That First Song

         The first time I heard my song on the radio, I almost cried. I was at once thrilled, terrified, ecstatic, and sobered. I’ve never liked the sound of my own voice, but it was my song. It was my music, and my words, and everything I’d spent two years working on and it was streaming out of my car stereo. I had to make sure I wasn’t listening to the demo by mistake again. When the DJ came on at the end and said my name and called my song’s title, it still didn’t seem real.

         I was dreaming at that moment, I had to be. I was asleep and dreaming back in Mrs. Robinson’s ninth grade English class. This wasn’t true. I never succeeded at anything. But it happened nonetheless. I had made something, and now the world could hear and feel it. I was sharing an intimate part of myself with all of mankind (or so it felt). I would have been satisfied if not for Carla.

         She never understood or cared for my work. And that was only part of the problem. She refused to listen to my ideas, and never gave my abilities any credit or support. She hated me for everything I was and ever could become. We finally divorced almost a year after my song premiered. Before it was over, she smashed my CDs, sold my DVDs, and melted my digital receiver with a heat gun. That was the least of it, but I still couldn’t hate her.

         I now know that she wanted me to give her existence some warped sense of validation. Or maybe it was the only way she knew how to love. I cared too little for her by then for any of it to matter. The people had heard my first song, and they liked it. I wrote more, much more, but nothing I did touched the world like that first song.

         I faded away for a time, occasionally popping up for interviews on the VH1 “has-been circuit”. I even guested on a couple of popular sit-coms, but nobody cared. Eventually, I gave into the pressure from my agent and wrote a few advertising jingles that went on to annoy the better part of America.

         I never cared about money, or recognition, or even success. I only cared about making something. It was all that mattered to me. I went back to Carla, patched things up for a bit. It was a failed experiment in bad chemistry. When it (predictably) exploded, it took the last of my drive and dignity with it.

         First songs are dangerous things. They lead you forward at first, running headlong towards a brighter world together. Just when you think you need them the most and can’t live without them, they let go of you. They don’t really love you. They use you to make their place in the world, and to reach out to other people once you’re no longer necessary. First songs forget about you in a heartbeat.

         But you never forget that first song.