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.

Sunday Morning Coffee: Embracing Your Almost

I just finished a fantastic book by Jordan Lee Dooley called Embrace Your Almost. I picked it up on a whim while shopping at Target, and let me tell you, it was full of exactly what I needed to hear.

I just got passed over for my dream internship. After dropping out of the music therapy program twice and fighting with all my might to get through all of the program’s coursework, I fell just short of where I wanted to be. Again. I was almost pissed at God for letting me down once more. Couldn’t He snap His fingers and just make me a music therapist already? I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I had everything planned out perfectly.

But our plans are not His plans. And as I learned through this book, things don’t always turn out as expected. God uses these moments where we fall short of achieving our dreams to refine us, to break us down so we can rebuild stronger than ever.

As Ecclesiastes, my favorite book of emo poetry — ahem, Biblical wisdom — states, there is a season for everything under the sun. If our dreams feel like they’re not progressing, perhaps it’s a sign that we need to slow down and take time to work on ourselves. Maybe it’s a boot camp season, as Dooley puts it in her book, where we put everything we got into becoming the best versions of ourselves so we’re ready for when the next adventure calls.

I’m learning to slow down and enjoy this stage of life, even if I’m not where I ultimately want to end up. If you haven’t achieved your dream just yet, remember there’s a reason why this is exactly where you need to be right now. God makes no mistakes — He’s the author of all of our stories, and everything will work out in His timing.

Giving Yourself Space to Grieve

I wish I had good news to report.

The internship didn’t work out. I’d be lying if I said I’m okay. A lot was riding on me getting that internship. If everything had gone according to plan, I would have finished that internship by the end of next year, moved to Kalamazoo to start my career and family, and everything would be peachy.

But life has its way of throwing wrenches into the best-woven plans.

It was a technicality that I even got passed over for the internship — the supervisor said she just picked the first person who applied. I would have almost rather she just told me I sucked. And because of that little technicality, I’m either going to have to leave the state (along with my wife, who will have to leave her sick mother behind), or get a local internship in hospice, which I really, really, really did not want to do. You know, with that whole “unshakeable fear of death” thing I have going on.

I know things are going to turn out for the best, that God works everything together for the good of those who love Him and all that, but right now, I just need to grieve. I need space to have emotions about all of this. I need to scream and throw things and write whiny blog posts and eat chocolate tarts about it. There’s no fault in that, right?

When I first went up to the university to sign up for my classes, I originally signed up for premed, with every intention of going to med school and becoming a doctor. It was my parents who convinced me to go to school for music therapy instead. I want to make them proud. I need to finish this degree even if it damn well kills me, and it honestly might at this point.

Maybe I should have been a cardiologist, I don’t know. All I know is that music therapy has been chasing me down my entire adult life and even if I don’t get the internship of my dreams, something else will come along. It has to. In the words of Eminem, success is my only motherfuckin’ option, failure’s not. I know I was put on this planet to heal people with my music, and I’m going to do it, one way or another. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll fight until I physically can’t anymore.

But for now, I’m going to allow myself to be upset.

The Downfall of Dreaming

I love, love, love making vision boards. Probably too much. I wasn’t allowed to tear up my mom’s magazines, and I didn’t want to ruin mine, so I never made collages as a kid. Now that I have a digital journal and all of the internet for inspiration, with a simple copy and paste, I can make all the collages I want out of anything I want. If I can dream it, I can slap it on my vision board. I’ve even talked about the merits of making a vision board in a past post.

I think my love for vision boards stems from my love of dreaming. As an ADHD-haver, daydreaming about the future comes naturally to me. But lately, my daydreams have become day-nightmares. All I can think about is how things are probably going to go wrong eventually, no matter how hard I try to avert disaster. These anxieties range from small in the grand scheme of things (like me not getting my internship) to really fucking enormous (like “The Handmaid’s Tale” coming true and me and all my queer friends get lynched).

