For Now

If you’re lucky you have a song. Something you go back to time and time again. It can be a space to recharge your batteries, hype yourself up, confront trauma, confront sadness. I have a few–this one, definitely this one, of course, this freaking one. They remind me of times and versions of myself, intense joy and sorrow, frustrations, building-budding empathies, and on and on. They are conversations I come back to. They help me see the change in myself. They help me let go of, even if only momentarily, the baggage of life. Music is a damn thing–I have to remind myself that sometimes. 

I owe a lot to my sister, my sister, my sister. I come back to this a lot, but I think she may be my only true hero. I have a long list of people I look up to, but whenever I try and sort through it, she rises to the top. Anyone who knows her knows she is a force to be reckoned with. We both have the same anxiousness–I think you’d never know with her. Her whole adult life she’s worked in and around good ole boys’ clubs. Always having to prove herself, go above and beyond male dominated hierarchies. She’s very constantly reaffirming that she’s not to be fucked with. As with many things in life, she may not see it in herself, but the world around her knows.

She and I both turn to the same band when we need to reorient, Stretch Arm Strong. That band (and punk rock in general) is a gift of hers to me. Something that I’m able to reach out to when I feel lost. I always know when she’s getting ready to confront something that scares her. She’ll send me a link to their music before and my mom will tell me the next day how well it went. Like clockwork.

The many stories I tell (and want to tell), my DIY mentality, even my fierceness (it exists, somewhere), comes from looking up to her. I’ve been made by a lot of things–music and sisterhood are key.