The incomparable Gala Darling begs the question above, for the song “1979” by Smashing Pumpkins. (You can find it on my Muxtape)
I don’t remember exactly what I was wearing the first time I heard this song, but from the first moment I heard this song, I knew, even then, that it was going to be the one that would forever summon up my entire freshman year of high school in just the beginning few bars.
To this day, if I close my eyes during this song, I am instantly transformed back to a 9th grade classroom highway which intersected with a senior classroom hallway, connected by two smoke-filled bathrooms, where freshmen and seniors would congregate in between the bell. I am transformed to the hallway where my locker was, meeting my boyfriend and fleeting moments of excitement from stolen kisses or the anticipation of a freshly passed note to digest during my next class. I am transformed to the middle of a sprint from a back entrance from the gymnasium, out to the senior parking lot, just after third period, to skip class for the rest of the day. I am transformed to the backseat of a car in which I was experiencing my first ride not driven by an adult, but by someone over the magical age of 16. I am transformed to this place where there was a distinct measure in time when my life was decidedly taken down the most self-destructive path I could blaze.
That is why I can’t close my eyes when I listen to this song. (I do anyways). The feeling is is of nerves collecting all the way from my gut, that rise up though my throat and I choke up. Chills follow and tears seep though my eyelids. I rest my cheekbone on my fist and it feels like there are butterflies fluttering around in my sinuses. My entire head is overwhelmed by this incredibly powerful, nauseous nostalgia for a past life gone wrong.
In moments like these, people always say they would have never changed a thing, or regretted anything, or else they wouldn’t be who they are today. Knowing what I know now, I would have taken nearly all of it back. Don’t let that sound sad, please. Let that sound wise! I was completely reckless, on a mission to destroy myself in any way I could (mostly because I was angry at my parents for plopping me into a new life at age 13). I ruined so many things for myself, with absolutely zero foresight towards a future. I didn’t believe in the future. I didn’t know about the future. I didn’t care about the future. I didn’t think I was going to make it out of there alive. I still tell myself at times I am lucky to be where I am today, and not dead, or completely dead in the head, after some of the shit I pulled. So much wasted time, so much wasted life.
I mean obviously, I wouldn’t have become who I am now were it not for the experiences I had, all of them. But I know who I am, deep down inside, and that person would have still been in there today had I bypassed all the delinquent detention dwelling druggie behavior. She would have been, I’m fairly certain. She would probably just have a better career than me. Or even a career, period. The person she is now, doesn’t care about careers.
But I still love this song more than anything and always will, for there aren’t too many others out there that elicit this much incredibly raw emotion. This song completely takes me there. I can’t remember what I was wearing, but I can feel the way my whole world did.