It’s hard for me to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t a racing freight train. I want so badly to control the future, but I know it’s simply not possible. I just wish I could fast-forward and know that everything turns out the way I want it to. That I will have my successful music therapy career and happy life with my two soulmates and our child, and we will be safe from all the evils of the world.

Maybe the trick isn’t to stop dreaming altogether, but to dream a little more loosely. Instead of planning everything out meticulously, as I tend to do, maybe leave a little wiggle room for when things don’t go my way. I might not get the internship I want, but I can always apply for different ones. Perhaps I’ll have to move out of state temporarily, but I’m blessed with a wife who’s willing to travel with me and the means to do so. And even if the very worst does happen—

—well, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I guess I have to come to terms with the fact that when it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go. It’s a reality everyone has to face at some point. I don’t want to live all my life afraid what comes next, but I don’t think I’ll ever be free of the nagging fear of death until it finally comes to take me.

But as much as I want to quit ruminating on the future, I don’t ever want to quit dreaming. Because when you quit dreaming, that’s when you really start dying. I always want to strive for something more, even when I’m at a place of contentment. I never want to settle. There’s always a new mountain to climb or a new sea to sail, and I think that’s what makes the future exciting.

Dear Cadence, Part Eleven: You Will Get Hurt, and You Will Hurt Others

This is the latest installment in my memoir project, written as a series of letters to my future daughter. Here are the previous entries: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, and Part Ten

Ever since I was little, I wanted to be in a band.

It wasn’t enough to play music. I wanted a band.

I wanted the family, the ups and downs, the VH1 Behind the Music where we all talk about how much we love each other even after struggling through five overdoses and the guitarist cheating on his wife with the drummer’s wife. I wanted the full experience.

And what I got was Dethklok.

Dethklok was not the real name of this band, but to protect the identities of the innocent (and the guilty), I’ve changed all the names to the members of the protagonists of the show Metalocalypse. In fact, for this chapter and this chapter only, I am Toki Wartooth. You can imagine me with a mustache if it helps.

I met the band when I opened for them at their album release party. It was the biggest show I’d played to date, and even with just me and my acoustic guitar. I got the crowd going, rather impressing the Dethklok guys (I say guys, but there were female members. But for the sake of consistency, we were all guys.)

I played for them a second time at another venue, this one with a private green room. After my performance, they cornered me in the green room bathroom.

“We want you to join Dethklok as our second guitarist and go on tour with us,” they said — no, demanded. And who was I to refuse such an offer!

It was all rainbows and roses at the start. I befriended the other members of the band pretty quickly. There was Nathan Explosion and Skisgaar Skwigelf, the lead vocalist and guitarist, respectively, who were dating. William Murderface was the bassist, a certifiable weirdo, but a charming one. And Pickles the Drummer was just kind of…there. He had red hair.

Learning the songs was easy for me, so much so that the rest of the band was beyond impressed. To be fair, they were basic four chord pop-punk songs for the most part, save for one relatively heavy post-hardcore number where Nathan Explosion would scream and Skwisgaar and I would “chug chugga chug” on the guitar. One of these days I’ll show you one of our old songs. They were definitely songs.

The band was becoming something of a family to me. We’d eat together, play games together, and just generally do life together. And what’s more, people liked us! We had a ton of fans, something I wasn’t used to. There were fanfictions written about us, even. It was surreal.

The fall tour would be the true test of our bonds, though. And as we got ready for the first of our two regional tours, I found myself daydreaming about Murderface more and more. We were the two carnivores of the group — the rest of the band was vegan — and we both dealt with a lot of mental health issues (that we actually acknowledged, since the entire band was incredibly mentally ill and incredibly unmedicated). Was I falling for him? Fans were already shipping Toki and Murderface. Were we a match made in pop-punk heaven? We spent several nights together just hanging out and listening to John Frusciante’s solo material, and after some time, he gave me his grandmother’s ruby ring and asked if someday, I’d marry him. Lost in the fantasy, the rock and roll fairytale I was living in, I accepted.

