When this song first stormed the world charts, I was only about ten years old. It was the zenith of the 80’s, and it was the period in which I began to be aware of the pop music scene. Songs from the mid-to-late-80’s would form the soundtrack to the formative portion of my life, and to this day they kindle some of the most powerful emotions and memories.
For this one, I don’t have any specific recollections – I just remember it breezing along on the radio, redolent of those glorious 80’s, and given a shine by my coming-of-age in the ensuing years. In the same way that this recent redoing of a pop song like ‘Downtown’ rendered it in more melancholy and emotional form, this version of A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ was redone by the original band, and it evokes more feelings than the first time around.
So needless to say
I’m odds and ends
But I’ll be
Stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is okay
Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry…
On a trying Monday night, because all Mondays are trying in some fashion, but the first Monday in November feel especially unbearable, I sit down in the attic and type away trying to find a way to exorcize the demons of the day. My hair is unstyled after a shower, and my black t-shirt has a streak of white paint from when I painted the room in which I now sit. I’m all a bit of a mess, odds and ends, stumbling and bumbling and no more safe than sorry. The words ring differently without a bright dance beat to them, the melody more plaintive than I ever remember the world being when I was ten years old. Maybe this is what being an adult feels like, and why so many refuse to give in to it.
Oh, things that you say
Yeah, is it a life or
Just to play
My worries away
You’re all the things I’ve got to remember
You’re shying away
I’ll be coming for you anyway
The things we each must do to take on the world.
And the things that we must do to let someone else take us on.
My heart comes close to bursting when I think of those who have had the courage to take on me. My father’s instant acquiescence to finding a home for me in Boston. My mother’s carving out her Mother’s Day weekends to spend them with me on Broadway. My husband’s tender care in creating the perfect pan of lasagna for our family. There is love so genuinely and so simply, and it never fails to move me.
Taking me on will never be an easy task. For better or worse, I’ve designed it that way, and it will always be harder to love me because I’ve spent too many years protecting myself to let that go now. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to keep asking and trying and hoping to be loved, and doing my best to deserve it.
