Heather- Oh hot damn, this is my jam!

Yes, I just used that as the title of my blog. Lol. So anyway, when I found out we were doing our favorite song/lyrics, I was excited because I've had the same ultimate favorite song for the last 7 years. I have to give a little history, though.

When I was a freshman in high school, I had been in the same school district for 3 years. I moved a lot, but I always stayed at the same school. Well, one day, when I was an innocent, insecure, scared little freshman, [November 8, to be exact] my mom came into the school during lunch. She walked up to me and said "I have to withdraw you." Cue the collapse of my world. Wait a second, you're telling me that I have to leave when I'm doing so good in ROTC and actually have a part in the school play? I have friends here and while I may not be the most popular kid, I don't get picked on or beat up and I sure as hell don't get suspended or disciplined in any way. Are you fk'ing kidding me???

I ended up getting kicked out of my school because I lived out of the district. I was always at school, I had amazing grades, and I never got in trouble. I was in half of the clubs ROTC offered, even if I wasn't very good. So I had to go to the school near where we lived. That sucked like hell, because I didn't know anyone my age. Awesome. I get to start all over again.

When I was signing up for classes at my stupid new school, I found out they didn't have ROTC. What the hell? That was the class I was taking in place of PE, because that's a stupid class, period. So the counselor told me they had something that was like ROTC, without the uniforms and the military background, called Teen Leadership. Whatever, sign me up as long as it keeps me out of PE. Turns out, it was nothing like ROTC.

On my first day, I acted like a total hard-ass because that's what got me through my most insecure days in the past. I found out later that I fooled the hell of out them. Go me. In Teen Leadership, we pretty much spent the period getting to know me. Awesome. In the next couple of weeks, we started helping the janitors clean the cafeteria since we had that class at the beginning of the day. Soon after that, my teacher, Coach Morgan, decided each morning we were going to stand in a circle, [not by the same people] put our arms on each others' shoulder while we swayed, yes, swayed, and sang "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers.

I know it sounds lame, but I swear, this song saved my life. I eventually got to where I trusted Coach Morgan and looked up to him. Then, I started looking forward to school, if only for Teen Leadership. My senior year, I was back at the first high school and in my Speech class, we had to do a stupid speech on our favorite song. Almost everyone picked their favorite song of the moment. "Lollipop" by Lil Wayne or something like that. My Speech teacher hated me because I was late all the time and didn't really give a fuck, but still passed everything with flying colors. So, being the smartass that I am, when he told us we had to give three reason why we chose the song, I started my speech with "I don't have three reasons. I have two, and that's all I need. By the time I'm done, you'll understand why." I told them about how this song saved my life and how it got me through my darkest days. [The year before I moved, I started cutting. A lot.] I lost a [14 year old] friend to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy shortly after I moved and left all my friends. I never did anything other than sit in my room and listen to music. I was really lonely and it was the most vulnerable time of my life. I actually teared up a few times, which surprised everyone because I was still quite the hard-ass to people that didn't know me.

But even now, 7 years later, when I'm a pretty happy person, it still gives me chills. I listen to it and it makes me sad that I let myself get to that point. I know I'm not completely grown and don't know everything, but I have a pretty good idea of who I can count on and who I never want to give up, which was my other reason why this was my favorite song.. I had a friend post a video on my Facebook wall a couple months ago and it turned out to be this song. Funny, because he was the one I sat next to when I gave the speech about it.

Anyhoo, before I get all emotional, I'm just gonna post a video [if I know how. Lol.] with the lyrics.