But that first tour was an absolute whirlwind. We traveled much of the East Coast and Midwest playing tiny clubs and bars. Most of the shows weren’t that big — just a couple of local bands and us — but it was exhilarating to be able to play to new faces every night. I felt like a true rock star, even if we were sleeping in our drummer’s mom van and random people’s houses and not a luxurious tour bus. Even if we all smelled horrible by the end of the tour and we had to mask our natural musks with copious amounts of perfume and cologne. It was an adventure unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

There were arguments now and then, mostly between Nathan Explosion and Skwisgaar. A few times, I was dragged into a conflict, such as the time Skwisgaar and Pickles made me and Murderface cry for not being vegans. (They were all like “What if someone ate your dog?” And I cried, being the damn Pisces I am.) We were a tight knit group, but the threads began to unravel as the fights became more and more frequent. Suddenly, I was seeing how mentally unstable we all were, myself included. Still, these people were becoming my best friends, even more so than your mom and Aunt Mel. I trusted them with my life. It was a toxic, codependent five-way relationship.

By the time our winter tour rolled around, things came to a head. The arguments were so frequent, we were bickering more than we were talking music, or anything else for that matter. Nathan Explosion and Skwisgaar broke up, and Murderface and I were on the rocks too, as I’d recently reconnected with Jacob from earlier and I wanted things to finally go somewhere with him (spoiler alert: it went nowhere). So I was far away from home surrounded by people who all hated each other, and at our homecoming show, Skwisgaar slammed his guitar on the ground in a fit of rage. The next day, we unanimously decided to split up. It was an ugly breakup, uglier than all of my romantic breakups combined. Harsh words were spoken. Threats were made. I finally made the decision to cut them all out of my life, once and for all. And I’m so glad I did.

Healing was rough, but I managed. Your mom and Aunt Mel were the rocks I needed to lean on, and they gave me all the support I needed as I found my way again. I learned my lesson not to trust just anyone, and not to get swept off my feet by whatever shiny opportunity presents itself, because the truth is, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. People will hurt you, but the right people will own up to it. And you will hurt people too, and it’s your responsibility to own up to it as well. I got stabbed in the back by folks I considered friends, but I wasn’t innocent either. In the end, we were all very mentally ill and very unmedicated.

I’m sure you’re wondering whatever happened to Dethklok. I wondered myself, after several years had passed. So I reached out to my old bandmates to apologize for how things ended and make peace with the pas. Murderface and I became friends again through the local art scene, and Pickles went off on his own and never really spoke to me again. Nathan Explosion didn’t want anything to do with me, and in fact blocked me on all social media. I guess I don’t blame him. The funniest thing happened when I cold-messaged Skwisgaar, though.

“I wanted to apologize if I ever did anything to hurt you,” I wrote. “You were like a big brother to me.”

“You mean sister — I’m trans. And there’s no hard feelings. I know I was an ass too.”

And that, my child, is how I became friends with your Aunt Tegan. Funny how life works itself out.

Sunday Morning Coffee: Love and Fear

It’s been three days since my last argument with a Facebook asshole about LGBTQ stuff, and I’m still simmering from it. I think I let things like that affect me way more than I should. Maybe I really am a bleeding heart hippie.

Can’t we all just sing “Kum-Ba-Yah” together?

It’s not easy for me to sit back and just take it when randos are slinging homophobic/transphobic slurs, suicide jokes, and even pedophilia accusations against you and your favorite people. Why are some folks so eager to say disgusting, slanderous things about entire groups of people they don’t even know? It literally baffles me — I can’t wrap my mind around it. I wouldn’t say things remotely as heinous against strangers I simply don’t agree with. My momma raised me better than that.

I’m tempted to call these people evil, but I won’t. I will call it as I see it — their actions are evil —-but to borrow a phrase so often weaponized against the queer community, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” You see, the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s fear. And these people are lashing out like scared dogs at things they don’t understand.

The Bible itself says “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). When you don’t understand something, the human tendency is to fear it. And often, that fear becomes hate. When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark because I didn’t know what was hiding in it. I hated being in the dark for that reason. But the dark was never bad — I just didn’t understand it.

