Whoever “She” Is, You Don’t Have to Worry

I write this from the absolute depths. Like, the only way things could get worse is if a meteor struck my apartment or something. I got passed over for the internship of my dreams, which was enough of a blow. Then, my tire goes flat. Oh wait, all my tires are bad. There goes $800. And my boss seems to think everything I touch turns to suck, so work hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses, or even cheap carnations.

All this to say I’m not exactly having a great time.

In my times of trouble, I tend to turn to music to comfort me. I’ll never know why it’s so reassuring to know that at one point in time, some dude with a guitar felt exactly the way you feel. But then, The Maine’s “Whoever She Is” came on.

And I cried. Like a freakin’ baby.

It’s not a sad song, nor is it a love song, as one might be led to believe by the title and the soft acoustic arrangement. Rather, it’s a song about standing strong in the face of adversity. “She” isn’t a woman but a personification of whatever is troubling you. And it’s oddly relatable. She could be “rainy days, minimum wage, a book that ends with no last page” or a whole slew of mundane issues. But the chorus ends with “whoever she is, you don’t have to worry.”

Things will be okay.

I imagine John O’Callaghan writing this song from his own personal hell. I imagine he went through shit like I’m going through now. Everyone does. That’s the beauty of music. It reminds us that we’re not alone in this struggle called life. No one’s above it all, and even the rock stars and pop princesses and that cool singer-songwriter who busks on the streets have their own problems. We live in a broken world, and we’re never going to be completely free of heartbreak and disappointment this side of heaven.

That’s why we have music to comfort us. And as I bawled my eyes out, I realized this is exactly why I do music in the first place. And I’m not going to let a few setbacks keep me from doing what I was made to do.

And neither should you. If you’re reading this and you know how I feel, put on your favorite song, have a good cry, and get back on your feet, because things can and will get better. The world will still turn, and so will the tides of fortune. Bad things happen, but so do good things. And I still believe the good in this world outweighs the bad.

Just remember, whoever “she” is, you don’t have to worry.