Put Another Dime in the Jukebox, Baby

I’ve recently discovered something interesting about my music tastes – they change.

Well, duh.

But I’m not talking about just changing with age, maturity, popularity, rebellious natures, etc.  This manna for my ears seems to fluctuate according to location.  I first began to notice this phenomenon as I made solitary trips home from school.  At first, I blamed it on cornhole-Ohio’s terrible lack of decent radio stations.  I mean, really, with only four good country songs in the world, those poor dozens of DJs must be bored senseless.  And clearly this senselessness must be where the rest of the country music comes from.

But I digress (in a ranting diatribe kind of way).  As the flatlands of Southern Ohio stretched into the slightly less flat curves of western Pennsylvania, I would always find my attention straying away from my half dozen CDs that rotate on a (maybe) monthly cycle through the disc player.  Somewhere around Erie I would always begin to long for something different from the Indie tunes I had come to appreciate.

At first the stations would center on catchy and upbeat pop, right around that same time that I would desperately begin to seek the nearest exit for a cold one (coffee, that is).  But seeing as these stations could only boast about a dozen more songs than the country DJs I had left behind, that would quickly become old news.

By the time the odd smells of the greater Buffalo area would come rolling through my open windows or the unsealed corner of the windshield (no worries, the paper towel stuffed in the crack is generally quite effective), I was always searching for the familiar sounds of Brother Wease or the songs my parents grew up on.

I’m not sure what it is about home that makes Pat Benatar and Aerosmith more appealing than Mumford and Sons or Adele.  Maybe I’m regressing into the music that I forced myself to enjoy, partly to rebel and partly to impress my older brother with my new tastes.  Maybe it’s me taking a full mental break from everything school.  Perhaps it’s the cultural difference between “Midwest” and “Northeast.”  (It really exists.)  Or maybe it’s just the same inexplicable separation from my “other” self that I always feel when I cross that seven-hour time warp between my home of adulthood and independence to that of my childhood and insecurities.

A Clichéd Analogy

I am relatively new to this whole blogging thing.  But due to the encouragement of some well-meaning (but perhaps ambitious) people and a promise to myself that I should, would, must continue to write upon graduation, here I am.  Based purely on instinct, I feel that the first thing to be done is to explain a well-intentioned but of course cheesy blog title.

Let’s just be honest here: choosing a title for a blog could be the number one reason that I did not start writing one three months ago.  Well, that and about 250 pages worth of papers to write that would actually matter for something.  But here we are sticking with a name that popped into my befuddled head just this afternoon-- Experiments in Breathing.

I know, weird, right?  But let’s take a peek at my thought process.  (Lucky you!)

As I sit and actually get a chance to think about this new phase (meaning post-graduation), it seems as though my life will continue to change at a pace so rapid, I’ll barely have time to breathe.  At least, that is how any big life change makes me feel.  If I may be so cliché, it is a little bit like a roller-coaster, or rather, waiting in line for a roller-coaster at this point.  It’s exciting, and terrifying.  You’re among friends, and of course you are all pretending confidence like it is your job (even though none of you actually have a job yet).  You sort of know what is coming because you read the description and hear other people screaming.  You laugh and joke about that last corn dog you probably shouldn’t have eaten (as if eating a corndog could ever be a good idea).  And if you think too hard, you might find that you have to recalibrate your breathing.

That fear, that excitement, that falsely bold anticipation is wonderfully choking.  That heart-in-your-throat feeling, the I-might-wet-myself anxiety (TMI?) pressing on your chest and lungs with the weight of a small elephant. Well, you get the picture.  Sometimes, it’s difficult to breathe. 

And this is where the name comes from.  I am charging at full speed around a blind corner with my life-source trapped in those spongy bags encased in my ribs.  There is a new diploma featuring the seemingly unattainable bachelor’s degree under the clutter on my dresser.  A wedding gown drapes the mirror, frustrating the glass’s attempts to reflect the unfinished childhood memories piled on my floor awaiting a trip to Goodwill.  My wonderful fiancé is spending this weekend moving furniture into a tiny apartment four states southwest.  I browse web sites with recipes and pillowcases to procrastinate the necessary research on grad programs. 

So here it comes.  Here I sit in the home of my “childhood” working myself up to strap myself in and learn how to breathe over and over again.