Sometimes, the songs that shaped us weren’t just soundtracks… they were survival kits.

There was a time in my life when I believed in something called The Force.

Not the Star Wars kind. Not the one with lightsabers and chosen ones. Mine was quieter. Softer. The kind of Force that made me believe... maybe if I thought about her hard enough, she’d feel it. That somewhere, out there, this girl I saw once ... the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen ... would just know I was waiting.

I was early teens. I hadn’t even talked to her. But I had Richard Marx.

“Wherever you go, whatever you do… I will be right here waiting for you.”

I didn’t understand love. But I felt it. Or at least, I thought I did. That song gave me permission to believe in a kind of devotion that didn’t need to be seen. It let me hope in secret. And when you’re from a culture where emotions like that aren’t exactly dinner table topics… music becomes your secret diary. Your confessional. Your companion.

I never told anyone back then. Not about the girl. Not about the feeling. And definitely not about how that cassette played in my room on loop, like it was trying to etch loyalty into my soul. Looking back, I think that song was less about her... and more about wanting someone to choose me like that. To wait for me like that.

But then something shifted.

By the time I was settled in my teens, that quiet longing gave way to something louder. I wasn’t looking to be chosen anymore. I was trying to be heard. To be understood. That’s when I met Bon Jovi.

Wanted Dead or Alive. Moscow. 1989. On TV.

I was sitting with my parents, watching live a concert that felt like the whole world was holding its breath ... the unthinkable, American rock bands in Moscow. And then I saw it ... that ridiculous three-neck guitar. That voice. That anthem. And just like that... I was introduced to a new emotion creeping in. I was howling on the back of a metaphorical Harley through every lonely road. But I was still in the Waiting zone.

Hormones, age, whatever you want to call the slow change. Slippery When Wet. Def Leppard. Let’s Get Rocked. Guns N' Roses. These weren’t songs anymore. They were survival kits for teenage misfits. And they didn’t whisper. They roared. Even though they had been out for a while... I finally HEARD what they were saying.

I didn’t leave Richard Marx behind out of shame. I just... outgrew the shape of that ache. Love songs were my feelings. Rock was my soul. Pop? That was my escape route. It wasn’t about trends or taste. It was just life finding its soundtrack. I wasn’t trying to survive. I just wanted to live.

Years later, during my heartbreak meltdown, I made myself a new mixtape. TLC’s I Miss You So Much. Bryan Adams’ Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman. Savage Garden’s I Don’t Know You Anymore. Richard Marx... again. As if grief had a genre, and mine was stuck somewhere in the 80s and early 90s.

Even now, I still go back. Sometimes with laughter. Sometimes with tears. Always with this weird mix of gratitude and secondhand embarrassment.

Because I still remember those long walks in the Swiss mountains, daydreaming that I was singing to someone who didn’t exist. I remember sitting in cars, staring out the window, scoring my own silent movie. And when those songs play now... they bring a flood. Not just of memories ... but of me. The kid who felt too much. The teen who wanted too loud. The man who now understands how all of it shaped him.

I smile. I cringe. And I thank God I was ever that soft.

Because even if the band got cheesy... or the lyrics didn’t age well... or the emotions felt too big for my little body...

At least I felt it.
And at least I remember.