Previously: Time is Flying By (Ava), Speeding Out of the Turn of a Decade (Joey), Leaving Behind a High School Sport (Ava)

Dear LFHS community,

The 2016-17 school year was a wild time to be a freshman.

Ok, let’s be honest – any school year is a wild time to be a freshman, but you have to admit that period of time was a weird one: the Chicago Cubs ended a 108 year World Series Championship drought, the supposed pop culture music festival of the century was the ultimate scam, and a reality TV star was preparing to become President of the United States while hanging out with Kanye West (just to name a few things). 

All this was happening, and I had to make a foundational transition in my life with school, sports, activities, friends…everything. It was overwhelming in the best, most awkward, most exciting, and scariest of ways. Like anyone at that age and in that time, I felt isolated in my own feelings – a la “you don’t understand, Mom!” cliché.

This is the climate in which I heard Pearl Jam’s “Alive” for the first time.

Born right at the forefront of the grunge revolution that exploded out of the hidden musical brotherhood of Seattle, Washington in the early 90s, the band’s legacy is often imprisoned in that early era of explosive fame. Unless you are having a conversation with diehard fans, it is hard to mention their name without the likes of their supposed frenemies in Nirvana, their iconic debut album Ten, and the often-mocked baritone vocals provided by a young Eddie Vedder coming straight to mind. I assure you that there is much more to the story.

Like the band, I was introduced to that era as a flashy starting point, but my eyes broadened to the whole length of their 20+ year career. It was there that I saw something that spoke to the core of my bottled-up emotions as a highschool freshman: they were a “living cultural organism” that unapologetically reached out with resonance and active responsiveness at all times. While other personally influential bands maintained their acts as a magnificent display to marvel, Pearl Jam more aggressively broke the fourth wall, sharing understanding and relatability.

Out of that “testing time” in my life, positivity had shown through, and it helped me along — my first Varsity Swimming season’s long nights of homework were met with Pearl Jam’s endless concert bootlegs, featuring unprecedented art for setlists that changed entirely every show. This emotional and creative exertion allowed some pride and joy in the draining journey of each day.

So, the crucial idea and question: there are beautiful moments in our lives (like these) that ultimately build and evolve who we are. How do we fully access and appreciate that beauty in the moment, rather than just in retrospect?

From that experience freshman year, my high school career continued to chug onward and upward at full speed, unfortunately not giving much time to reflect on the process.

But then I was forced to. At the climax of that four year swim career, a month after my  Letter From the Editor on perseverance, I started feeling unusual pressures on the right side of my chest during practice. With the most important meets of my career taking place within the next week or so, I tried to persevere, but within 24 hours I was in the emergency room finding out that a collapsed lung was going to claim the end of it all.

Now, listen carefully: this isn’t a cry for sympathy. It was probably one of the least painful experiences I’ve ever had when it comes to injuries, and this is coming from a guy who has never broken a bone.

This is about the experience, and the only parts of it that were truly uncomfortable: that I found myself sitting in a hospital bed after my lung had been fully reinflated, unable to fall asleep because of a tube in my chest and an understanding that my team was swimming in a meet that night that I could not attend. 

Soon, I gave up on sleeping, slipped my headphones on, and blared some Pearl Jam — the best medicine I had at that hour. I thought about my time on the team and elder teammates who influenced me as leaders, and I realized that the majority of their influence came from their graceful responses to challenging experiences. Knowing that this was my own defining challenge, I felt my positivity and confidence come back — I needed to be strong like them. 

After that, gratitude washed over me as I saw the tons of “get well” messages I received. Being injured in this fashion was foreign to me, so I had never experienced that kind of support. It was the second I found out that the team beat Libertyville that I could finally fall asleep (having no idea that they had me and my lungs in mind as they did).

Again, another “testing time,” and another identity-building experience.

These moments sprinkled through my high school career and I never fully understood what to pull from them, and then it all came together just recently.

For the first time in their resonant journey alongside my high school career, Pearl Jam was finally releasing a new studio album – their 11th. Like any music fan, this found me staying up past midnight on a Thursday night, ready for something new to celebrate and latch onto. 

The excitement wasn’t pure from a drop of reality though. I knew this was a band a full three decades into their career with a 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in their trophy case. As a fan of older bands, I never expect newer albums that are individually impactful beyond the basic “it’s fun to hear some new music from that classic group of musicians.”

March 27th’s Gigaton, however, was quite the exception I was waiting for my whole life – and it was from my favorite band ever? Quite the amazing treat. It makes me emotional just thinking about it.

The record tested its audience with fresh music that I could go on and on about, but what took more importance was their continued pursuit of personally connecting with the spirits of those who listened. Still resonant, still responsive, and still much more than a band – all a distant thirty years after they first achieved that initiative.

Just a few hours later, I had found out that my long road that I had pursued all four years of high school was coming to a climactic finish on that same day. The album doubled as a perfect congratulatory present for my college decision. Even more cool, the album released four years to the week of my discovery of the band through that first listen to “Alive.” Wow.

As I marveled at the way timing worked out, THAT was when my answer to the crucial question all came together:

It’s no secret that high school is a crazy, stressful experience that you’ll get thrown into. You’ll get quite impatient before you get thrown out of it, but you also get the purely beautiful process of learning who you actually are as a person. You cannot forget to step back and appreciate that, and that refreshing appreciation comes easier while the experience has been taken away from us in many respects.

As we live through our own “testing time” of unprecedented proportions as a global community in the wake of COVID-19, we have to remember this to stay positive and grateful. We could be living our lives to the fullest right now, I could be attending my second Pearl Jam show in St. Louis on this very day I am writing this, and instead we’re isolated.

It’s a wild time to be a senior.

But we’re isolated together, and there is a lot of identity-building we are gonna have to do when it comes to understanding ourselves and others, and you know what? That’s beautiful. This time will forever impact us no matter how we approach it, so we might as well use and radiate as much positivity as there is still alive out there. Go forward and embrace the continued construction of “who you are.”

Respectfully yours in safety and health,

Joey Goodsir

Although it wasn’t written with a global pandemic in mind, this new piece of art has become the perfect soundtrack for right now. Give it a few open-minded chances and see what you think:

(YouTube)