ava

Age 24

2024: going back to school for the first time in 5 years, the first thing i’ve done in public besides doctor’s appointments since covid began

2023: getting into the band the mars volta

2022: having a phase where i went a little crazy for a few months and stopped talking to everyone i know and got really into the band manic street preachers and spent all my time researching them and writing thinkpieces about them to the point where i went to the emergency room for not eating or drinking enough and working too hard

2021: ran away from home under the influence of an ill-willed ex-friend

2020: covid lockdown

2019: every weekend in the spring taking the train downtown by myself and going to the record store and eating at the local pizza place and feeling very happy enjoying the independence

2018: in the summer, joining a network of music-related discord servers for the first time and meeting a bunch of people, many of whom are now my best friends. feeling like i had truly found “my people” for the first time in my entire life, feeling like the music world had opened up to me as i was exposed to so much more stuff than i ever had been before. me and my friends listened to a different album together every night, sharing our favorites and bonding in a way i had never experienced. a lot of complicated stuff would end up happening down the road but this summer was just pure unadulterated joy and wonder

2017: getting into the bands genesis, yes, and rush; joining the prog rock fandom on tumblr and making music friends for the first time

2016: got sent to a PHP for a few months due to undiagnosed-autism-fueled school avoidance. the bus ride was long and scenic, the other kids were cool and interesting, and crucially, i had no homework, so the place became a bit of a safe haven for me. but the best part about it was getting into david bowie. he had died very recently so i thought it about time. i spent every bus ride there and back sitting alone staring out the window and listening to his discography in order, one album at a time, until i’d made it through all 26 or whatever the number is. those bus rides are some of the happiest and most fulfilling and inspiring memories i have. it changed my whole understanding of the world and myself.

2015: getting obsessed with the a cappella group pentatonix. joining a twitter fandom for the first time to talk about pentatonix. staying in bed all throughout the end of that summer just watching every music video, vlog, live performance, etc they ever put out. starting high school and getting so excited when pentatonix (or their offshoot superfruit) would release new youtube videos because they would always go online right as my final study hall period of the day was coming to an end. pentatonix were my first contemporary obsession; it was a whole new feeling. it was an enormous event in my life when they put out their first fully original album that fall. the excitement i felt was unparalleled. plus their existence in the internet era (compared to my usual preference for 20th century rock bands) meant there was just heaps and heaps of stuff for me to watch and listen to and analyze and absorb into my being. i can’t even describe how much pentatonix meant to me that year.

2014: it took me a while to think of one for this year but i did. this was the summer i had my first proper crush on a girl and thus confirmed my suspicions i was bisexual. i had been aware of her for years because we attended the same theatre camp but this summer was the first time i really interacted with her. she was a few years older than me but shorter than me and she was cool and funny and pretty and talented and outgoing and shared certain “nerdy” interests with me and people said she was stuck-up but i just thought that made her even cooler. it was her last summer before she’d age out of the camp so on the last day i told her i really looked up to her and i was gonna miss her and she gave me a big hug. at home i doodled her name on my summer math packet and that’s when i thought to myself yeah, this is a real crush.

2013: posting regularly on the “fab forum” on thebeatlesbible.com

2012: starting middle school

2011: going to the pool in the summer with my mom and sister. the kids yelling in the castle park next door, the smell of hot dogs from the snack shack, the black trash bags we put on the car seats to keep them from getting wet. the shiny silver seatbelt you had to be careful not to burn yourself with. blasting selena gomez & the scene’s album “when the sun goes down” front to back and singing along with my sister in the back seat.

2010: the thing that comes to mind is just my 5th grade teacher’s face and voice, and the knowledge that this was the year my dad left (he came back a few years later) but that moment feels separate from the timeline of my life

2009: my childhood best friend and everything that we did together. playing wii games. making silly powerpoints. writing our “novels” thinking we were gonna be the world’s youngest published authors. going down to the creek in his backyard and inventing secret schemes where we intended to harness the power of lucid dreaming to make scientific breakthroughs that would save humanity from itself. playing “truth or truth” in the dark of his bedroom as i laid on the air mattress on the glowstick-scattered floor and he laid up in his bed. i think all of this happened over the course of many more years than just 2009 but 2009 feels like the nexus

2008: the things i did with the few friends i had — a lot of inside jokes about pie and llamas and our attempts to write a play featuring our webkinz

2007: the general vibe of elementary school, my teacher playing us jonathan sprout songs, the ramps and the courtyard, laminated cartoon pencils and apples on the corkboards on the walls, checking out every children’s novel involving ghosts that the library had to offer . and piano lessons

2006: my certainty of time is getting fuzzy but maybe reading nancy drew books on the balcony of the hotel room overlooking the beach, eating chocolate chip pancakes and fighting the breeze to turn pages. or was that the next summer

2005: my sister being born, and maybe my love for the show kim possible

2004: being obsessed with the movie “the emperor’s new groove” and receiving a copy of it on VHS and being so ecstatically happy

2003: now that i think about it the emperor’s new groove thing might’ve been this year. or was this year my elvis year

2002: fridge magnets of elvis and my fixation on his greatest hits CD and the home video of me “breakdancing” to “crazy little thing called love” by queen in my blue’s clues footie pajamas

2001: i don’t remember

2000: i was born (i don’t actually remember that)

1999: i wasn’t alive yet

1998: i wasn’t alive yet

1997:

Additional comments: my memory got a little fuzzy at times but i hope this will suffice