I’m hoping this reaches a 7th-grade girl who’s searching for her place in this universe.
The summer I turned twelve, my whole life changed. Within 24 hours, I was in a new house, going to a new school, and starting a new life over 30 miles away from everything I had ever known. Let’s just say there was a lot of addiction that ran in my family. When I rode the bus that first day, I put my headphones on from the moment I left my front door to the moment I sat down in first period. Looking back, I guess it was the one thing I was fully able to control: what I could hear.
That year was the hardest year of my life, and it was also the loneliest year of my life. I was the “new girl” who wore band tees and didn’t speak to anyone. Because where do you really begin? By telling other people in your class that addiction ran so rampant over the summer break that I had to move and start a completely new life? Not really the best foundation for making friends.
When I got home from school, I would lock myself in my room and play more music on my speakers while I distracted myself with homework and the internet. Nothing made me feel better—except, occasionally, when a song would say the words that I’d been looking for. In those moments, it was as if it were written to me, through me, but expressed in a way that was so clever that I wished I had written it.
One day, I stayed home sick from school, and eventually I got so bored I decided to dust off a plastic piano from the garage. It was a piece of junk (like, truly trash), but I wiped it down and started playing. Pretty quickly—almost immediately—it made a lot of sense to me. I started writing down how I felt and playing chords, and soon enough, there were songs. I promise you, most of them weren’t very good. But they were mine. They were my story. And the more I wrote and the more I played, the better I felt.
My dad came home early from work one day while I was writing something in my room. When he knocked and I showed him what I was working on, he was shocked at how fast I was writing song after song, despite having never known how to play piano to begin with. I started to hone my craft and play every day. After a while, I didn’t suck as much as I used to. It was the only thing there for me when no one was around. It made me feel less alone. And over time, I started to find other people who, like me, cared about music and songs and bands.
I started gigging from bar to restaurant to philanthropy event to fraternity house to local festivals to basements and weddings—I played EVERYWHERE. By following the music, I allowed my greatest fears, sadness, and disappointments to become my North Star for where I should go next. And eventually, I made my way out to Los Angeles. Within about six weeks of being in LA, I found my people. I found home. Shortly after making this tremendous leap to the other side of the country, I started a band with an incredible musician/writer/person—Addison.
It was then that I promised myself if I ever “figured it out”—whatever the hell that means—I would spend my life helping other people feel less alone.
I used to pray that someone would take away my pain, only to find out that all these songs were born from those feelings I didn’t know what to do with. I created “rosecoloredworld” to find others who were just like me, waiting for permission to be themselves again without worry or fear.
And to that 7th-grade girl especially: Keep going; it gets better. <3
Rae from rosecoloredworld
Rae is the singer of the LA-based rock band rosecoloredworld. The band has been on the road nonstop over the last two years, opening for bands like Sum 41, The Used, and now supporting Bowling for Soup this fall. The essence of the band is to create a community where everyone from all walks of life can feel safe and seen being exactly who they are.
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