You grow up thinking you can be anything that you want to be until you learn you aren’t as special as you might think you are. I grew up in “Adam’s Village” or Dorchester, Massachusetts. I was never the little girl who was outgoing or had a lot of friends. I was the shy girl who sat alone wearing weird thrift shop clothes, I never got invited to birthday parties, and I was always picked last for the soccer team. I lived in a triple-decker in the village on the third floor. I loved the view of Boston in the distance that could be seen from my bedroom window. It looked like a faraway city, almost out of a fairytale. A city shrouded in make-believe that only I could see. I never had sleepovers, and I never played outside with the neighborhood kids. In fact, the sounds of children playing and bikes crashing to the ground always was a trigger of annoyance for me. Looking out the window and seeing the children with happy lives and parents braiding their hair and shit, would make my animosity boil to the surface.

My mom frequented the Eire Pub down the corner nearly every day. I would come home from school and know immediately where she was. The stack of dishes in the kitchen from the days before were still in the sink, and the liquor bottles were still collected on the coffee table as if it was some type of alcoholic shrine. Looking back now as an adult, I never understood how my mom was able to afford our apartment and even food for that matter. She was never home. She was never working. She only drank herself into oblivion with her “people.” It wasn’t until years later that I understood what welfare and food stamps were, and how that raised me and not her. I started to realize at a young age that the only people my mom cared about was herself and her favorite skeezes at the pub. She never wanted anything to do with me as a kid. I was an unfortunate burden to her, and she had no problem showing it. I taught myself how to style my hair and cook for myself at the age of six. You have no idea how fast you must grow up until you don’t have any other option. I had curly brown hair, freckles splattered across my cheeks, and a thick body that left little to be desired by teenage boys with the attention span of a squirrel. Often high school girls blossomed into womanhood and got the attention of the boys. I wasn’t one of them.

I focused on my studies, my books, and my love of music. More specifically my love for the beautiful music from a piano. My favorite person in the world was my neighbor, Mr. Taylor. He was an older man with tan olive skin and wavy salt and pepper hair. He said he was Mediterranean, but at the time I had no idea what that meant. He helped take care of me when my mom was gone. He had the most beautiful keyboard piano, and I would spend hours just listening to him play. Soaking up all the music I could.

One day, he was gone. His keyboard and songbooks were the only things left in his apartment. Along with a note that read:

Keep playing songbird.

I never saw him again. My first heartbreak at eleven years old, and definitely not my last. I never understood the pull toward all that frilly bullshit that’s supposed to make you feel like a girl. I never had a date, nor did I even want one.

I just wanted to finish school and get away from the Dot as fast as I could. I was always basic and beat, and it never bothered me because I have been told that my whole life. You get told something enough times when you’re younger, you will believe it. Only I refused to believe that I would grow up to be a hoodsie like my mom. It wouldn’t be me. Everyone needs inspiration to help take them out of a bad situation. Music was always that for me. The piano was something ethereal and holy, and something that was truly mine.  Pouring my feelings into writing songs was not only my favorite pastime but I wanted it to be my career. I didn’t care what I looked like because I figured I didn’t need to look like the stereotypical Hollywood crowd in order to write songs for a living. So, from the time I was fourteen until I was eighteen, I worked at the neighborhood convenience store down the block. I saved every dime I could inside the empty space of my keyboard.

The day I moved my golden tassel over to signal I graduated, was the day I packed my suitcase and left to journey across the country. The city that made you or broke you. Los Angeles was rough and filled with rejection and tears. Last calls, auditions, and meetings with other songwriters is what I imagined and longed for. What I got: eating stale bread from the dollar store, living in a Geo Metro, and late-night jam sessions at seedy bars on Hollywood Boulevard while men stuffed fake business cards in your back pocket while you tried to work your second job. When I felt like giving up and my confidence level plummeted, my saving grace walked through the double doors of the small bar I was waitressing in. A young man with dark hair, and dark mysterious eyes. His guitar hanging behind his back like a musician, much too cool for the scene as he walked inside the bar. His name was Redd Carter, and today he is a well-known singer and songwriter. Back then, he was just Redd. He’s my best friend and my biggest supporter.