I think these people who blindly hate those who are unlike them simply don’t know love. I understand that many people didn’t have a lot of love growing up — maybe their families were abusive, or perhaps they were bullied. That will lead to a life of fear, and a life of fear is a life of hate. The antidote is love.

Whenever I see transphobic memes online, I think of my girlfriend Olivia. I can’t wrap my mind around how anyone could possibly hate her. But they don’t know her like I know her, because to know her is to love her. I wish everyone had an Olivia to show them what love means.

So instead of letting fear win, let love in. Show love wildly, recklessly, with no remorse. Love your enemies. Love the people who persecute you. Love the people who call you names or make nasty accusations or tell you to kill yourself.

Love like Jesus did.

Dear Cadence, Part Ten: There’s No Shame in Trying

So I glossed over one pretty important facet of my college experience — the newspaper.

By the time you read this, “newspaper” will be an obsolete term and the news as you know it will be a bunch of angry guys writing think pieces about whatever their party is upset about at the moment. That is, if the art of news writing hasn’t entirely been overtaken by AI. But back when I was in the journalism world, objective journalism, real journalism, was still gasping for air on its deathbed.

Enter The Eastern Echo.

The Echo was the student-run paper at Eastern Michigan University, and it beckoned to me around the same time I was frustrated with music therapy. I wanted to find something — anything — I was actually good at, and writing was that thing. Even my boss, the assholiest of assholes, couldn’t deny my talent at it. And what a life I’d have as a journalist! Perhaps I’d be the intrepid reporter you see in movies, or a glamorous blogger living in a high-rise apartment in NYC. I allowed myself to dream as I grew to be the best writer on the team, and in less than a year, I was bumped up to arts and entertainment editor.

Life was good as an editor. I had my own office in a creepy, half-abandoned building we shared with the student radio station, and the authorities made the mistake of giving me an access key I could use at any given time. Your mothers and Aunt Mel used to smoke a certain herb in that office at odd hours of the night (back when it was still illegal, mind you). We’d put on some random crap Aunt Mel was into at the time, or The Room, a truly terrible film by a guy named Tommy Wiseau who we currently have as a cardboard cutout (which hopefully will be passed along to you as a family heirloom). It was a halcyon time of reckless youthfulness.

But we still had work to do.

I won the position of editor-in-chief over a much older woman. The heads of the student media board wanted a fresh perspective from a younger person, and I, who was not even old enough to drink at the time, was the perfect candidate. I moved myself into the big office and got to work revamping the paper for a new generation of students. It wouldn’t be easy — we were used to our paper being used as kitty litter for the university students’ cats. It was going to take something wild to get people to actually pay attention to what we were putting out there.

And so, I wrote the poop article.

It’s still one of my proudest moments, this little article I penned about the best places on campus to poop. It went a little viral. Other college papers followed our lead and wrote their own. I was a minor celebrity! Everyone loved my poop article, and the campus was abuzz for days over it.

Yet, there were less savory aspects of the job I would’ve rather done without. The long hours in the office for little pay, having to make a staff of mostly older students listen to me, staying up late to edit every single article that came my way. And I was starting to see the cracks form in my journalistic dream. I was getting so stressed, I was sleeping most of the work day away, letting the assistant editors carry the brunt of the work. I recognize a lot of my problems as then-undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety issues now, but even if I had been mentally well, there were parts of the journalism life I really did not like. At all.

I remember the first time I had to cover a murder. It was difficult for me to talk to the parents of the slain student. I didn’t know what to even say in that situation. It wasn’t like music therapy, where I could sit in somber silence with them and support them in whichever way they needed. Instead, I had to pry for quotes. It felt so dirty, and I hated every second of it. Another time, a stray bullet injured another student. I found myself asking “How did it feel when you were shot?” And that was the moment I realized I couldn’t do this. I finished up my journalism degree and never, ever pursued anything related to journalism ever again.

