Twenty-nine isn’t old. But on the odd rainy spring night when I get home from work, I sit back in my favourite orange chair with a cocktail and ponder.
If age is a state of mind, then I am still that wild, early-twenties girl; naïve when it came to love, lost as a drifting prairie wind, and restless to run as far from this town as possible. Trying to process the traumas of my youth while at the same time numbing it out by the bottle beneath a haze of neon bar lights.
Or I am still the girl who showed up every Wednesday night for karaoke at my favourite bar, where the bartender knew my name and had my drink poured for me as I walked in. I’d be singing Carly Simon or LeAnn Rimes or Lady Gaga, or whoever fit the space of my life at the time. Break up songs. Leaving songs. Lyrics of nostalgia. The occasional dare, which is how Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” became a staple song on my list.
That bar closed down the year I got married, in 2015. Nestled between a Fabricland and a 7-Eleven, it may have been considered a hole in the wall but walking in was like strolling into my second home. Familiar, friendly faces. Songs that now bring back fond memories. I found many pieces of myself in those nights. Friendships were formed. I fell in love there a few times, somewhere between the songs, the odd flying pool ball, and cigarette smoke out on the front patio where we watched Canada Day or New Year’s fireworks every year. Some deep conversations that changed my life. Some that meant nothing at all.
It was where I got the best relationship advice of my life. A random vagabond merely passing through who came to karaoke for about three weeks. I was at the bitter end of a toxic relationship at the time, and somewhere in our talks he spotted it. Outside, having a cigarette, it was just him and I. We discussed break ups and his ex-wife. He looked me square in the eye and said, “I can see you aren’t happy. Don’t settle, doll.”
It was my wake-up call then, and it remained so even when my marriage ended last year. It was advice I still carried with me, and likely always will.
I found that girl again earlier this year, going out a friend’s birthday party at a different pub. Wearing a crop top that said “Bad girls form rock and roll” over a black maxi-dress, with black boots, rocking a total Stevie Nicks vibe, I found myself buying a pack of cigarettes and standing outside amongst the people there. A dance floor, neon lights, and old friends. Seven months out of a marriage that left me shattered, it was what I needed. Standing outside with a smoke before heading home, I lingered out on the sidewalk, watching cars go by beneath city lights. It took some time, but I was finding myself once more.
I went to a Shinedown concert at the end of March. Both Shinedown and Linkin Park were bands that got me through the darkness of my adolescence, and the years of recovery after. In some ways the two bands represent different stages of that period.
Linkin Park songs pulled me through a few suicidal episodes and was often what I had cranked when I didn’t want to listen to violent fighting upstairs anymore. Chester Bennington’s suicide last year devastated me, mostly because I saw him as a survivor I looked up to. It’s difficult to watch a hero give up. At the same time, I get it.
On the other hand, Shinedown’s songs spoke to me at a time when I was emerging from the suicidal thoughts and picking myself up from remnants. “Second Chance”, “Breaking Inside”, “Call Me”, “Bully”, and “Unity” are a few songs which remained with me over the years and kept me strong when I felt far from it.
To go see Shinedown live was enlightening. I happened to be beside a young girl with her father, for her first concert. She was also an avid Shinedown fan. We shared tears and hugs throughout the show. I saw much of myself in her. Full of life, hope and dreams, in the attempt to keep moving forward despite adversities.
Rock shows are where I have found truest pieces of me. They are where I feel most alive. Sometimes, they are the only time I feel much of anything at all, between the depression, PTSD and trying to simply function through the monotonous day-to-day. But there, in a crowd of strangers, lost in the music, feeling it deep in my soul, singing the lyrics that have helped me survive the worst years of my life, is the time that I don’t feel so disconnected from the world. It is the one time that I feel part of something. Like I belong, like I am not on the outside looking in. I am inside, warm, happy and alive.
Walking back to my car after, alone in the cold world again, I merely smiled up at the stars. At least there is one place I feel like I belong.
In many aspects, I am still like that young girl. Yet with age being a state of mind, comes the life experience gained along the way. We don’t always end up in the career we want. In fact, sometimes we don’t end up with careers at all, but merely a job that pays the bills and gets us through. I’ve also learned that it’s okay. We are not defined by what we do for a living. We are defined by our hearts, souls and passions.
We don’t always end up with the person we thought we would. I have watched many friends marry and remain with that partner over the years. I have also seen marriages crumble in that time, including my own. That’s alright, too. It’s acceptable to walk away from toxicity and something that hurts you more than it helps.
It’s okay if your life has become an evening janitor job, coming home to a giant lovable black lab and ten cats, to a mobile home you are slowly making your own, with a small circle of friends whom you adore and would do anything for, who support you and love you and are your home team. To be surrounded by books and random craft projects and to watch too much Food Network and crime documentaries. To continue to collect unicorn figurines even though I am almost 30.
This is my life. I don’t make a lot of money. I don’t have a career, but merely a job that pays my bills. I don’t have a fancy house or a fancy vehicle. I’m okay with that.
I’m okay with it because I can pay my bills, keep myself and my critters fed, manage my depression as best as I can, and I have people who love me. So, while my depression often tells me that existence is pointless and there’s no point in trying…well, chemical imbalance, it’s time for you to shut up. I am 29. It’s surprising that I made it this far. It took strength, resilience, stubbornness, and the support of the people around me to get here. It takes all of that to keep going, and I keep getting stronger as I do.
So, if the first two decades of my life were the darkest, most bitter, most difficult…it can only go up from here, right? Time to look ahead to making my thirties the best decade of them all. It’s off to a good start. Writing, and a good cocktail.
Accompanied, as always, by my beloved Miss Karma, gazing outside on a rainy night.