Life has its own soundtrack.
Songs that can take you back to a certain point in time, sometimes even a specific moment.
They bring back memories, some otherwise forgotten.
Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone
That song, Wide Open Spaces, called to me when I was in my early twenties, when I was trying to figure out if I take the safe path and stay near home and continue being and doing what everyone expected of me or if I should go try for something different, something more.
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
I was at a point where I was doing things just to prove I didn’t fit neatly into the confined box people who knew me had put me in. And sometimes those choices weren’t the best ones and I even knew it at the time, but were to prove a point, even if it came at a personal cost.
I didn’t want to keep doing that or to be suffocated by expectations or to miss out on a chance to figure out who I was when I was just being me, far from anyone who had any notion of who they thought that was.
It’s more than a little ironic that I came to a small town to do that… since small towns are notorious for pigeon-holing people. And after all this time, once again, people might still try to put me into some box that isn’t truly a fit, but since I took that chance years ago and made my own choices, what others think I should be doesn’t bother me or rule my actions.
Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed
And I’ll know why:
As her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know
She needed wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes
*Italicized lyrics are from The Dixie Chick’s “Wide Open Spaces.” Memory inspired by their upcoming reunion tour and if you’re wondering, you’ll find me obsessively refreshing the page this weekend so I can be sure to score tickets. After all, their song inspired the life I came to lead.
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