As much as being editor-in-chief wore me down and left a bad taste in my mouth, I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it, since I learned a lot about myself from it. Sometimes you have to try something once to be able to admit it’s not for you. There’s no shame in that. And hey, I met your mom at that paper!

(Okay, I didn’t meet her there, per se, but it’s where I made her not hate me. Yeah, she hated me at first. Can you believe that?! That’s for another chapter, though. Hold on, we still got a couple more to go!)

Confessions of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl

I was scrolling through a certain accursed social media app when once again, I saw some bullshit. Which is how most of my posts on here begin, in all fairness. I’m starting to think I just love self-sabotage.

Anyways, the incel BS of the day is this meme:

My first instinct was the kneejerk “Oh, this is some ‘girls just wanna be independent blue-haired sluts nowadays instead of perfect blonde housewives and babymakers’ trad nonsense.” That community tends to have a low opinion of blue-haired girls in particular for some reason. Probably because they’re all gay and want nothing to do with you. Kind of like a certain formerly blue-haired blogger I know.

Pictured: gay and wants nothing to do with you

But what if that’s not the intention of this meme? What if there is some valid criticism to the Ramona Flowers archetype?

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a character that appears in film and other media to shake up the life of a (usually awkward and dweeby) everyman protagonist. She’s energetic, bubbly, kind of awkward but in a more charming way than the everyman protagonist, and her entire purpose in the narrative is to get said protagonist out of his shell. You know the type. I could put a picture of Zooey Deschanel here…

…and you’d know exactly who I’m talking about.

A gajillion think pieces have been written on why the MPDG archetype is problematic. Some people say the trope is misogynistic, implying the MPDG is intended to be “not like other girls.” Others take issue with the idea that these quirky women need to “save” men in these narratives. Even the creator of the term feels the character type is shallow and cliche. But my criticism of the MPDG comes from a unique place.

Because for a long time, I was the MPDG.

I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to come of age right when the archetype was gaining steam in the cultural zeitgeist. Somehow, almost overnight, all the quirks that made me annoying or weird started coming off as oddly charming, and I had a long list of suitors all throughout college. But none of them lasted, because the very quirks that made me attractive became grating as time wore on.

It’s not my place to diagnose, but many of the MPDGs of pop culture show signs of being ADHD or autistic, like me. And while being neurodivergent is freaking awesome most of the time, it does come with its downsides, and one of those downsides is difficulty in relationships. For example, I find subtle social cues hard to decipher, and makes communication difficult sometimes. Or impulsivity, which is a huge problem for me. It’s cute when you want to go to Taco Bell in the middle of the night, but it’s way less cute when you buy a boat you can’t afford. Which is something I have done.

There’s nothing wrong with portraying neurodiverse folks as love interests in film and TV— in fact, I love to see that kind of representation!The problem occurs when you only show the rainbows and butterflies. Relationships are hard, and doubly so for those of us who are neurodivergent. We’re not cute little one-dimensional characters who exist to spice up your life. We’re real humans, with human emotions and flaws.

I know it’s a cliche to say you don’t deserve me at my best if you can’t handle me at my worst, but it’s your reality when you date a neurodivergent person. We can be great friends and even better lovers, but you have to accept all of us — not just the idealized versions you see in media.

Sunday Morning Coffee: Sometimes You Gotta Flip a Table

Welcome to my inaugural Sunday morning coffee, where I take a spiritual lesson I’m learning and share it for everyone. I’m not going to pretend I’m this enlightened guru or pastor — I’m just a random weirdo with a blog who likes to write about this kind of stuff. But I feel like I can bring an interesting perspective to the metaphorical table when it comes to scripture, spirituality, and the like, being a queer eclectic Christian married to a mostly agnostic Jewish woman.

So I was doomscrolling through my Facebook updates when I noticed a friend posted this:

I don’t even have a witty caption for this.

To say I was livid would be an understatement. My blood is still boiling as I type this, and anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t anger easily. To compare my right and my loved ones’ rights to simply exist as ourselves to the most heinous crime against humanity is fucking disgusting and nearly irredeemable in my eyes. And then I clicked on this so-called friend’s profile. He was a Christian?! This man is claiming the name of Christ while posting shit like this? Nothing short of sickening.

