My #MotivationMonday Story

 

It all started for me, this Tegan and Sara life, when I was asked by my girlfriend at that time, if I wanted to go see a band competition that was being held at the university where she was an alumni member.  I was visiting from New York, where I was living in a small farm town 40 miles north of Albany.  As a huge fan of all kinds of music I accepted her invite.  It was the beginning of something that’s often indescribable.  Well, this act came on, two twin girls from Calgary and they hardly had what you would think of as a band.  Memory accounts of what song was played is discouraging but I do remember that they sounded great.   Long story short, they ended up winning the competition with highest marks and it was how I became an instant fan and wanted to know more about this little band with a huge sound.

I managed to get my hands on their demo tapes during the early years, but they were eventually stolen from me by the lovely girlfriend, by then, my ex.  I had the “Yellow Demo” tape, played it constantly and was upset when the girlfriend and I split and she took my shit.  I resonated towards one of the songs on that tape, Hello….and going through the break up was as it was sung on the song…I was feeling “Right now I feel so empty and someday won’t be ending.  Until I’ve done all that I can (all that) …until I’ve done all that I can.  One day it’ll get easier, ‘cause right now I feel so simple.”  I remember thinking well, damn, how did they know how I was feeling.  You just don’t be in a relationship for 7 years and expect when it is over to easily move on, she did find it easy but for me it was hard.

“Just Me” gave me confidence in being single again with “all I have to give this world is me and that’s it, and all I have to show the world is me and that’s it, and all I have to face in this world is me and that’s it.” I had the other tapes, Red and Orange in my possession as well, but taken by her when she left as well as other memorabilia including ticket stubs, pieces of paper with stuff about Sara and Tegan (and Plunk), I had the beginning of an obsessed fan by this time, but she took it with her when she left…I was just left with memories.  But thanks to modern internet I have since purchased the tapes back.

With music, there is no age restriction, you do not have to listen to it according to your age, I am currently 51 and am into all sorts of music, Tegan and Sara are forefront and I have found new music through them, like Lorde, Shura, Ria Mae, among a few. I also get into harder rock, electronic, jazz, some pop and hip hop music, with just a little country thrown into the mix. Without the music, my life would not have been here to enjoy the new ones.   Going back to the year when my father became ill, I was in Orlando, FL at that time, and living in my apartment with a girl I met two months before.  While at work, on November 11,1999, I received a phone call from NY, requesting that I come home, my father’s health was deteriorating.   That frantic race of making phone calls to airlines and trying to get a flight out as soon as possible at the last minute to going to the actual airport with friends and nearly strangling the ticket counter lady because she told me there was no flights leaving Orlando to Albany, NY until 6pm on the 12^th, not even any emergency flights.  I remember calling my mom the next morning and telling her that I couldn’t get a flight out until later that night, but what she didn’t tell me while we were on the phone is that my father had already passed away about two hours before.

(I am in tears as I write this)

I wasn’t told until I landed at the airport at 9pm.  I didn’t get to say goodbye.  This started my downward spiral of depression and anger.  I was mad at my dad for not waiting for me, I didn’t know if he knew if I was on my way.   They usually wait for those who matter most, did I not matter? All these questions all this anger at those who were present when he passed away…dammit I was his youngest child, only child with my mom.  Then this song played while I was in my room at my parents’ house, while listening to the radio and it just made me all the crazier now that I had lost my dad.   “In the Living Years” by Mike and The Mechanics just so happened to come on while I was trying to comprehend by myself the feelings I was having now…seriously? This song about losing a father…. because “I wasn’t there that morning when my father passed away, I didn’t get to tell him all the things I had to say… (next lines don’t apply to me) …I just wish I could have told him in the living years.  Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear. It’s too late when we die, to admit we don’t see eye to eye.”  

 

I went back to Florida after the funeral and went back to trying to live a life but I was unsuccessful.  My father is gone, and a week later, the girl left as well and I just fell apart, getting involved with drinking and drugs, life spiraling out of control, I was depressed more and even as angry as before.  Desperate for something, I stole sleeping pills from a friend’s mothers medicine cabinet and took the entire bottle washed down with a big bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, I wanted death to become my friend.  While I was lying there getting sleepy, I was listening to indie radio and they played a song I recognized, it was “Hello” by those Quin twins from Calgary…I sat up and listened, “Drinking to yesterday’s news, I’m sorry I was late, I was so blue. Oh, my hands hurt from holding your hands.  And I’m young but it’s hard to believe, that someday I will never see you again.  And you might not believe this, but you’ve changed me so much.  But baby, it’s so hard leaving you. And maybe this was the only way. But right now, I wish I was older, and right now, you look so simple.  Now is not my time, no no now is not my time, and so I said, ‘Hello hello hello I’m right here. I’m right here waiting for…”   I remember there was some knocking on a door, and when it was over, I was lying in a hospital bed.   I was also disappointed for a moment, that I was still here.

