One of my best friends and I went through a period of communicating constantly, just about all day every day, via facebook messages. Recently he said “If you look at our messages from this time last year we are unrecognizable as people.” Dork that I am I went and looked. He was scary right. This is probably not surprising though seeing as how in the last 16 months I have ended a marriage, buried a parent and moved twice (yeah,the sentence “my life is a shitshow” ran through my head often). My theory is that you are only as bad-ass as what you’ve lived through and, that being the case, I’m now officially a BAMF.

I sat down intending to tell you about how far I’ve come this year, what that journey was like and how without said journey I never would have created this site and wouldn’t be here talking to you (all true) but then I decided that wasn’t much fun. As you may have noticed I like sharing music with you so I decided instead to submit my “journey to BAMF-dom” playlist for your perusal. Admittedly the music here doesn’t exactly scream “BAMF” but a lot of it doesn’t scream “my life is a shitshow” either and I think that’s what makes this play list work for me. It seemed a given that the last year would feature sadness but it also came with some anger, some hope, some guilt, some excitement and some need for The Who – I refuse to justify that one and, frankly, I harshly judge anyone who needs a justification for Baba O’Riley- Seriously.

Notes on the playlist:

The title:  When I lost my dad I realized he had always served as my emotional true north and without him my choice was either find someone else to turn to for my guidance, assurance and approval or learn to trust my own judgment and be my own compass. I thought I might need a reminder and we’re Italian so I got a tattoo on the inside of my wrist that reads “fidati” which, in Italian, means “trust yourself”.