Awakening

Music is one of the greatest bonds between people. It awakens the senses. It sends your heart pumping into overdrive as adrenaline surges through you if you're listening to rock music as loud as your speakers will let you go without losing any quality of the music, the base turned as high up as it could possibly go - your chest is literally vibrating with the pulse of the bass or the crash of the drums. Your soul weeps for songs that are low in town but hyped up in power, like the Latin hymns. You can connect every human emotion to music because music can become a personification of whatever you could possibly feel. You can always find a song that matches your mood or your thoughts because music is like an unmovable bridge between people. It is the language of the heart and soul, a universal language that just leaves you reeling in the aftermath. Sure, not every band will be your favorite but remember - someone out there loves them, fancies themselves the band's biggest fan.

Well I've been trying to use music as therapy for the past few days, fighting out my fears with bands I normally wouldn't listen to who yelled and screamed at me in indiscernible intervals, and it wasn't even screamo. I've tried to sate my need for weepy songs then listen to songs that contrasted drastically, songs that normally would perk me right up. What I like to call driving music even though I have yet to get a drivers license. I've even taken my vengeance out on my fingers, practicing on my violin relentlessly until my arms were trembling just about as hard as my fingers and for once - for once!- music failed it. It hasn't helped, it hasn't even hindered, all it has done is left everything the same.

I figured talking it out would help. When people ask me if I'm excited about going to college I tell them the truth instead of, 'Do you know how many people have asked me that? I'm sick of it, it's so unoriginal.' I tell them that I'm afraid. That I've never been far from my family, that I don't want to leave the city I love, or the people (like my boyfriend). I don't want to lose the community I built myself, I just want this over with.

Jerry did ask me if I was ready for college. I told him no, that I wouldn't be ready for college until I was already done with it. That was the way it was for high school. My senior year, more than seventy percent of the incoming freshman thought that I was a freshman and it took them over half a year to believe otherwise, that I was, in fact, a senior and graduating. Some of the more adamant freshman said that they were going to make me fail the exams because they wanted another year of high school with me. I'm glad I didn't let them. I mean, sure, my GPA was a joke when I finished high school but my ACT scores were high, especially in English, and I'd been taking honors classes for four years. It was a cruddy GPA and I didn't try as hard as I should have but I still pretty much kicked ass in every subject even if my grade didn't always reflect that.

Every thought about this makes me ache. Tomorrow night is my last night home, my last meal at home, the last time I see my boyfriend, my grandmother, and a family friend, Donald, until closer to Thanksgiving break. Sure, my parents will try and visit me once a month and so will my boyfriend. Donald may even travel up the with parents to visit a few times but I mean it's not enough. I have momentos from everyone, I have pictures of some - I'm not going empty handed per se. But I am going with empty arms and a lonely heart. No trinket, no t-shirt, no book and no photograph can ever replacing actually having someone you care about there for you.

I don't even have to leave home to know that.