Sometimes Someone Else Just says it better than I Ever Could

This is one of those days that I have to keep busy, to think of anything else other than the date or I might just find myself sitting on the sofa watching 12 year old news footage all day. I will never forget, that's a fact and something I've even written about before, but I also try very hard to live in the positive force of now.

And right now?

Life has changed, moved on, moved through, and moved past the events that happened on 9/11/01. At least that's the way it is for me. Friends, family, random acquaintances, jobs, geographic locations, apartments, cars, plates of food, pints of beer – they’ve all come and gone and I just kept moving forward.

So now what?

I opened this post on a somewhat somber note and led everyone to believe I might share some of what happened to me on that day. Or at least how my mind has processed things that have happened since. But honestly I just don’t want to. I don’t want to write it again, I don’t want to re-hash it all and sit around being sad and depressed all day.

Because that’s not the spirit I gleaned from the people of this country after the biggest tragedy in our history took place. I gleaned love and positivity, togetherness and a helpful life-force.

Which basically means I need to find some way to transition from the first few paragraphs of this post - ones that likely brought up all kinds of crazy memories for many of you - to something lighter, brighter and more upbeat.

Because that's where my brain likes to live these days.

Tall order?

In the spirit of that I always think the best way to bridge any gap is through music. So here's a quote to chew on for a few seconds that will hopefully give you some idea of the place I'm forcing my head to live today:

"The struggles I'm facing, the chances I'm taking. Sometimes might knock me down but, no I'm not breaking." **

Actually, now that I mention it, I think sharing a few of my favorite quotes from songs might not be a bad idea. It’s the kind of thing that makes for an interesting enough post, one that people can hopefully connect with in some small way.

And hopefully one that can help alleviate the emotional memories someone might be experiencing today. If only for a few minutes.

The List – Favorite Lines from Songs

I’ve been compiling a list for the past few months in a notepad document on my phone. Well my phone is about to get kicked to the curb for an upgrade soon so I guess there’s no time like the present to share what I’ve already got.

Obviously this list isn’t complete, that list would take decades to compile and probably still wouldn’t be complete. But enjoy these nuggets of brilliance for what they’re worth. Some are single lines, some entire verses. Some I’d have put the entire song as a quote because it just speaks to me so intensely. Those ones are linked back to a YouTube video so you can listen to the whole thing if you like.

And maybe finding out who the artists are behind some of these quotes will surprise you.

♦ I'm just a notch in your bedpost but you're just a line in a song.

– Fall Out Boy

♦ Hold onto 16 as long as you can, changes comin’ round real soon make us women & men.

– John Cougar Mellencamp

♦ Well maybe I'm off, yeah, I'm strangely askew. Maybe I ran away just when you started to get a good view. And maybe who I am turned out to be, nothing like the me that you wanted me to be.

          - Melisa Ferrick (I REALLY tried to find this song sung by Ferrick live somewhere so I could link to it but other than the tiny clip on Amazon’s link to purchase there’s just nothing online. The song isn’t one Ferrick usually performs live. Just go buy Valentine Heartache.)

♦ We're just 2 lost souls swimmin’ in a fishbowl year after year.

          - Pink Floyd

♦ It’s when you cry just a little but you laugh in the middle that you've made it.

          - Jason Mraz

♦ All my life I've been searchin’ for somethin’ somethin’ never comes never leads to nothin’ nothin’ satisfies but I'm getting’ close closer to the prize at the end of the rope.

          - Foo Fighters

♦ There's always gonna be another mountain I'm always gonna wanna make it move. Always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose. Ain't about how fast I get there, ain't about what's waiting on the other side. It's the climb.

          - **Miley Cyrus

♦ Some things in this world, man, they don’t make sense. Some things you don’t need until they leave you then they’re things that you miss.

          - Matchbox 20

♦ If I knew all the words I would write myself out of here.

          - Jason Mraz

♦ Now that we're here so far away, all the struggle we fought was in vain. And all the mistakes one life contained, they all finally start to go away. Now that we’re here so far away, and I feel like I can face the day. I can forgive and I’m not ashamed to be the person that I am today.

          - Staind

♦ You only get one shot do not miss your chance & blow ‘cause opportunity comes once in a lifetime.

          - Eminem

♦ And you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking 8's.

          - Dashboard Confessional

♦ Life's like an hourglass glued to the table. No one can find the rewind button now. Sing it if you understand. And breathe. Just breathe.

