Reading over the lyrics of The Waitresses "No Guilt", it’s ostensibly about the aftermath of a break up. “I’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone / I’ve done a lot a lot since you’ve been gone” sings Patty Donahue. Girl is owning this break up, we think, bopping along with the funky up-strummed guitar line. No heartache here!
I’ve spent the majority of this summer preparing for my move to Boston. I’m only going for one year, no biggie, but from where I’m sitting it’s the biggest change in my life so far. It’ll be my first time living away from home. It’ll be my first time in the States. It’ll be the first time I've spend an extended period of time away from my family. In the grand scheme of things, 20 is not particularly young to be experiencing these firsts, but we should not judge our lives in accordance to the grand scheme of things - this is my life, and I still sometimes get panicky when I have to make an official phone call. But somehow the phone calls get made, in the end.
I wound up listening to “No Guilt” a lot this summer, especially during all the times I spent on trains and trams and buses going back and forth from the city centre; going to work, to the bank, to the doctor’s office to get a set of injections, to the post office, to the US Embassy, to meetings with the International Study group in my college, back to the doctor’s office when I realised I’d have to get another set of injections. I’ve been to the dentist, the optician, the hairdresser. I returned my library books (almost on time). There was a moment of terror when I didn’t get a place to live on-campus, but I somehow managed to find an apartment in Boston that’s far cheaper and way more personable than the campus accomodation. It would be disinegenous to suggest that I achieved all of this on my own - my parents obviously helped me out with lots of things - and the Waitresses song acknowledges the importance of other people in our quests to grow up ("My parents said that they'd help me pay for grad school", "I met someone who really met Belushi"). Still; “Holy shit,” I’d think to myself sometimes. “I seem to be succeeding!”
This is nothing to brag about, I realise. This is adult life! But this song is like a mini pep-talk, complete with saxophone solo. You, too, can succeed! I’m prone to hiding away from life, sometimes. I’m quite content to stay in my room, clicking through the same websites, avoiding the important email and the pile of unwashed laundry and the doctor’s appointment. This song reminds me not only that these things might need to be done, but that growing up and living like an responsible adult can be a pleasure rather than a chore (“I feel better when my laundry’s done”). Humor helps, duh (“I told them I don’t even know anybody in Toronto!”) and if we detect a slight hint of desperation in Patty Donahue’s voice by the spoken-word bit at end of the song, a sense that she is trying to convince herself as much as us that she is content, that she is together, that she knows exactly what is going on and has no fear, then all the more vital and true to my life. (“I’m really fine, everything’s great. I’m doing all right. Really. Really, everything’s fine. What? I’m doing all right. I’m doing all right. Everything’s great. Sorry, but I’m fine. That’s it.”) On the surface, "No Guilt" has absolutely nothing to do with my situation, but in the selfish and necessary way we manage twist lyrics of pop songs, appropriating isolated lines and inflections and hopeful little basslines to recontextualise them into the specific fabric of our own lives, I managed to turn it into my own theme tune for the summer.
In just over two weeks, I'm flying from Dublin to Boston. The mangled quote earworming its way around in my head is from Peter Pan: "...will be an awfully big adventure". (Let's ignore the start of the quotation, shall we? It being "To die..."). This blog will be a document of this big adventure, this experiment of how one Irish girl manages to survive in an entirely new city, and a way to stay in touch with some people back home that have the patience to slog through paragraphs of me filtering every new experience through some song or movie or book.
(Cross-posted from my Feelin' Massachusetts tumblr)
