A Girl and a Dream

I am going to tell you a story. It's the story of a girl, whose biggest dream was to be in a band.

When Val was in elementary, she learned playing the flute, like so many other little girls do. A year later she didn’t like the instrument anymore. She started to learn playing the piano. Though she soon found out, that it wasn’t the right thing for her. Her hands wouldn’t cooperate, during the hard parts.

So, Val gave up playing any of those. She was not musical enough, she told herself. Though, the girl believed, there had to be something she was good at. Often did she doubt that her talent was really there, but the girl held on.

As the years passed, Val grew, she changed. More and more she passed everything musical, everything artistic. Maybe she was going to be a teacher, or a nurse, she thought.

The girl had never been anything special. Her grades at school were good, though there was always someone better than her. Val even looked like everyone else, her styling was average. She was average. There was only one thing that made her different. Val wasn’t one of those super-skinny kids, who still thought they were too fat. The girl had a few pounds too much, she knew it. She always told herself, she had to do something against it. Val didn’t feel well in her own skin.

When she was fifteen, her whole personality changed. Everything that once defined her, that had made her so average turned into the girl she was now.
Val didn’t even know how she could change so quickly herself, no one else knew either. Though, the girl always recalled how everything ended up this way.

It was early February, 2009. About half a year ago, Val changed schools. By now she already found friends, grew into her class. About a month after the girl turned fifteen, one of her friends in class, showed her this band. It was called Simple Plan. Val had heard of them before, but never liked their music.
Something, however, made the girl listen to it closely. It made her listen to the lyrics, that recalled her life so well. Soon, Val bought all three records, the band had released. She loved this band. They were the first group, she cared about. She knew all the lyrics by heart, could sing to every song.

Not too long after, Val discovered other bands. Similar to her favorite one, yet so different. It was music, the girl never thought of listening to. At an earlier point in her life, she would've thought how terrible it was. Now, however it was what she loved, what she could relate to.

Val started listening to many bands, buying CDs, spending all her money on music. Music was everything she had at that point. She needed the lyrics to express herself. Though, it doesn’t seem right to express your feelings through someone else's lyrics, Val built everything on it. The music made her stay sane; it made her Val.

During summer holidays, the girl discovered, what was about to be her new favorite act. My Chemical Romance was the name. Never before had Val loved a band so much, not even Simple Plan, the first band she ever listened to clearly.
It weren't only the lyrics, that made her love My Chemical Romance, but also the fast, aggressive, yet so soothing beat. While listening to the band, she could just let her thoughts wander, just stop worrying.

What also inflicted her love about this band was that she knew she wasn’t alone, that the members had gone through the same as her. She might not have been an alcoholic, but she still felt like she was alone sometimes. Though the many friends she had, that dearly loved her, she didn’t feel like she could rely on them. They were not worth being her best friend, neither of them.
Except for one girl. Her and Val hadn't even talked to each other in the beginning. As time passed, however, they started to hang out, they became best friends.

Still, Val didn’t talk to her about everything. She had her little secrets, things that only the girl herself needed to know.

In these holidays, Val became someone else. Before she loved to wear bright colors, to dress girly. When she started listening to MCR, however she also began to change her style. Val almost just wore black, no matter how hot it was outside, no matter where she had to go. Black was the rule, and never would the girl have worn a skirt anymore. She had left all the girly stuff behind, started wearing more and more boy clothes.

When school started again in September, the girl was often called emo. They all said she looked like one, pointing out her black clothes, and what she listened to.

Val herself didn’t think she was emo. She never liked stereotypes, though even if the guys at school loved sticking people into those groups, she still didn’t see herself like this. Emos looked different, she said.

That's when a depressive phase in her life began. She felt more alone than she had ever before. Though she didn’t want to go out with her friends, the girl preferred to be left alone in her room. It was where she was able to recall everything. The girl often thought about what she had done wrong.

Music was the most important thing for her then. She started singing a lot, even wanted to learn playing the guitar. Her mother told her to learn it by herself, she had done it too. Val tried, but it was hard, she didn’t succeed.

At some point, she found herself feeling so empty, that she started cutting herself. Though the pain was kind of a relief, she never did it therefore. It gave her the feeling of having something to do, not being bored out of her mind, alone. The blade wasn’t her friend, as you might think, but cutting herself wasted time, as did looking at the numerous healing scars. Val started to more and more like seeing the blood run down her arms.

This made her feel better, also she began feeling sane again. Still thinking about all the things that had gone wrong in her life, Val decided she had to do something about her body. She didn’t want to be like this anymore. She wanted to be like everyone else.

Sports wasn’t easy for her, that's why she stopped eating. She got used to the feeling, even preferred her stomach to be empty. Having eaten something always made her want to puke, though she stopped herself. The girl didn’t want to end up bulimic.

Val's friends didn’t even notice what she was doing. Sometimes they might say stuff like, 'Don't you want to eat something?, but Val ignored them. The only time she ate at all was at home, when her family had dinner together, though she never ate much.

Living completely without food was hard, which made her fail, again. The girl had always failed not matter what she did. Nothing would've ever changed that. Val started living normal again, normal as in with food.

The girl didn’t like her life that way. She had never liked herself, nor what she did. Though there were always dreams, and things she loved doing. One of them was singing. Val loved to sing, no matter how horrible it sounded, the girl always sang along with the songs, she listened to.

Val also grew dreams. Her biggest wish was to be in a band, to sing for people, who actually liked her and what she did. Maybe it would've given her some self-esteem she thought.

She had always been afraid to show her voice, she didn’t like it herself. Never would she have thought that a band liked her enough to make her the lead singer.

Val was debating with herself, whether to look for bands, that needed singers or just hold onto her dream, until it faded someday. The girl probably never brought up the courage to do so.

Now against what you might have thought, this story isn't over yet. Why I know about this so well, you ask. Because, this girl; it's me.