What does the heart of God say about anger? It’s easy to fall back on the “seven deadly sins” as a measure of what’s right and what’s wrong, and wrath is right there in that list. But anger isn’t necessarily wrath. When our rage is directed toward something totally justified, we call it righteous anger. In Matthew 21, Jesus Himself demonstrates this.

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.
Matthew 21: 12-13

Maybe we need to start flipping some tables. Maybe we need to start using this anger at how our supposed brothers and sisters in Christ are treating people and cheating people. Maybe we should be calling out posts like the one above when we see them pop up on our timelines. Silence never changed anything. Righteous anger makes us want to speak out for the oppressed and the downtrodden, the “least of these.”

I made the mistake of deleting the person who made that post, because I knew I was going to tear them a new one if I didn’t. But what I should have done was use my anger to call them out, gently but firmly. Anger when unchecked turns into wrath, and things can be said that legitimately hurt others (and hurt our own case in the process). On the other hand, righteous anger, when channeled by a spiritually mature person, can be used for good. Open discussions, engage in debates, and let people see the light of Christ through you. If you have to flip some tables, flip those tables, but remember the person behind them. They’re broken too.

Dear Cadence, Part Nine: The Path to Your Dreams is Not Always Linear

I found out what music therapy was from one of my grandma’s nurses when she was dying. She found out I played music and encouraged me to bring in my guitar to play for my grandma and the other old folks at the nursing home. She told me there were people who get paid to do this kind of thing, and that they actually go to school to study the ways music can be used to help people.

I wasn’t sold entirely. My long term plan was to attend Eastern as a pre-med student and eventually go to the more prestigious (and expensive) University of Michigan for medical school. I’d minor in music, but it wouldn’t be my main thing. I wanted to be a cardiologist or a pediatrician or even a neurosurgeon, something that could legitimately help people, instead of wasting my time selfishly playing music for my own ego (this was before the “Jacob”’arc).

I’d already signed up for all of my freshman year bio classes when my parents overheard me singing and playing in my room.

“Remember what that nurse said about music therapy?” they said, implying that they wanted to become the first parents in human history to encourage their child to go to music school instead of becoming a doctor.

So I went back up to the university right away and auditioned for the music therapy program. I already knew my way around a guitar and I could sing circles around most of the other freshmen trying out, so I was a shoo-in.

Despite being less than a half hour from my hometown, life at the university seemed a world away from life in high school. Not only was I living in an artsy fartsy college town, it was also the point in time when the “quirky weird girl” trope was at its most popular. The days when no one wanted to associate with me seemed like another life. Everyone wanted a piece of the guitar-slingin’ manic pixie dream girl, and I was happy to oblige. I started playing house shows and cafe gigs, and I made a name for myself as the Taylor Swift of Ypsilanti, Michigan.

But the cracks began to show as I struggled to stay awake and focused during my classes, to the point where I’d gotten referred to the university counselors by my professors. To top it off, the anxieties that had plagued me my entire life were coming to a head, to a near debilitating degree, and I had no choice but to consult with a psychiatrist at a local clinic for young adults. It was there that I was prescribed Prozac, which I do credit with saving my life, but it wasn’t nearly enough to save my academic attempts. Music therapy school was brutal, and I found myself fighting hard just to stay on top of my coursework.

I’d signed up for the school newspaper on a whim, and that seemed to be working well for me, at least. I was a naturally skilled writer. I didn’t even have to try to crank out article after article for the paper — I would sit down at my laptop and the words would just flow through my fingertips. I even got awarded the title of editor for the arts and culture section of the paper less than a year into me working there (we’ll revisit that in the next chapter). I did some research on the journalism major and it seemed significantly easier than music therapy, which was becoming increasingly difficult to even find the motivation to study for. As my mental health declined, I wondered how I’d ever be a therapist when I couldn’t even help myself. At least newspaper editors didn’t have to help other people figure their shit out. I could just do my thing and pretend I was okay.

