The Kids Might Just Be Alright
A Memoir of My First Love
By Madison Generoux
Where I grew up there were set standards that were just expected to be fulfilled,
especially for young girls living in small towns. Boundaries were set high to avoid social
suicide, and all the overly familiar faces eventually blended into a single figure of
haunting repetition. Cozy as it may have been at the beginning, it led to linger like an
invisible wall that held us together like festering cattle. From the days of my clumsy
youth, isolated from the rest of the world in a place relatively foreign to everything that
awaits among it, I learned to look ahead of these so called expectations and see things
through the parting glass half full. With this insight, you come to understand in some
views that were shared among my community, this may be deemed as rebellious.
Unlike the other kids I grew up beside I didn’t have a lot in common with these small
town dwellers, and didn’t particularly find joy in what I was being told to do. I didn’t live
on a farm, or ride horses like the other girls, and couldn’t play a good game of field
soccer to save my life, leaving me in what felt like an eternity on the sidelines. In these
times of trouble, I found myself venturing off outside the norm, dipping into elements
beyond what I was being told to like, or being told to do, I mean in this kind of situation
you’re kind of forced to find bigger things to fill your small spaces of time.
Music had always kind of filled that gap. I remember hours of prancing around
our crowded kitchen where I would put my heart and soul into my misinterpreted version
of “Paperback Writer”, chanting out “I want to be a paper bag writer!”. Oh if my parents
knew what they were stirring when they sang “Lavender Blue” by Burl Ives back to me,
or turning up Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow” when it came on the radio as we skimmed the
countryside during our weekend drives. I think what truly sealed the deal was when my
grandfather lent the volumes one and three of The Traveling Wilbury’s and I spent three
consecutive months, with my nose pushed up against our stereo system while they
stayed in my possession. While always present, it seems I pushed it off for an eternity!