Post by ATHENA ISABEL DAVENPORT on Jul 1, 2011 0:54:39 GMT -4
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i54.tinypic.com/2nqfdd2.jpg); border: solid 5px #d6d6d6; width: 250px; -webkit-border-radius: 50px 4px 50px 4px; -moz-border-radius: 50px 4px 50px 4px; line-height:85%; margin-top: 5px] ATHENA ISABEL DAVENPORT, "i've got these issues that you cant subscribe" TWENTY ONE | LOVE LIKE A ROCKET | DRUMMER | JESS BOWEN i said it and i meant it. "you don't have to do this, thea." i think, honestly, growing up in a place like nashville, you live under this expectation that if you pursue music, you have to be able to ride a horse, round up cattle, and play a banjo or a fiddle. i mean, it's just typical. it's the home of all of the biggest country stars, but the thing is, that's not all it breeds. i think, when my parents moved here all those years ago, when my brother was little and i was merely a gleam in my daddy's eye, that they didn't even dream of what the city could possibly bring out in people. my parents were those parents, the ones that everyone never wanted when they were in school. they made sure that homework got completed before the television came on, and if i got anything less than an a, they instilled the fear of god in me. so i pushed myself to their wills, doing everything it was that they wanted and expected of me. at the same time, though, i also came into my own. when i was six, i met a boy at school; he was the coolest boy i'd ever laid eyes on. his dad had shaved his head into a mohawk and he was always, and i mean always tapping on things with his pencils in rhythm. it drove me crazy at first until i realized what he was doing; he was practicing. after a few weeks of being a shy typical girl, who was convinced that no cute boy would talk to a tomboy like her, i finally found the nerve to ask him if he could teach me what it was that had taken hold of his subconscious; i wanted to learn how to play the drums. almost every day after i finished my homework, i would tell my parents i was going to a friend's house and made a beeline for dakota's. his dad was always there, waiting for me with him, and i would spend hours on end there until i knew that my parents were probably starting to get worried. all of those afternoons, though, they're what made me who i am now, and i'm not sure i could thank either of them enough. as i got older, though, my parents grew wary of my talent, even though i'd gotten a job, bought my own kit (which was to be kept in the garage at all times, per my mother's orders), and went through the experiments of trying to find a band that felt right to me. when i opted out of going to berkley to join LLAR, my parents were furious. they pulled every last bit of the money they had been backing me with and instead, i was left to support myself. i cut ties with them and honestly, i think it's been the best decision i've made to date, albeit the fact that it was also the hardest. she is beautiful but she don't mean a thing to me. "i said leave me alone, ricky." you know, i never really understood why it has been deemed completely acceptable for every single man and their brother to sleep around with whoever they so choose, whenever they so choose, and get praised for it. whereas, if a girl were to partake in the same activities, she's a slut or a whore. i don't really care what people call me, because i recognize exactly what it is i do, but i never really got why it was okay one way and not okay the other. i suppose it stems back to that whole 'men can do anything' mantra that i would very much like to run off the face of the planet. regardless, just because someone throws a couple of condescending names in my direction, i'm not going to stop being who i am. we're all here to do two things: play music and have fun. the latter requires getting drunk at parties and bonfires and falling into the laps of whoever has their arms open. i have reached the conclusion that we're young, and more than that, we only live once. maybe in ten years when everything has settled down, i'll be looking for that guy, the one who maybe i might have a life with or something like that, but for now, i'm not really content with the idea of limiting myself. i mean, of course i would contain myself if i actually found something worth slowing down for now, but the truth is, i don't like the idea of relationships when i'm hardly ever around. in that same respect, tour relationships don't usually work out either. there's just too much going on at once for it to really occur as it should. i mean, if you can pull it off, then more power to you, but i, quite frankly do not, and probably have never had the will it would take to get that accomplished. i guess that says a lot about me in such few words, but i'm really a simple girl. at the same time, though, i do have standards (occasionally). it seems a little... hypocritical, i know. i'm usually the kind of girl who ends up chasing her own tail, but for now, i'll do things my way and if anyone has a problem with it, well, they don't have to stick around. i don't make sense to anyone but my best friends. "jesus christ, athena, put your arms down. you smell worse than we do." i get asked a lot what it's like. sometimes i forget what they're referring to if they're not really smart enough to specify. i think sometimes people forget that i didn't enroll in mind reading school or something and therefore, i don't instantaneously know what they're talking. maybe they think it's one of those questions that i get asked a lot (and it is) so i should just know when it's being brought up. and then when i give them that blank stare like they just asked me if the pope was catholic, they kinda get the hint that i'm not on the same brainwave as them, so they elaborate, and question what it's like to be the only girl in a band full of men. truth be told, if i didn't have the parts, i'm pretty sure i'd think i was a guy. it unintentionally happens when you hang around them so much. the thing is, though, is that it's not like it's some big struggle or a problem or anything. i consider those guys more of a family than i would my own blood relatives. over the past two years, since the beginning of love like a rocket, we've been through a lot more than people really get. of course there's going to be arguements, fights, and the occasional drunken brawl, but when the dust clears, we're still just four best friends who act like twelve year olds bouncing all over the place. i think what people don't really take into account is that we are friends, first and foremost. without those bonds, the band wouldn't even exist. it's not like we just stumbled upon each other and decided 'hey let's make a band.' no, we all met in high school and instantly, we were our own little wolf pack. we just... got one another. it was weird, mostly because when you're in high school, you realize just how terrible and conniving people can be, but those guys... they're all i've got. it was scary how close we all got in such a short amount of time, and god-- when we made the decision to start a band? the chemistry we have is insane. maybe it's because we're a bunch of young twenty one year olds who are hyped up on sugar and energy drinks all of the time, but i'd like to believe that it's because it's what we were meant to do. i'm not one of those who buys into all that fate bullshit and everything, but i do believe that everything happens for a reason and we wind up where we're supposed to be because of it. and for now, we're a bunch of kids wanting to prove that we're not just another pointless pop band from the throngs of nashville. we're so much more than that. hey there, the name's kait. i live in the eastern time zone and this is my first character. |