Time and Place

I heard Alanis' "You Oughta Know" on the radio the other day & realized I didn't have ANY Alanis on my iPod.  How could this be?  When I went looking for my Jagged Little Pill CD I found Under Rug Swept and was taken aback.  How I had forgotten this gem?  This had once been a life line of sorts.
Say what you will about Alanis but this chick is bad ass.  Let's not forget she was engaged to Ryan Reynolds.  She's Kevin Smith's idea of God.  She was on Weeds.
I love Alanis and the fact that she says what women should be saying.  (I know Beyonce's all Girls Run the World but I'm pretty sure Alanis never even thought to ask if anyone's ready for this jelly.)  Alanis' no bs lyrics & quirky delivery have always moved me.
I'm not sure Under Rug Swept was a huge hit for her.  But 2002 was a year that I changed my entire life.  I made a lot of people mad by deciding to live my life on my own terms.  I watched a lot of people I considered friends walk away and not look back.  To deal with it, I did what singles girl do.  I drank-a lot.  I did some things that are best saved for another type of blog.  And I listened to Alanis.  She was a kindred spirit.  A woman loose in the world with only her truth.  & she sang what I felt. 

As soon as those lyrics blasted out of my laptop's speakers I realized how profoundly music, for better or worse, has a unique ability to revert you back to a time and place you forgot existed.  It can act as a time machine to transport you wholeheartedly into another mindspace.

This album soothed me in a time when I felt like my world was shattering & I couldn't see any way it would be whole again. Just seeing the cover reminded me of driving around Ft. Lauderdale in my Big Red Jeep crying my eyes out and belting out the lyrics at the top of my lungs.  When Track #5 came on I remember the realization that eventually dawned on me that I was doing the right thing.  That I was a good person taking a bold step.  & that our perception of ourselves is almost always so much worse than what the truth is.  That people, regardless of how amazing they may seem, may not be right for you, or not right now.  & they probably don't realize that the "little rejections" "add up quickly".  They most definitely do not realize how personally we women take most things. Probably around the 30th listening I remember it hitting me that we are responsible for ourselves.  Making ourselves feel good, beautiful, fine and interesting.
I came out of that time to a world of possibilities and, eventually, true contentment.  So these songs make me sad & wistful & are mired in a weird sense of loss.  But knowing now what I learned by going through that more than anything made me proud of the person I am on the other side.  "Oh these little rejections how they disappear quickly/the moment I decide not to abandon me"