The Last 8 Years of My Life, As Told Through My John Mayer Concerts
(warning: this is long. take breaks if you need to)
Have these dreams I’m walking home/Home where it used to be
Everything is as it was/ Frozen in front of me
Park City, Utah
15 years old
I got to drive part of the way to my first John Mayer concert. I was about to be 16, about to start my sophomore year of high school and about to start a new school. I remember the concert was on a ski hill and we (my dad, my best friend Jessica and me) had driven 5 hours to see John Mayer. The mountain air in the summer is something I’ll never forget. With only 300 people there on that ski hill, it felt like we were all sharing the same secret. We all knew about John Mayer and loved his music before anyone else really did.
My dad had heard about JM somewhere and had told me how great this new artist was. I would never admit to liking anything my dad liked, and one day snuck into his office and stole the CD off of his desk, maybe even out of his CD player. I didn’t stop listening to it until he asked for it back. At the concert, I made my dad sit far away from Jessica and I. We stood up front and tried to act older and cooler, separated from a parent anything was possible. After the concert, my dad got us right up to the bus and said he would wait with us until John came out to talk to us. Even then my dad was cooler then I could have dreamed of being.
I wore a white t-shirt and jeans that laced up at the bottom. All I could think about and focus on was that next year of high school. I would finally be able to drive. I would finally get a car that gave me the ultimate freedom that I wanted so badly. But would I like the new school? Would the people there like me? I was relieved that I would have Jessica at my side on that first day of school.
Someday I’ll fly/Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be so damn much more
Bozeman, Montana
17 years old
I had begged for John Mayer tickets for my birthday and my dad had agreed. We spent the whole weekend skiing together in Big Sky. My dad tried again to get us backstage but I didn’t want to press our luck. I had a fever but refused to leave or even sit down at a John Mayer concert.
I was a junior in high school and my 2 best friends were graduating that June. It seemed like my senior year was going to be lonely. I couldn’t stop thinking. What will I do without them? What will I do on the weekends? Who will I eat lunch with?
But my real inner voice, the one I spend so much time ignoring, was asking, “Who will you be without them?”
So scared of getting older/I’m only good at being young
So I play a numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun
Austin, Texas
19 years old
I had spent all of fall semester looking forward to this concert. It was my first Austin City Limits trip and I was reunited with all my camp friends. The Contiuum CD had come out four days earlier and I had worked like crazy to have all those lyrics memorized. Any free moment I had, my iPod was on repeat; walking to class, studying, in my room, and on my drive to Austin all I could listen to was John.
I had just come back from my first full summer at camp and I was miserable at A&M. I didn’t want to be in the sorority, I didn’t want to be in my apartment and I didn’t want to be stuck in my major anymore. I had just started thinking about changing my major to education and kept flipping the idea over in my mind like a coin. Needless to say, it caused me a lot of angst and that John Mayer CD got me through a lot of it.
And if you never stop when you wave goodbye/ you just might find if you give it time that you just might wave hello again
San Antonio, Texas
20 years old
I asked my dad on a whim if he would take me to yet another John Mayer concert and he loyally said yes. I stood for the whole concert but it seemed like my heart, and john’s, weren’t totally in it. This was the first huge arena I had seen him in and things just weren’t the same.
I had just left camp for my 3rd summer as a counselor and was about to embark on my first solo road trip. Camp had been great but something hadn’t been right. Things hadn’t clicked into place like they always do when I’m there. I had no idea that my whole idea of camp would change in just one short month. My favorite place in the world was destroyed in just a matter of hours. But that was all after the concert.
I was so nervous and excited about the road trip. I was about to go on a huge cross country road trip by myself. I knew I would get to see so much of the country, see my best friends from high school and learn so much about myself. I had to prove I could take this huge trip by myself and afterwards I felt like I had really grown up.
I’ve got a hammer/ and a heart of glass
I’ve got to know right now/which walls to smash
Austin, Texas
23 years old
This time I wasn’t just visiting the city where John was playing. I lived there; I have a life in Austin now. These were by far the worst seats I’ve ever had, and the most exhausted I've ever been. I sat down through the whole thing.
I wore a white t-shirt and jeans, but I was by no means the same as that 15 year old girl who saw John Mayer in the same outfit. This time when my dad said he wished he had been there, I was thinking how I wished he had been sitting next to me the whole time.
I was sitting what felt like miles away from John but my mind was even farther away, thinking about my students and school. I was upset with their grades and their reactions but I was more upset with myself. How have we almost made it through a whole year and I have not taught them the importance of turning things in on time? How can I fix this problem? How can I get parents on my side and instead of thinking their child is always right?
Now I'm free/ Free Fallin'
As I moved through all these concerts and all these song lyrics, all of my questions have gotten answered. I don’t know what my future questions will be or where they will take place, but I can only hope there will be more John Mayer concerts to help me mark time and see me through it.
