Gold Steps

It’s been a sweller of summer. Rock shows, late nights, fist fights, tubing trips, bike rides, phone calls and breaking through the walls that closed me in. 10 years from now one phenomenal CD will sum up the culmination of all of these memories. In fact, I probably won’t stop raving about this cd for the next 5 years. (Trust me, I know myself, I don’t let things go)

I’ve listened to a lot of good music that stuck with me over the years, but “Life’s Not Out To Get You” by Neck Deep is the best record I’ve heard in the last 10 years. (You know you’re getting old when you can start saying stuff like that. Is this why nobody likes you when you’re 23? Because you start raving about how everything used to be better?)

I know. I KNOW.  My music sucks. I hear these phrases on the reg: “All your music sounds the same” “These songs suck” “This guys whinny voice is annoying” and everyone’s favorite expression “This is the stuff I listened to in middle school.”

The Pop-Punk genre as a whole has gone the way of the dinosaur in the public eye and is wildly regarded as nothing more than a bunch of whiny brats recounting all the times a girl broke their heart. Honestly, that’s all true. In fact, that’s why I LOVE pop-punk. I may be an adult, but give me a rocking break-up jam from high school any day of the week. What can I say? There’s a lot of angst and energy in Pop-punk, and It puts me in a good mood. I don’t think you can say that about a lot radio jams. Maybe the good mood part, but there’s no heart, no real emotion, I don’t FEEL when I’m listening to it.

One song in particular on LNOTGY resonated with my soul and really changed my view of my situation and well, life in general. That song, was “Gold Steps.”

I’d been a bit mopey this summer for a host of reasons: A girl I spent a little too much time thinking about, a job that bores me to tears, growing up and accepting that there’s no going back to the carefree life of college.  It all had me a little depressed. Then I heard “Gold Steps” about a hundred times and it flipped a switch in my brain. I started to look at this summer in a new light.

When I look back on three years ago I wouldn’t exactly say I was in a great place. However, as far as my memories go, I don’t remember the pain I felt then. All I really remember are the good times, the laughs, flying around Forrest Hill delivering pizzas with the windows down and the volume up. Before I went to college I was DONE with Maryland. I wasn’t close to my friends anymore, the people I really cared about only came home once in a blue moon, and even then I had to bend over backwards to hang out with them.

I am so much better off now than I was then but I’ve spent so much time wishing things were different that I’ve inevitably wasted a portion of my valuable youth. By the by This isn’t going to end anytime soon. I’m still going to wish I was in a better situation. I’m still going to feel like everyone else knows something I don’t. This isn’t a life changing revelation. I knew things would get better to begin with but when walls start to cave in again, it happens every now and then and always has me feeling like I’m lost.

 

It takes little songs like Gold Steps to bring me back in the moment when I realize that 10 years from now I’m going to look back on this summer with NOTHING but fond memories. I’m going to be reminiscing with a friend and be in tears laughing over the fact that I ran the same EZ Pass in Richmond 5 times (You’d think I’d take the hint!). I’ll think about the time I impulsively spent 200 dollars on concert tickets before even looking at the location/date. I’ll remember discovering SpikeBall, Playing settlers of Catan til 3 in the morning and binge watching that stupid, yet ridiculously entertaining show “Baby Daddy.”

Its one of those moments where I see the sign saying hope is up ahead and I realize I’m on track for a better end. It’s not the big things that will dominate our memories, it’s the little things. Thinking about those moments makes me smile. Just relish where you are and whoever you’re with because life is always changing, and if you don’t slow down you’re going to miss it.