Songs of Drama-Trauma and Reclamation

My Teen Angst Playlist:

Somebody by Depeche Mode

Creep by Radiohead

Hurt by NIN

Rid of Me by PJ Harvey

Crucify by Tori Amos

Under The Bridge by RHCP

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls by TLC

Come As You Are by Nirvana

Low by REM

Not a Pretty Girl by Ani Difranco

Leaning the length of the neck of my barely pubescent body precariously out of the public school bus window, I would spy on him. He was tall. He could skate. Those are really all of his redeeming details, this ico-ish male in one of the upper grades. I didn't even know him, but surely, if he could just see me, he alone would truly "see" me in all of my odd/smart/quirky/cool glory. He would understand, this good looking punk rocker all about just how very riotously different and feverishly artsy I was beneath my misshapen kinda still awkward-kid chubby shape.

And even back then, I had some certain subconscious doubt in the un-likelihood of my fierce belief in this fairly random dude as actually being true, that he was cool and would judge the me that he never knew existed by my fine inner qualities instead of wanting a cheerleader, if only we would meet, but really it was the the belief in Love which was still a beautiful hope in my then young mind which is captured in Somebody by Depeche Mode, the top of my teen playlist.

I planned to play it at our wedding. As in, "I want somebody to share, share the rest of my life, share my innermost thoughts, know my intimate details, someone who'll stand by my side and give me support and in return she'll get my support..." This song goes on to mention how the singer is not normally one to feel mushy, but that he know that his dear one will understand certain perhaps "perverted" views, but that she too will hold her own and while not "easily be converted," the two would harmoniously coexist. Wow, part of me still wants that kind of Love...

Then, they're is what I really learned next about love, teenage men, and my sexual organs. I was so alone. I was so un-cute. Every day I felt like I was drowning in a sea of faces in the hallways at school. They were laughing at me constantly. They were passing me up too. I did not know what was worse- to feel the ugliest or to be the totally unseen.

There had been only one boy who remotely paid any attention to me. He was like, retarded, (but really it was just ADD before it was really understood.) And, after two iffy seduction attempts by him, he instead took what he wanted from my body one day out in the woods. What hurt the worst was that he claimed to "see" the real me.

"You float like a feather, in a beautiful world [the cute , unobtainable boy,] I wish I was special, you're so fucking special... but I am a creep. I am a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here, I don't

belong here..." said Radiohead loudly at about this time in my life. And, after the huge disappointment with what I thought was already the total failure of my life after the abuse, all mixed together with the weird teenage hormonal trips, "I don't care if it hurts, I want to have control, I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul, I want you to notice..." I subsequently began to "run, run, run."

And with that implied venture into cutting and starvation diets, soon came- and WHAT teen playlist would there be without Nine Inch Nails, "Hurt" as in "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel..."

I found myself "Under The Bridge," all alone in a city of angels, never wanting to feel "like I did that day." The day the first time I so wanted to just make all the pain go away.

I even made a looped, 90 minute taped-over and over cassette tape of the song "Low" by REM. The treble, the "way up high, down below, in between., low, low, low." Just in case it ever came to THAT, rather than just binge eating and crying a lot and stuff.

So, I chose to find new female friends, basically.

I explained to them the depths of what the song "Fuck and Run,"by Liz Phair by really meant and one of them in turn handed me my new jewel with her scratchy, throaty growl- PJ Harvey. Now, I could stand before my own bedroom wall mirror again and actually peek at myself with out spitting or wanting to vomit. In fact, to her tune of Rid of Me," I began a long series of moaning a gyrating exercises which still brings me delight to this day. "I make you wish you never, never met her." It was like lightening redemption of my hips, my sexuality.

I decided to stop crucifying myself, ala Crucify by Tori Amos.

Next came, Waterfalls by TLC who said to stay close to home or what one holds dear, which I read as believing in myself.

Then my reclamation hit a definite and timely wall. I flat out loved a new band. They sang a song called, "Come As You Are," where males rang out, "Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be, as a friend, as an old enemy, as an old memory..." The sound was pure and messed up and different. I held my breath and wanted to believe again. That there might be love and pain and love again. But there was Kurt's eeriest of vocals, "No I swear that I don't have a gun..." But, he did indeed. His death was my senior year.

And, my life went on. And, I thought about how for those who do not kill themselves, in a way, it always does. For those who somehow manage to escape the depths of depression, and rage, and angst... I draw no conclusions. I just realized as I watched other students cry, that I had better form another whole plan, yet again.

"I am not a Pretty Girl, that's not what I do," Ani Difranco waltzed me away and to college.

That was about all I could "get" at that point in my life, musically, and in general.