How a Nostalgic Song From My Childhood Helped Me Accept Change
My parents divorced when I was five years old so many of the memories I have of them together have blurred. I treasure the ones I have held onto. One of the few memories I have from when my parents were together was our weekly trips to the grocery store, and it’s silly how such a mundane weekly activity is one of the few I can recollect. I was three years old, and I remember sitting in my car seat as my moms blasted “Upside Down” by Jack Johnson. We were driving along Highway 101 in our blue minivan, singing with the windows cracked down. The warm California breeze seeped into the car as my parents' hands tangled on the armrest. Jack Johnson's soothing, raw, and deep voice sang in a happy tone, “I’ll share the love I find with everyone/ We’ll sing and dance to Mother Nature’s song/ I don’t want this feeling to go away” as his acoustic guitar rhythmically strummed accompanied with light acoustic drums. We all laughed and sang as my parents glanced back at my brother, sister, and me, squeezing our hands. My family sang together with my sibling's high-pitched voices belting. I was small, my toes barely graced the floor, and the world felt small too.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how music, as a type of media, links memories and carries through and impacts different moments of people's lives. Being in college and living far from home, I’ve spent a lot more time reflecting on my experiences and how the media I consumed as a child impacted me. We all have songs that are nostalgic to our childhoods and have affected us, and it’s important to remind ourselves of these moments so we don’t forget them. Music is proven to be associated and linked to memories. It’s important to hold onto these pivotal moments because looking back can help us see how far we’ve come and reflect on how we’ve grown.
“Upside Down” is a soft rock song that was released in 2006 as part of the Curious George movie soundtrack, and Curious George was one of my favorite movies as a kid. “Upside Down” is a meaningful song since it holds memories of my childhood and has followed me throughout different periods of my life. I remember my siblings and I always looking forward to tuning into the TV show Curious George weekly on PBS Kids when the world felt simple. There were no iPhones or iPads. We would just sit on the couch and watch the show together over macaroni and cheese and chicken. “Upside Down” really reflected how I felt at the time as I didn’t “want this feeling to go away.” I was curious and blind to the world around me, with little responsibilities, and life wasn’t complicated.
In 2009, my parents divorced, and it was around the same time I was entering kindergarten and began developing anxiety. My world began to turn “Upside Down” because I was joining a new school with an additional home where my life and possessions were split into two. Every day, when one of my moms would drive me to school, my breath would speed up as our car inched closer to campus. Tears would roll down my face because I dreaded going to school since I didn’t have many friends. I felt lost in the class material and overwhelmed by the amount of things I had to keep track of. I’d panic and dig through my bag, unpacking and repacking it, making sure I had everything. My mom always told me to stop worrying, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t find a solution to my anxiety. I found myself looking back at my memory of my siblings and I in our parents' minivan, listening to Jack Johnson quite often and wishing I could return to it.
When I was eleven years old, one of my moms, Sharon, started dating my now step-mom, Hilary. I grew up in the suburbs of Marin County, and Hilary lived in San Francisco and had three kids. Sharon moved to San Francisco with Hilary, and I ended up splitting my time between San Francisco and Marin. I went through many changes in this period, and I felt like I didn’t have much control over the changes in my life. At my San Francisco home, I started living with three new step-siblings in a house of eight and sharing a room with my step-brother, who was four years younger than me. Also, my commute to school from San Francisco became 45 minutes, and I started living away from my friends. I would listen to “Upside Down” on repeat because the song is about finding happiness during times of change and staying positive. Johnson sings, “With each new day/ I can feel a change in everything,” but he accepts that change and finds light in the little things. Although I was overwhelmed by how my family had changed and my new living situation, Johnson inspired me to “share the love I find with everyone.” He helped me find appreciation in having a large family and new people to love in my life even though my family was complicated and things were different than they used to be.
