MyPod Birthday Month #14 - Head Over Heels

Back on the 4th of the month, I posted about the song "Head Over Heels" by the Go-Go's. Today the other song "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears came up on the shuffle.

 

Released 10 June 1985
This song was to become the mantra of the summer as I transitioned from high school to college.  My First Love (FL) and I were in this weird "kinda friends, kinda wanna be something more" stage, while I dated someone else who had been a sort-of rebound because my senior high UL (unrequited love) had broken my heart.  Then I started college and met the guy who would become my first college UL over the next 3 years while the Rebound started dating my best friend from high school when I moved away to college.

In amoungst the journals I posted about a couple of days ago, I found a number of letters.  One of which was by the Rebound "letting me down easy" because he was afraid "I'd gotten too attached" to him.  Don't remember if I snickered then, but I snickered reading it again because at that point I had already started dating someone else off/on.  College UL wouldn't play a major role in my life until later that semester and at the start of the next one.

Regardless, this song reminds me of that time in my life when I still felt passionately about FL, but not so much that other "distractions" couldn't occupy my time.  That first year of college... what a crazy time of learning and changing... none of which had anything to do with academics...!

MyPod Birthday Month #13 - I've Got You

I first heard this song on "So You Think You Can Dance."  I was immediately drawn to its catchy beat and lyrics.  Even though it's a song about a couple that has broken up, I dedicated it to my close cousin who is battling breast cancer.

Leona Lewis - I've Got You

Happy Birthday to Me...! Day 12

 

I have spent the better part of the evening reading through these... My diaries.  The Hello Kitty one I started on my birthday 7/12/1980.  It chronicled the pre-teen drama that surrounds that time when you're transitioning from dependent 8th grader to less dependent high schooler.  It describes the crushes and infatuations that come before finally meeting and having that pure and true first love.

Book 2 is the teddy bear which starts on my birthday 7/12/1983.  Right in the middle between sophomore and junior year.  That first love is meeting with the challenges of increased lust crashing head on with Catholic morality and upbringing.  It did not end well.  The journal then continues on with insignificant infatuations and goal-setting leading up to making decisions about college, and then finally being accepted and choosing careers and schools.

Book 3 picks up somewhere around the end of my college career as I start to make plans for my future.  It's funny to see the different penmanship styles in my first journal and how they changed as I matured.  The voice of the 12 year old me being so different from the voice of my 20 year old self.

I also found some "treasures" hidden in the pages... 

A final birthday note from my grandmother signed the year she died...

Some poetry I wrote...

And love letters I never sent...

It's strange to see my life now and wonder about the person who wrote those words... What would I tell her if I could....?  What different decisions would she make knowing where she would eventually end up...? Sometimes I guess it might be better letting life happen and continuing being a witness to it.  

I read parts of my journal to a friend tonight.  In this way I am her memory too... And a part of all the lives that have been mentioned on those pages... No matter where they are, they have been recorded so as not to be forgotten...   

MyPod Birthday Month #11 - When I Hear Music

Debbie Deb, SDSU, Tijuana

This song brings back so many memories of dancing like there was no tomorrow.  Funny how we could dance all night long and never feel tired, and now it's an effort to stay up past 10 on most days....

I lived the full college experience and this song was the soundtrack for the early part of my college days... And, I can still say that "...when I hear music it makes me dance..."  I've never lost that love of music... Maybe not all night long now, but still just long enough... 

MyPod Birthday Month #10 - One Thing

September 2003 I was a surgical intern. Low man on the totem pole. I was struggling to keep up with my colleagues and the demands of being in training in a major hospital in Chicago. There were so many times when I felt so alone and so frustrated. I would gladly have traded it all for that "one thing" that would have made life easier. I still don't know what that "one thing" would have been, but when you're foundering in a new place and city trying to prove yourself, anything is better than what you're living at the time. In retrospect, though, I know that year helped to make me the doctor I am today, and even now, I don't know that I really would have changed anything... well, except for the chance to be a neurosurgeon... maybe I should have taken that offer...

MyPod Birthday Month #9 - I Drove All Night

Spring/Summer 1996 I was a pre-med, post-baccalaureate student trying to get into medical school. I was working 3 jobs and carrying a full science course load. There was very little time for socializing. I did have one good male friend in my classes. He was a non-traditional student as well. We did manage to sneak in some homemade dinners after studying, and did go out once or twice for drinks. We were never more than friends making our way through some challenging times. Although this song originally came out in 1989, it wasn't until that year that I heard it... and it made me wonder about the possibilities for something more. That never came to pass, but I can never hear this song without thinking on those lean times, and my friend, and the possibilities for romance in the midst of struggling to reach a goal.

MyPod Birthday Month #8 - Always Something There to Remind Me

Summer of 1983. Somewhere between sophomore and junior year in high school. I'd had a boyfriend, then didn't have a boyfriend. I was still learning about life and love. And, yes, there was "always something there to remind me..."