Teenage Dream

So awhile ago, I'm guessing maybe two years, I discovered this band called Boyce Avenue via youtube. They did a cover of Rihanna's Umbrella and it blew me away. Aside from Alejandro's undeniably beautiful voice, I was impressed with this band because they're one of the few who can actually perform a decent cover, as in they can take a song and make it their own without ruining the original version.

Well time has passed and Boyce Avenue sort of slipped off my radar. I didn't forget about them, I just didn't keep up with them. That was until this week, Thursday actually, where I was still feeling ill (especially after realizing I certainly did not do my best on a project for one of my favorite classes) and needed something to cheer me up. I saw they had done a cover of Taio Cruz's Dynamite and figured it would be worth checking out. It was pretty decent. But the next video I saw was a cover of one of my recently favorite pop songs: Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. Ah. Beautiful! Just his voice and the piano. And what I loved the most was that he completely desexualized the lyrics. Everything raunchy and everything that was hinted at sex was changed in his version. As a girl I of course found this completely sweet and sentimental. Romantic. Pure. I could go on. But let's just say I love it.

Anyways, the reason I bring this up is because Boyce Avenue suddenly reminded me of the reason I even decided that writing was what I wanted to pursue as my career. In fact I remember the exact moment I decided what I wanted to do with my life.

I was 15 years old and still working at McDonald's. It was a beautifully warm afternoon and I was stuck in the back working extension, aka, taking orders for the drive-thru. It was a slow afternoon, that time in-between lunch and dinner, and with no orders to take and nothing else to keep me preoccupied, I did what I do best: I daydreamed. Considering it was so gorgeous out and how much I hate being indoors when the weather is so, I leaned my body halfway out the window (as I normally do when the managers weren't around) trying to grab on to some sort of freedom that existed outside of that little hell-hole. And I realized; I had to get out of this. I couldn't end up like the managers, in their 30s and 40s and still working at this greasy little restaurant apologizing to the bitchiest customers for forgetting to take pickles off their 1000 calorie sandwiches. No, I could do better than that. I had to.

But what was I to do with my life? I wondered. What do I want to do? What can I do? So, trying to be as logical as I could, I thought about my two greatest passions at the time: writing and music. I love writing as I always have. And from what all of my teachers and peers had told me, I wasn't half-bad. In fact in third grade we did this project where on one side of the paper you wrote what you thought you would be doing when you grew up, and on the other side of the paper your peers wrote what they thought you would be doing. Half of my peers wrote "author" or "writer". Even my teacher wrote "I think whatever you'll be doing it will involve a lot of writing." It's kind of creepy that in the third grade they all somehow knew.

But then there was music. Something I had pursued several times yet could never fully find the passion for it that a true musician has. I was in the school choirs up until I was cut in the sixth grade (I discovered I was no longer a soprano...alto is where I stand). I also tried the flute. A beautiful instrument but I gave that up after a year. I then pursued the piano...something that I still love to this day. I took my piano lessons seriously. But when running became more important I realized I didn't have the time to do a sport, a part-time job, and high school along with putting an hour into the piano everyday. I determined I had learned enough and could figure out new songs on my own. I dabbled with the guitar for a bit and for a long time I considered a great passion. But I discovered that Dave Matthews likes to write some very difficult tabs and I didn't have the time nor patience to try to learn the songs I wanted to play.

So in a nutshell, I was never meant to be a musician. But that didn't mean that I still didn't love music (who doesn't?) and that I couldn't make it a part of my life. So the wheels began turning...writing or music? Writing or music? Writing or...

And then BAM! The big a-ha moment. It suddenly dawned on me that there are people out there who make a living by writing about music. They write reviews, the cover concerts, they interview bands, etc. Even though this was nothing new I felt as if I had just invented my own dream job.

And there it was, on that terribly boring afternoon hanging outside a McDonald's drive-thru window I realized that what I really want to do with my life is write about the music and musicians that I loved. My ultimate goal was to be a journalist for the Rolling Stone. That is what I wanted. That was what I was going to strive for.

And up until last year that was it. That was the big dream. Get to NYC, write for the Rolling Stone, meet all these amazing bands and live in a dream world. It was perfect.

Until I realized, it wasn't. My RS dream started to fade after having a conversation with someone who told me what the business is really like. The more I read the Rolling Stone the more I realized I wasn't sure I would fit in. I dreamed up interviews with musicians that I liked. I forgot about the thousands of other musicians out there that get covered as well. I forgot that everyone else is striving for the same dream job as my own. I also realized that I knew nothing about writing for a music magazine.

I also think there is an internal reason as to why this dream has slowly faded away from me. I think I have this great fear that this passion will be ruined. That if I try to build a life around it I will learn to hate it.

But Laura, aren't you afraid that's going to happen with writing? Well, yes, I am a little afraid that one day I'm going to wake up and no longer have any desire to write. But I don't see that happening for a long time, and when that day comes, well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Until then, I need music. It was the escape from my misery on Thursday. It is my comfort. It brings tears to my eyes, it is my coffee in the morning. It's what takes me away from my stresses and what gives me strength to push forward. I need music in that vital way that most people depend on it. Listening to Boyce Avenue reminds me of that.

So the Rolling Stone dream is on hold. For now at least. I have bigger concerns for right now, like finding an internship and determining where I'm going to be living after this school year. Music isn't going to leave me. Writing is only going to strengthen me. And if there comes a day when those two can be combined, well then, hopefully I'll be living my teenage dream.