The Foo Fighters have recently played a gig in Carlisle for Radio 1's Big Weekend. I of course never got to go, I wasn't lucky enough to get tickets, but my husband went with his sister. And what a performance I made about not being able to share in that experience. I sulked, I moaned, I threw wobblers, I had tantrums and cried. Eventually at the dinner table he asked me 'why' I wanted to see them so badly and 'why' I was so mad about not being able to go. And so for the first time I told him the truth...
There was a time in my life when I lost everything. And when I say everything. I mean everything. I had to cope with the deaths of 9 relatives in a 12 month period, 3 of those were very close. I was told I couldn't have children and so I lost my womanhood, I lost my husband to an 18 year old beauty, I lost my home, my husband's family (divorce does this), my job, my self respect, my self worth, my self confidence, my spirituality, most of my friends, and then my hope.
I felt a loneliness and grief that I can only describe as a black hole inside my body. Everything I loved was pulled into the black hole and I was left with emptiness that consumed me from the inside out. I woke up one sunny Saturday morning feeling like the universe had imploded in my chest and that I was dying. How I even functioned was a miracle. I remember asking myself, over and over, 'What do I do?' I was completely lost with no direction. I got showered jumped in the car and headed North. I always run North when I'm in trouble and I ended up in Scotland. I drove until the fuel ran out, I was lost, I had no idea where or how I got to where I was, and I just sat in the car with radio one playing. I cried until I couldn't breath anymore, I was drowning in my own sorrow. The Foo Fighters 'Times like these' was playing in the background as I planned to end it all. Then I heard the lyric 'It's times like these you learn to live again.' I listened to the lyrics and they somehow found me in the darkness and brought me back to life. They gave me air when I had none left.
You see from my point of view the music the band played that day is a symbol of my hope and my inner strength. A musical chorus from a rock band I hardly knew saved my life one sunny Saturday in Scotland. And it reminds me how music crosses all boundaries, it rips down emotional walls and can tear through the fabric of a crumbling universe. Music can make you dance, move, sway, jump and scream. It can make you cry, make you happy, make you feel sexy, give you inspiration, give you strength and reach you at a level that can change your life. Of course music cannot heal grief. Only time can do that, but it can help you move through grief. Music allows us an escape portal, it allows us to let our grief flow through lyric, beat, rhythm and rhyme when words fail us. Take away the glamour, take away the music star persona, take away the money and the industry and you simply have one person connecting with another.
I have tried to get to see the Foo Fighters now for the last 4 years and I have finally got tickets for Milton Keynes. And I will jump, scream and sing until my voice and my back breaks; because I want to celebrate their music the only way I know how, by throwing my hair up and down very fast. It is my way of saying THANK YOU!!!
