You know that feeling when a song or a piece of music just completely takes you back to a moment or a feeling and time? It’s so great, isn’t it? I’m having that now.
Sitting on the porch in front of my parent’s house, looking after the dog, I’m blasting ‘Come On, Eileen’, ‘Banana Pancakes’ and just about every cheesy happy-go-lucky song you can think of. I’m dreaming of 17 year old Heidi. Back then I was so happy but more than that – just so unfazed by life. I really miss that.
YOUTHFUL ABANDON
At that time I had just started sixth form – in that sweet spot where it’s all new and exciting, surrounded by new friends, new crushes, amazing people and interesting subjects – but after that awkward stage of eating lunch in the library waiting for someone to sit with. Before exams came and made it all a bit real, a time before my anxiety, before my bout of depression.
‘Come On, Eileen’ makes me think of my friends. How we kept requesting it at prom, but it never came. How we put it on at every single party and we would chant the lyrics and dance happily around in a circle, getting quicker and quicker with the pace of the music.
You know the end of the song? That reallllllyy sad bit that no one really acknowledges – ‘oh believe me if all these endearing young chums that I gaze on so fondly today, were to suddenly to leave you or to fly in the night…’?
I used to listen to that bit on the way to school, and think about my friends in the year above and how much it will hurt me when they go off to uni without me. And it did, for a little bit.
‘Banana Pancakes’ – that makes me think of my boyfriend. He was one of those friends in the year above that, surprising everyone but also no one, developed into a relationship.
It makes me think of rushing out of sixth form on a Friday to get a train to Bath Spa to visit him and stay in his uni halls for a precious few days and nights. It makes me think about waking up to cuddles and smiles for the very first time. Getting out of the shower to hear him making breakfast and walking into him gingerly dancing in the kitchen, playing the song.
I sometimes worry about how that person feels so far away from who I am now – and how I wish with all my heart I was still there, living those moments. I’ve been through a lot since then, that has changed every angle of my life – the way that I am seen, the way I see things – and it really scares me.
I feel it has changed for the worse. That I am no longer the friend my friends made friends with. That I am no longer the girl my boyfriend wanted as his girlfriend. They’ve stuck around – so is it all in my head?
Maybe I’m just at a difficult stage in my life. Who knows.
But that’s just it – isn’t it. Anyone can say ‘oh well - who knows’. I want to do something about it.
I GUESS WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS:
Despite what is written on this website, I am still very much coming to terms with everything my head has been through – and that’s okay.
Change is normal – but it is sometimes good to look back and try to rationalise those changes. I probably would have changed with age naturally anyways – as my very realist Dad says, each year makes a young person yet more cynical and that’s part of growing up in the real world.
It’s easy to look back and only remember the good times – it’s a lovely thing but that’s why competing with a memory is impossible.
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