You know how songs somehow become the soundtrack to your life? For me, music always conjures up memories of certain times in my life. Like, I can't listen to "Drops of Jupiter" by Train without thinking about the Spring of my junior year of high school when I was just about as terrible and messed up as I was young and free. Or I can't listen to "Tic Tic Toc" by the Queers without thinking about the Fall of my freshman year of college when I fell in love with the kid that played it for me on his guitar in his dorm room.
Well, the same can be said about the album "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel. For about the last year and a half, James has been playing the duo's tunes around the house (hilarious if you know James and how he wouldn't have been caught dead listening to folk music at the age of 18). So it makes sense that the day we brought Alex home from the hospital, James put this record on. I can't listen to it without remembering all of the emotions from that day. Maybe someday I will write about it more at length, but what I can say is that the 9 months I was pregnant were just about the saddest time in my life I can think of (the sadness was not pregnancy related). The situation was just about rock bottom the day that I gave birth. What I realized was that James and I were completely alone and being sent home with a 2 day old baby. He put this record on and made me dinner. I sat on the couch and cried. I called my Dad in tears. "They told me I can't breastfeed," I said through the tears. But it was more than that. I had always imagined having the support of my mother after I gave birth and the gravity of having to deal with a lot of what was happening on my own hit pretty hard. And now when I listen to the record I feel the emotions from that day. It no longer makes me sad, but it has become a part of my soundtrack. So now I pick up my little baby, hold him close during "The Only Living Boy in New York" and dance dance dance.
Because I can't change any of it. I can only change how I feel about it. And the truth is I am really lucky. I met the love of my life at 18. We have a beautiful child and we don't go without. Life is hard and will always present challenges. But I have my soundtrack to remind me that there is beauty in all of it.
