Article: 'Here Comes the Sun' by Amanda Grossman

'Here Comes the Sun'
by Amanda Grossman

I can't remember all of the details on the day I packed up my entire world into a 1997 Chevy Cavalier and moved back into college for my senior year. Had I remembered to deposit that last summer paycheck into my account? I'm sure I did. Preordered my textbooks online to get them at half-price? Well, I had textbooks for that semester, so I guess I had. But none of these thoughts were running through my mind on that trip. What was on my mind was much more important and grave than the mundane, day-to-day details most people stress about.

It was the beginning of the end of an era for me, a chapter in my life I was not ready and willing to let go of if only because the future seemed so uncertain, so undefined. Lurking around every street corner, each curve on the windy Rte. 213 I was cruising on, or surely past the horizon that I never seemed to be able to catch up to, was the "real world". And as I drove anxiously towards it-fingernails digging trenches into the soft rubber around the steering wheel and small beads of sweat catching wisps of hair as they whipped back and forth from the seemingly turbulent winds coming in the rolled-down windows-I just couldn't stop the tears.

I can remember catching the thoughts one by one as they raced around my head like catching my finger on the end hook of a fishing pole, each one leaving its own cut. Is it possible that I had gone through three years of college and still had not a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life? How much longer would I be fumbling around in my own skin, trying to learn who I am as if I was still learning how to walk? How would I pay the bills on my own? How could I take a life of cubicle work, if in fact some company did take a chance on me? Is this all there is? Is this life?

I rolled up the windows just then, the sudden stillness contrasting sharply against the currents in my mind. A low crackling came across the radio and I turned the volume up for clarification, unable to take anymore unanswered questions. Just then a soft voice, childlike in its uninhibited optimism, entered the seat next to me like an old friend, declaring the coming of the sun in all its unselfish glory. Blended together like the blurry, transcendent outlines of Christmas lights on a tree, the lyrics and instruments began to replace those other wretched thoughts in my mind. I opened my ears, ready to listen:

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right"

I could feel the confusion in me beginning to melt away. My stomach unhitched itself from its previous place on the back of my ribs, and my tears quickly dried up like when a hot sun dries the dew-kissed grass in the early morning hours. There was something about this music-something fresh yet familiar, innocent yet painfully aware. Suddenly the horizon no longer appeared unforgiving to me, but rather filled with prospects. Entering the real world when I graduated felt more like an impending adventure. The dull aches from feeling lost in my own skin meant that there was more to me than I had ever thought, and it was time to venture out a bit and find all of me. On that day when I met the Beatles for the first time, it was like tapping into life. The lyrics filled me with breathe and the rhythms pulsated steadily to the beats of my own world: the pleasure, pain, youthful innocence and aging wisdom. I could suddenly see my entire life unfolding, and for the first time in a long time, everything looked sunny to me.

Sunny and musical.