#37: "Darling at 21"

I don't usually name things I own. I certainly don't personify them, and if I do, it's not normally something that comes up in regular conversation. Regardless, it's her birthday (or as close as I can remember) so I'm going to talk about it.

The year was 1996. I spent my entire summer working a construction job while home from college. I only took the gig because it paid the most of anything I could do as a generally unqualified for anything nineteen year old. I think the rate was $11 an hour -  sidebar: this is what my student workers make now, and I think that's sad but compared to the $5.25 that minimum wage was... But I digress.

I started playing guitar in high school. I started out with the worst knock off guitar ever. Impressively hard to play, it wasn't until after playing for fifteen years or so that I was really able to make that hunk sound OK. I dreamed of better instruments but knew I'd never get them. I wanted two of them at two different times of my life: while in high school I wanted a Fender Stratocaster, and while in college I wanted a Gibson SG. Once I got a job, I started saving.

I bought my Fender in the summer of 1996, which was the 50th anniversary of Fender instruments. It was the most expensive thing I'd ever purchased at that point - it was $750. I even paid for it in a few installments so the guitar shop back home wouldn't sell it to someone else. I fell in love with it the first time I played it, and for those that aren't instrumentalists it's a hard thing to describe. When something like an instrument just fits you - it's got the right shape and weight, has the right type of neck and action so it's not hard on the fingers and hands, and makes a sound that you've been hither to imagining but suddenly brought to life - it's a feeling that you don't just let pass by. You start thinking about it constantly. You think about all the ways you can get it faster. You become that crazy ex that was way too clingy and overthought everything and you just know you'll never be apart.

I played that guitar in the only band I've ever been in. I moved with that guitar so many times I can barely remember them all. It's been there for me anytime I've needed it, and waits patiently for my return. Other guitars, including an SG, have come and gone, but my Strat and I have always been together - except for that time when we weren't.

A year or so before I left RVA our house got broken in to and looted. Not totally looted, but selectively looted. I lost my Fender bass (that to this day I haven't replaced) and my Strat. My roommate lost much less expensive instruments, probably because whomever broke in thought they "looked cool." I was crushed. Not having my guitar made me so upset I ate meat for the first time in a decade. I broke things. I drank too much. I lost a part of myself.

Luckily the person that broke in sold my guitar back to a pawn shop a week or two later. I'd called the police and reported it as well as gone to all these shops with pictures and serial numbers to have them on the lookout. They sold her back for $25. If the Commonwealth of Virginia hadn't reimbursed the pawn shop for that transaction, I gladly would have. 

I've always thought of the guitar as her because that's just how I'm wired. I named her Darling. She's old enough to drink this summer. She was my first love. Happy birthday Darling, here's to many more.