At my Marin home, when I was thirteen, my mom, Michelle, started taking guitar lessons. In her third lesson, she was embarrassed because she didn’t practice or remember what she had learned, so she begged me to do the lesson for her. I was a bit annoyed because she asked me five minutes before the guitar teacher, Sam, came over for the lesson. I had tons of homework I needed to do, but I agreed to help her out and do the lesson. Although I wasn’t interested in playing guitar previously, the lesson ended up being extremely fun. My mom soon stopped taking lessons, and I started taking lessons with Sam instead. I ended up falling in love with making music and would practice every day. Whenever I played guitar, I felt like I could escape from everything that worried me. Also, my guitar teacher became a close friend of mine as we gained a fantastic connection through music. At the same time, I was also taking a poetry class in school and began to love creative writing. Although my guitar playing consisted of broken strums and my poems were often about cliche middle school crushes, I started to enjoy combining what I learned in my guitar lessons and poetry class to begin songwriting. Songwriting became an outlet for me to process my feelings and reflect.
After I left middle school and began high school, I stopped writing songs, and my memory of Jack Johnson's music began to fade. With an increase in my workload and trying to meet new people, I didn’t have much time to write songs and was busy acclimating to high school. Before the lockdown hit, without music, I felt pretty lost in myself, and I was also questioning a lot of things about my identity, like my gender. Ever since I was little, I’d always shopped in the boy's section and felt like I connected more to guys, but I never felt like a guy or a girl. Throughout elementary and middle school, I would dress masculine, but I began to feel pressured to dress more feminine in high school because I felt like I had to conform to the male gaze to not be judged, and I didn’t recognize myself. Dressing femininely did not feel natural to me, and I often walked to school in tight clothes that hugged my skin and made me look awkward. I didn’t feel like I was dressing true to who I am or expressing my identity authentically. I began to learn about what being non-binary is in my sophomore year of high school, and I felt like that label fit, but I really struggled with accepting my gender identity. I didn’t like being called “she/her” pronouns, but I was also really worried about changing my pronouns to “they/them” and how my family would respond to me coming out.
When the pandemic hit, my anxiety about understanding my gender identity increased, and I also had a lot of anxiety around the pandemic and lockdown. I started frequently getting panic attacks, something I hadn’t had since my parent's divorce. One day, when I was in the car with my mom, Sharon, on the way back to the city from my house in Marin, Sharon played “Upside Down” by Jack Johnson, and I was reminded of the memory I had with my moms and three siblings together, singing along with the song. I began to listen to how Jack Johnson strums and was inspired by how complex he makes his songs sound with very few acoustic instruments. I was also inspired by his lyrics and how his lyric style reflects on finding optimism during hard times. The song was very fitting for the time of the pandemic since there was so much change and uncertainty. When I got home, I began writing a song about how I felt. I wrote about how I was struggling with my gender identity and my anxiety around isolation. I was inspired by Jack Johnson’s complex strumming and acoustic soft rock tones and recorded my songs in that style. With the extra time spent at home every day, I turned to songwriting again, and that helped me a lot with my anxiety and finding self-understanding. Writing about my anxiety helped me overcome my worries and become more confident in myself. I released three bedroom pop songs over the pandemic on Spotify and shared how I felt with others, which helped me connect to people with similar experiences. I felt significantly more comfortable exploring androgyny, and I didn’t feel lost anymore. Music really helped me find the confidence to do this. I cut my hair short, which I have always wanted to do. I also began to love fashion, finding my personal style, and blending masculinity with femininity. I no longer felt constrained to the binary. I was also able to connect more with my step-siblings and step-mom as I showed them my songs and they helped me with my music.
An important message in “Upside Down” is exploring curiosity, and I was inspired to step out of my comfort zone and learn more about myself despite the uncertainty surrounding me. Before the pandemic, when I listened to “Upside Down,” I wished I could go back to my memory of when my parents were together, and things felt less complicated with my family, my gender, and the future, but now when I listen to “Upside Down,” I’m inspired to accept change and push forward. Jack Johnson inspired me to make art out of challenging times and helped me appreciate change, and for that, I’m thankful.
