Before I met my partner, I never would have pictured myself going to a nightclub. There were no shortage of those types of places where I went to college, but at the time, I had neither the patience nor inclination (and bluntly put, with the major I was in, the time) to frequent places like that. Too much the academic in my college years, I guess. That, and those types of venues tend to be loud, and I don’t do loud, crowded environments well.
You’re probably thinking ‘why in the world is this woman a teacher?’ with that kind of mentality. I still don’t greatly enjoy such places, though I can tolerate them in small doses. More than two hours, yeah, I’m wanting out. At least in my classrooms the noise level stays at or below my ‘tolerable’ threshold most of the time. If it gets beyond that for any length of time, I get cranky (so if any of my students are reading this…here’s your hint as to why I might occasionally get a touch snappish).
Anyway, back to where I was going with this post…
I didn’t start paying attention to pop music until maybe the mid-1990’s or so. Think Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears…you get the idea. At the time, I focused mainly on the catchy tunes and melody, and didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the lyrics, but then, what ten year old does? Listening to them now hits a bit different after a couple extra decades of life experience. It’s kind of like watching a show like Animaniacs as an adult and wondering just how in the blue hell some of THAT stuff got past the censors (if you know, you know).
I wasn’t a huge boy-band fan when I was younger. If anything, I gravitated more toward the girlie stuff like Spice Girls. Now it’s a pretty even split as to what I’ll listen to, though I think I still trend a bit more toward female artists. The venue we go to plays everything from the 70’s to very early 2000’s.
I grew up listening to Oldies, so this kind of music is right up my alley (though I admit I didn’t develop an appreciation for the 80’s until pretty recently). One of the songs that came on hit different than usual, “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. Overall, the song is about a relationship that’s being strained for some reason.
What relationship isn’t, am I right? Taken separately though, some of the lyrics are a bit more peaceful.
No matter the distance I want you to know/ That deep down inside of me / You are my fire/ The one desire
Without going into too much detail, those lyrics resonated now like they never did when I was younger. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re doing the distance thing. Maybe it’s that he’s a fire sign (unlike my air-sign people pleasing Libra self). Maybe it’s that the urge, the drive, to create more stories has never been stronger than in the past eight months.
Maybe it’s all of the above.
Relationships…who ever said they are simple?