- Anna Nalick

♦ I mean how can we get lost running in a straight line?

          - Jason Mraz

♦ ‘Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony this life. Try to make ends meet you're a slave to money then you die.

          - The Verve

♦ I find sometimes it’s easy to be myself, sometimes I find it’s better to be somebody else.

          - Dave Matthews Band

♦ Climb up over the top survey the state of your soul, you've got to find out for yourself whether or not you're truly trying. Why not give it a shot shake it take control & inevitably wind up finding for yourself all the strengths that you have inside of you.

          - Jason Mraz

And that seems like a pretty great way to close this post.

• • • • • • • • • • •
Content Marketing Strategist and Blogger for hire, Jenn has over 12 years of freelancing experience. Read her blog

How Do I Even Begin to Title A Post Like This?

Why does this have to be the new normal? Why did any bombs ever go off in the first place, any bomb, anywhere. I mean what does all of it say about human nature and the need for attention. Someone with something to say feels the need to say it like this? It makes no sense to me how and why that’s reasonable. But then again, for as self-proclaimed crazy as I am I’m not mentally unstable enough to ever understand the motivations of evil. I just don’t get maliciousness, something designed to do nothing more than hurt. Be that hurt physical or mental.

And I don’t live in Boston anymore but today I hurt in both ways as if I had been standing right there. Because I HAD been standing right there about a billion times in my life. Parking close by to go to the ice cream truck what feels like 50 years ago. Walking up to Tower Records the back way because Newbury was always so packed. Watching my cousin cross the finish line in his running of the Boston Marathon when I was a kid. And who knows what else. I probably have photos taken right there during a day I was skipping school and needed to get the hell out of Arlington.

So right now my head and heart ache like I’m still living there. I haven’t felt this kind of world-weighted sadness in a long time. You all know the last time it was like this. We all felt it when all at once our country had a shock wave cross it like none before.

I understand that there are people in this world who live with the reality of this kind of experience on an almost daily basis. I also understand that some people think because of that it’s tough to justify being so sad and shocked by these events in Boston but let me just say this. I don’t live in those other countries. I live here in the United States and for the first twenty-eight years of my life I was completely sheltered from any thought of living in that type of environment.

War? The last war I remember hearing about was Vietnam, something from our parent’s generation. Though we grew up with the inklings of unrest in the Middle East, with Desert Storm it was over almost as quickly as it began. We moved on. We partied, loved, rocked and rolled our way through the Nineties and early Millennium like there was never a sad thing to experience.

And then it was taken away. The innocence, or perhaps ignorance, of a nation that became so trusting and open. We had been free, we went where we wanted, did what we wanted, loved who we wanted. Then in one fail swoop our literal and proverbial freedom was ripped right out from under us at a little after 9:00 on Tuesday September 11, 2001.

But as a nation we bounced back from it all. Countless people were able to lend support to New York in their time of need. Countless Bostonians made their way to NYC to do anything they could to help sort out the rubble whether it was physical piles or the mental marbles rolling around in everyone’s head while they tried to make sense out of something so destructive happening in their backyard for the first time in, well frankly, forever.

Before 9/11 there were plenty of random attacks – Timothy McVeigh in OKC, the ’93 WTC bombing, Columbine, etc. – but the sheer force with which 9/11 hit us all was enough to press the reset button. Whoa, these people were coordinated and knew exactly what they were doing. They planned for months and our ig-nocent nation was shown its inner vulnerability.

But that happened almost twelve years ago now and I think we all thought we were headed back to some level of normalcy. Hundreds of events have happened between 9/11 and the Boston bombing. Planes went back into the air, the subway stations stopped patting down everyone who went through a turnstile, cursory bag checks at sporting events were all but laughable, knitting needles were allowed in a personal bag inside an aircraft.

And then the force of two bombs shook us all again in an instant.

And forgive me if I sound ig-nocent but the fact of it happening at all forces me to ask the question – why? I know I’ll never get answers. And asking a question only begets another question when it comes to senseless acts of aggression.

Thankfully, just like the last time, this shocking wave of misery will eventually dissipate and I’ll be back to living without feeling like I have to retreat into a corner out of some kind of world-weighted fear. But until then I imagine my inner self won’t stop asking for answers even though I know I will never really have any that satisfy my soul.