buckle up for my playlist of ultimate love songs that taught me the way after Y2K.

Dream - He Loves You Not

You can pout your cherry lips

Try to tempt him with a sweet kiss

You can flirt your pretty eyes

He ain't got his hands tied

No chains to unlock

So free to do what he wants

He's into what he's got

He loves me, he loves you not

This song spoke to me because I'd already had a boyfriend in fifth grade who other girls liked, and I knew I was better than all of them. The women of the pop group Dream seemed to understand exactly where I was coming from based on that one incident. I would listen to the upbeat rhythm of this song, bob my head with the beat as I laid on my leopard print bed and imagined all the women who would want my future partner because he or she would clearly be highly desirable and only interested in me. I mean, I'd already had this experience in one way, so who was to say I wouldn't again? I needed this song to empower me for whoever would want my Prince or Princess Charming.

O-Town - Liquid Dreams

Looks ain't everything, she's got the sweetest personality

Like Halle B

My mama thinks I'm lazy, my friend all think I'm crazy

But in my mind, I leave the world behind every night I dream

The whole point of boy bands was to make teenagers feel seen and loved by the hottest guys on the planet, and it worked on me entirely. Liquid Dreams was important because it felt like it might be describing me, which was extremely necessary information to keep my enthusiasm going for my future love with that perfect partner who everyone was in love with. Songs like these were fun and bouncy, great for dancing in your room with your 5-disc changer lighting up the walls instead of the overhead light. I'd move with the beat, sing, and think about how attractive the entire group of singers must have found me to write such things. The lyrics assured me that looks were definitely not more important than personality as well, which is so important in a song that's named after the result of her level of physical attraction. Good thing I knew everything when this song came out.

3LW - No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)

I'm getting a little tired

Of your broken promises, promises

Lookin' at your pager

Seein' different numbers, numbers

Call you on your cell

You're hangin' with the fellas, fellas

Hangin' with my girls

You always gettin' jealous, jealous

Okay, so maybe none of this had ever actually happened to me, but imagine if it did. The women of 3LW knew how I would feel and react in a situation like that, because of course this was likely to happen to me. So I would sing along, thinking of that future partner I might have who I'd have to confront and leave for not treating me right. I know, I should have just dedicated myself to waiting for that perfect partner, but of course we all have to go through several bad relationships before that happens. My future partner needed a damaged little soul to fix up, and I was preparing myself for that through this song.

*NSYNC - It's Gonna Be Me

All that I do, is not enough for you

I don't want to lose it

But I'm not like that

When finally (finally)

You get to love

Guess what? (guess what?)

It's gonna be me

Luckily, there was *NSYNC, the next large group of guys who clearly loved me and wrote all of their best things because of loving someone like me. After being wronged in my future, future self would need men like this to heal me. Or! This song also worked when I felt like maybe someday, I'd have to prove to someone how worthy I was of him or her, and this song works THAT way as well! Oh, such a versatile song depending on what mood I was in regarding my future loves and heartbreaks. The stories varied based on my emotional ups and downs, but the song was consistently incredible.

Jennifer Lopez - Love Don't Cost a Thing

Think you gotta keep me iced (you don't)

Think I'm gonna spend your cash (I won't)

Even if you were broke

My love don't cost a thing

Think I wanna drive your Benz (I don't)

If I wanna floss I got my own

Even if you were broke

My love don't cost a thing

Being a teenager already, I knew that someday I'd come across a man or woman who had tons of money, flashy cars, and spend a ridiculous amount of money to impress me. This obviously happens a lot, why else would J.Lo have an entire song about it? In order to emotionally prepare for such a difficult situation, this song was great for me as I wrapped myself in the leopard print shawl my grandma gave me knowing how much I loved that particular look (because, of course, my flashy and rich partner would have me draped in ridiculous things like this). He or she would have to know, though, that these things were not needed because my heart loves no matter what your income is. (This part stayed true, at least!)

Mandy Moore - I Wanna Be With You

I want to be with you

If only for a night

To be the one who's in your arms to hold you tight

I want to be with you

There's nothing more to say

There's nothing else I want more than to feel this way

I want to be with you

I wasn't all angst about the future of my heart. In comes Mandy Moore to help me with that part, singing from the softest part of me that stayed up late and alone, wanting someone to hold and adore me like I was everything to them and more. This song came from the deepest romantic part of my youthful heart, expressing the level of love I hoped to share with that perfect partner I was always agonizing over. The musical pace and gentle voice she uses in this particular tune always lifted my heart to a happier place, soothing angst into gentle anticipation for the future.

Backstreet Boys - Shape of My Heart

Sadness is beautiful

Loneliness that's tragical

By another boy band who I could interpret both sides of the song as being relatable, Shape of My Heart grasped my young soul with acceptance of your own wrongdoings while also helping me recognize the need to accept my future partner's lesser moments in life. The handsome fellows of Backstreet Boys sang to me such utterly deep lyrics that I had no choice but to ponder them in a philosophical way as I watched the rain fall through my bedroom window, the barren cornfield in the distance speaking of my loneliness and the emptiness it created within me.

Lonestar - Amazed

I don't know how you do what you do

I'm so in love with you

It just keeps getting better

I wanna spend the rest of my life

With you by my side

Forever and ever

Every little thing that you do

Baby, I'm amazed by you

A good deal of Hoosier-born girls have a deep affection for country love songs, and I have never been different in that regard. Lonestar's love song inspired everything I wanted in my heart that knew it was ready to fall in love with the perfect person. I'd listen to this and imagine the love of my life feeling this way about me while I'd happily hold them and reassure them that the song worked from my perspective, too. The song taught me exactly how love should feel to me, and it empowered my already knowledgeable soul to define it even further through these lyrics.

Savage Garden - I Knew I Loved You

There's just no rhyme or reason

Only the sense of completion

And in your eyes

I see the missing pieces I'm searching for

I think I've found my way home

Ah, yes, this was the song. This one was the one my ultimate partner would hear and think about me, and I would lay on that leopard print bedding of mine and stare at the gray ceiling as I'd imagine how he or she would love and adore me so much that everything about me would have been something he or she longed for in the past. I certainly had to be this important to my partner, upon hearing the powerful affections in the voice of the singer and the magic of the lyrics. It felt like the perfect summary of how an ideal partner should feel about the love of their life.

Stories ran wild in my brain through my up-to-date favorites that I listened to for lessons in loving and growing with another person. My teenage angst solely centered on being in love someday, drawing up mental images in all varieties of people I would have been delighted to be with while other, more dramatic scenarios kept my imagination more realistic. I knew the truth that love and loss go hand in hand, and these songs were anthems of personal goals for myself as a partner in the future (as well as expectations I'd grow to have from someone who loves me). I learned more about how love should feel from music like this playlist than I ever have from a movie, likely because I know someone out there wrote the words with personal experience to speak from. While I may not have known as much as I thought I did, I did learn a great deal, and that's what matters the most when I reflect on my love angst.

By the way, the love of my life likes Savage Garden, too.