 

Music came to my rescue that night, what if by chance I hadn’t been listening to the radio, what if Sara and Tegan never entered the competition or won? What if they never made those tapes? Would I still be here?

 

It wouldn’t be the last time their music would save me, in 2004, they released So Jealous, two years later, the song “Fix You Up” would come to my aid after losing another loved one, this being my grandmother.   What was this life we live when we can’t live with the ones we love? Not many people realized that deep inside I was hurting still after my father died, after all these years, and I still am, tears flow freely writing this, but you wanted to know what motivates us, and music, motivates me…yours mostly…. it’s your fault Tegan and Sara, for the pain I am enduring having to remember all this.  But I am a big girl, I have pulled up my big girl panties and have pushed forward, but dealing with deaths in the family (and in mine they have been plenty) it’s hard…. while writing this part, I am listening to So Jealous.  That song is eventually going to play and I will have to stop because it’s going to make me cry.

 

In 2006, I had just moved back to NY after moving here and there and eventually ending up in Indiana, involved in a committed relationship with a woman whom I am currently married to (and back living in Orlando) …I was excited to move back to NY, to see my grandmother, to finally be able to do the things we used to do, go places we frequented, but we didn’t get to do those things, a couple weeks after moving back my grandmother ended up getting sick and her health went downhill very quick.  On July 12^th, the family was summoned upon her home, and one by one, everyone took their turn to have a talk with Gram, I waited, I was trying to grasp onto the fact that she was dying and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but something brought me to go stand by her side and have a chat, holding her cold hand in mine, we discussed life.  I thanked her for taking care of me, helping me grow, smacking my butt when it was needed, and just telling her that she is loved and how much I loved her.   I bent down and kissed her forehead, her cheek, tip of her nose, and I whispered in her ear, “You can rest now Gram, you can go see Poppy, and my dad.  We are all here, we love you. I love you. Thank you.” I kissed her cheek one last time and left the room, a minute later she was gone.

 

Though I was surrounded by family and friends, I couldn’t deal with all this.   I missed her so much, as much as I missed him…two of my most favorite people in life were no longer here and I had questions about things and no one to ask, for the ones who knew the answers were gone.   I would drive up to the cemetery and sit at their stones and cry, chat, maybe laugh, but mostly cry.  One drive back home, that is all I wanted to do was just drive….FAST! I had a mix cd of Tegan and Sara in my stereo and a thought is going through my head, as I am driving fast on roads I knew like the back of my hand, screeching tires taking corners too fast, sometimes going over the yellow line, playing chicken with oncoming traffic…. yes, that is what I was thinking until “Fix You Up” came on and I slowly eased off the gas… “Well, there’s not a lot for you to give, if you’re giving in and there’s not a lot for you to feel if you’re not feeling it, you bring it up and bring it in and we’ll get you fixed up in no time. And what I wanted most, what I wanted most What I wanted most, was to get myself figured out.  And what I figured out, what I figured out was I needed more time to figure you out.”  Brakes applied, I stopped and pulled over, and cried.

 

*perfect timing…Fix You Up has reached my ears.

Fast forward to 2016, my life is ok, still here in Orlando with the wife and our fur kids.  We are being blasted by the campaigns of folks wanting to be our leader and being mocked for one who is a buffoon running, like a joke on the world.  But something is trending on the news and it is startling to hear of the countless shootings happening all over the country.  Then in June, we here in the City Beautiful receive news that there is a mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, I don’t need to get into details of what happened but it affected me, my wife (she works security at the hospital most victims were taken too), the Latino community and especially our LGBTQ family.  We saw so much pain and suffering, tears and memorials in the months following and I was ecstatic to hear you were coming to Orlando in November.  When Trump won the election and my feelings about that and Pulse and everything in between was happening, my one goal was to somehow get to The Beecham to see you and in the kindness of strangers, now friends on Facebook, I could go see you and it was a necessity.  You were affected just like many in the LGBT family around the world we all had that one connection, and you shared that with us here in Orlando, and that is one of the main reasons why you are loved by so many fans.  My wife calls me obsessed with you but maybe after reading this (sorry it’s so long but I tend to write too much) she and others may possibly understand the power that two women from Canada have on people, where music speaks the volumes that other artistic venues can’t, I sometimes can’t put into words what I want to say but can find the perfect lyric in a song that completes what I want to say.  That is why you have the fan base that you do.  I am glad to have had the chance to watch you go from nothing to everything that is AWESOME….and I thank you.