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[27 Aug 2009|08:18pm] |
"You know you're right, I'm incomplete, and I can never write down what I mean.
And if you told me that the world is ending tonight, well that's alright by me."
It all started when she moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The siren song of "making it" had been calling to her since she was a child and her mother put her in piano lessons. It wasn't the performances she loved, it was the creation of something new, something she could make all on her own without anyone. Alexia had composed a little tune on the keyboard she used for practice in between lessons after only playing for a month. Granted, she couldn't read music yet or write down what she'd written but she knew what it was and played it over and over to anyone who would listen. Relatives would praise her for being a young composer, for having an ear. She was 12 when her older brother took her to his high school's talent show and she saw her first live band. They weren't good, they played out of tune and time but she fell in love with rock and roll. That elusive energy that got the kids clapping on a beat from the front to the back of the auditorium was something she wanted to grab on and hold, to harness on her own. She begged for a guitar for that entire year until her 13th birthday when her mother and father finally broke down and took her to the music store and let her pick out an acoustic of her very own.
When Alexia was 16, she and her father would tell her mother they were having driving lessons and dinner, a father-daughter day. Instead they would shuttle down to LA for her to play in some bar she wasn't allowed to play in without a parent. The trips became more frequent and once she had her license and had saved up enough for a car of her own, she was sneaking out weeknights, lying about her age when she had to. Some of her LA friends had a fake ID made for her and that enabled her to become a near regular in one of the clubs. It wouldn't be for another couple of years until anyone important would take notice and for the time being, she was content to sit on a stool a few times a week and play an even split of covers and songs she'd written on her own. Eventually her parents caught on, especially when her grades started to slip and her brother was long gone from the house, off to college, so there was no one else to distract the attention away from her. It caused a split between her parents, her mother wanted her to stay in school but her dad felt differently. He was always ready to chase that dream with her and when the opportunity arose for him to get a job transfer within the company he was working for that would enable the family to move to Los Angeles so Alexia could pursue her dream, he did it. Her mother didn't.
It was a long time until Alexia forgave her mother, it took her a long time to come around to realize that her mom had reservations and fears and a lot to leave behind back home in San Francisco. Eventually, her mother came around and moved down to LA. Their family repaired, slowly.
Then, she met a boy. Just after she graduated from high school and she was playing any gig that she could get, she was starting to get noticed by important people, one of whom just happened to be this boy's father. She was fresh out of school and didn't want to get stuck in anything right away. Her parents never would have approved of her signing the first deal that was put in front of her anyway, now that they were both united as a team, supporting her. It seemed this boy's sole purpose was to persuade her otherwise. He persuaded her to do a lot of things over the years, which was surprising, given how young he was and how headstrong she was. But he had a nice smile and a confidence in himself that rivaled the confidence she had in her skill but not as much in herself so they balanced, admired each other for the things they didn't have. That confidence traded hands over the years they were together, at first, it was all into his --that they could be together forever. That was how it happened that they found themselves engaged and married just after he turned 18, she was about to turn 20. None of their parents were thrilled but neither of them had doubts that they could make it.
That confidence began to fade as her young husband lost himself in the hills and valleys of the city, the pills and powders and anything else he could get his hands on, it seemed. They fought. A lot. It wasn't until they made an escape to Phoenix, for him to go to rehab that she felt like she could believe in the two of them again. Since then, she refused to falter. She assured herself that it was just some restlessness in him that they would have to survive and endure, like her mother had when her father whisked her off to LA. Her friends said she should leave him but growing up Catholic, though she'd never paid much attention to the traditions, something had rubbed off and she wouldn't just leave him. Dropping her friends was much easier than divorce, which she wouldn't even consider. They stayed in Phoenix and made a new life for themselves. With a bit of his father's money, he was able to open a venue. His father thought the stability would be promising and Alexia was eager to support whatever would make her husband well, but it wasn't the same as it had been in LA and she couldn't kill the restlessness she felt. It didn't matter, it was time she learned to put someone else before her love of music and who better to do it for than him? Playing alone would have reminded her of everything she'd given up by leaving California but the block parties were bigger than that, more distracting. She convinced herself on stage each week that it could be worse than what she had now, what he had made for her. She had faith in his rehabilitation, maybe more than he did, which was probably a problem. But she was sure that given enough time away, he would pull himself out of the mess he'd been in and become that boy again, the one she fell in love with, all cock-sure and charming -- the one who inked parts of her onto his skin.
It had become a game of wait and see. Who would fail first? Was he going to keep using and ruin everything or was she going to be just as selfish and run? It made her feel like screaming sometimes but she wasn't used to making that much noise. Music was better.
That was the thing. Music was always better. It called to her like nothing else did, not God, not duty, not the love of her husband. As the latter grew ever more tenuous, so did Alexia's reasons for staying. Yes, he was well, but their love never recovered. Instead, resentment had grown where there had only been beautiful, new, strong, shiny young love. It went both ways. If he wanted to be well, he didn't show it. If she was happy playing once a week on a stool in a place that existed just for her, she couldn't appreciate it. They blamed each other for draining their marriage of the fun or the love or the trust that had always been there. Not without reservations, Alexia signed her hyphenate away, said goodbye to her husband and moved back to California. It was time for something new, time to make something of all those old songs and maybe a couple new ones. She couldn't stand a heartbreak so devastating without trying to pull something good out of it.
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