What Changed in 2007

When I ask myself who I am, words do not come to mind. I flash on experiences I have compiled into something like a music video, and I take a backseat to watch the objective view I have created. Me and my husband’s adventures they race through my head as I remember each one, and then in a blink of an eye, our kids they run at me too in the same gold haze. It cycles on a track, like a collage of images I have seen in a book or in some movie. There is always one song playing that for the life of me I cannot seem to forget. I cannot seem to leave it behind. When someone or something asks me who I am, I cannot explain. To the core, through and through it resonates with me, as I can feel its vibration radiate in my stomach. All I can do to explain who I am, is defined by this song.

Stop and Stare by One Republic is playing, it's 2007 and my boyfriend and I at the time were splitting apart messily. I remember our last words to each other was, “I hope you realize what you did, you are too sad for me”. I spit back at him, “you did this to me!”. I felt broken, nothing could give me comfort. Nothing could prop me up enough for me to get my feet back on the ground. Like the weight of the world was all on me and there was nothing I could do alone to push it off. Not long after that, I walked in to a coffee shop after a brutal night very much alone. This same song is playing on the radio, it was the first time I had ever heard it, and I just closed my eyes and adhered to the words like they were made for me to hear them. It was a sign. For once that made me happy when nothing else did. I went home and bought every album they ever made and tried to heal through the songs. I could be myself without trying. It was a vessel for me to define myself and what I wanted to be. It was a gift.

2 years later I was at a One Republic concert in San Diego, CA. I was in the pit and people were packed in left and right. It was so crowed I couldnt lift up my arms even. My 5’5 height wasn’t cutting it to see to the stage. Struggling to see, getting frustrated, someone picked me up with ease. I looked underneath me and there was this man with a mess of blonde hair on his head, broad shoulders, probably 6’2. I leaned over to ask him, “Why’d you pick me up?”. As he replied, “Someone like you shouldn’t be sad”. I don’t know why it was so strange to me, this nice man was just trying to make my night better. It seemed like the universe trying to tell me this was my second chance. His words seemed simple, but after what I had been through the coincidence was impossible to ignore. At the end of the night the last song they played was Stop and Stare, I asked if the blonde haired man would put me down. He mouthed the words to me as we danced to my song. I was the happiest I had been in a long time. He walked me to my car afterwards as we planned to meet again the following week.

Me and that very same man dated for another 2 years before getting married. He was always just as kind as the day I met him, and I am convinced we were made for each other. It has always been our song ever since that night. Sometimes things are fated to happen, you have no say in them, you can’t fight it. It just happens, and you wonder why you ever questioned it to begin with. That’s the story of my life. When people ask me how we met I know there’s more to the story that meets the eye but I don’t tell them my sign. I don’t share the song with anyone else but us. It will remain untouched in my mind, as a reminder that I deserve to be happy.