So I made the decision to switch my major to journalism and forego music therapy altogether.

Still, even after I graduated, it felt like something was missing from my life. I tried finding writing jobs but nothing ever stuck. This was around the time I was still reeling from the breakup of my first real band (which we’ll get to) and the crumbling of my first marriage (which we’ll also get to). Nothing was working out, and I needed to regroup and figure something else out. That’s when Coco happened.

Coco was a Disney movie about a little Mexican boy who plays guitar against his family’s wishes. I won’t spoil it, although I’m certain I’ve played it for you at some point in your childhood. (What kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t make you watch all my favorite Disney movies?) But the climax of the movie, where music helps the protagonist’s grandmother momentarily regain her precious memories, made me realize I’d made the wrong decision when I switched majors. I was meant to — destined to — use music to heal people. No, I wasn’t too messed up to be a music therapist. That was a damn lie I told myself and believed to the point it became the truth. I drove straight up to that university myself and told the professors I’d be joining them once again that fall.

And…I failed once more. This time, it wasn’t my choice. I had a strong start. That school year began with me trying my very best. I was doing everything in my power to succeed this time, taking notes and staying alert and keeping organized. Then, something happened at that year’s music therapy conference that derailed all my plans.

I was raped.

The assailant was a total stranger, and I should have known better than to trust him when I met him at the rooftop bar at my hotel. But I was lonely, and it was my first time traveling alone, no friends, no parents, no husband. And he was charming. He said he loved how I was using music to help people.

All before everything went dark, in the absolute worst way possible.

After the incident, my mental health took a nosedive. I couldn’t concentrate for shit. I started drinking myself sick every night. I was making rash decisions and doing everything I could to drown out the ever-present feeling of disgust. I eventually snapped and found myself crying in the office of one of my professors. I couldn’t do this anymore.

And so I dropped out of the music therapy program for a second time.

This is a depressing chapter, right? I promise it has a happy ending.

Another few years passed and I found myself drifting aimlessly once again. I was in a slightly better place — I was married to someone I actually wanted to be married to, and my mental health was finally on the up-and-up. I even got a proper ADHD diagnosis, which explained some of the inattentiveness that made my previous attempts at the degree more difficult. But I didn’t have a job I actually liked. I knew I was meant for more than wiping people’s butts or slinging prescription pills. (Legally. As a pharmacy technician. Your mother was never a drug dealer.)

So, tail tucked between my legs, I whimpered pathetically at the professors one last time, begging for one last shot at that music therapy degree.

And this time, it worked! While finishing those last two years of schooling, I managed to earn a prestigious scholarship and even presented on autism for the university’s undergraduate research symposium. In 2023, I completed the coursework necessary to become a music therapist. As of writing, I’m waiting to hear back from my internship site. After completing the internship, I have to take a test, and then I’ll be certified. In other words, I still have a long road ahead of me, but the worst is over.

Sometimes I wonder where I’d be if I’d just stayed the course and finished my music therapy degree years ago. The truth is, I probably would have crashed and burned. I needed to learn to take care of myself first; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been focused and motivated enough to earn that scholarship or present in that symposium. I would have gotten meh grades and probably would have landed a meh job I would have given up on as soon as things got hard. But my place in music therapy is now fire-forged. I’ve been through the worst, and now I’m better equipped and prepared to face whatever comes next. The twelve years it took me to get this far weren’t a waste of time. Rather, it was time spent figuring out for sure that this is where I belong. I don’t think I would have made it this far had I not taken all the time I needed to reevaluate my core values and recover from, well, everything.

Often, the path to your dreams isn’t linear. It’s a road with many forks, pitfalls, and distractions. If you ever lose your way, though, just remember this chapter. When you discover what it is you’re meant to be in this world, it will chase you down, and no amount of obstacles will keep you from what it is you need to do. You are stronger than everything that will ever try to hold you back. You’re a force of nature unlike anything anyone’s ever seen, and I’m so excited to see where life takes you.