Jeanette Wall, founder of The Miscreant and Miscreant Records, talks about her complicated relationship with the band Aerosmith.

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” —Kurt Vonnegut

My mom and I were driving, sometime around the summer of 2001, and Steven Tyler was snarling at me through the radio. “What does that word mean?” I asked. “It means you’re bored, and you’ve had too much experience to be enchanted by anything anymore,” my mom answered, presumably amused by the fact that today’s vocabulary lesson was brought to you by those bad boys from Boston. “Oh, well, am I, uh, jaded?” I remember asking this question at the tender age of nine, maybe ten, and already whole-heartedly scared of becoming weary and weathered. I was suddenly stricken with the all-encompassing fear of losing the ability to feel. Could it be so easy to misplace your innocence? Youthful leaders in life lessons, like the Grinch and John Lennon, teach that the more you love you give, the easier loving gets. But here, you’ve got Demon of Screamin’ himself telling you that if you dare to share your heart, it’s going to be as battered as his vocal chords. As a girl who would grow up on a regimented diet of Kelly Clarkson singles and Hugh Grant rom-coms, a Libra, a romantic, this warranted a code red line of defense. I could not end up like his baby blue; I could never listen to this song again. If I was ever to avoid this bleak end, I would want to keep away from the man who was doling out embitterment like coupons for Subway footlongs.

Due to Steven Tyler’s reckless ways, Aerosmith became the first band that I swore off entirely. If “Just Push Play” was synced on a car commercial, I had the remote in hand ready to mute the TV. I could recognize the lead-in chords of nearly every chorus to their singles throughout the early and mid-2000′s. I knew one thing—I hated this band. It curdled in my blood. Their ring leader was waving scarves around, draining the will out of young women to love. I wanted no part in this charade. I never watched that Super Bowl Half Time Show. I never played Guitar Hero. I still, to this day, have not seen Armageddon. Instead, I dreamed of celebrity crushes like Oliver James and Jeremy Sumpter to the lyrics of lovelorn ladies like the Dixie Chicks, Destiny’s Child, and Vanessa Carlton. No droopy rock star was going to break me, I knew that much for sure. I followed the lead of these women; no matter how many times Michelle Branch found herself singing “Goodbye To You” at the Bronze, she’d always dust herself off and remember to “Breathe.” Steven Tyler could offer no such wisdom, only the promise of being left alone and unfulfilled.

A few years shy of a decade passed, and I had continued to harbor resentment toward Aerosmith, their lead singer, and this song. I was nearly graduated from high school, and though I had a slew of extremely tedious and uneventful teenage affairs under my belt, I remained steadfast in the face of “Jaded.” I had preserved my naivety. I could recite lines from When Harry Met Sally without missing a beat (“Pepper on my paprikash,” and so on). “The Trouble With Love” had failed to truly resonate with me. No one understood the genius of Diablo Cody’s screenwriting like I did. I was clearly winning the war against Steven Tyler.

In March of my senior year, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and was scheduled for a thyroidectomy in April. When I finally found myself on the operating table, my surgeon asked me one question. “Jeanette, which radio station shall we put you out to?” Perhaps it was the heavy dose of anesthetics, the misguided Woody Allen phase I was going through, or maybe the unfortunate phrasing of the question; but I suddenly became very afraid that whatever song was playing when I was put under could very well be the last song I ever heard.

Thyroidectomies are relatively uninvasive. Though there are your given dangers while fiddling around the trachea, the procedure is pretty routine. Nevertheless, in its wake, I was forced to answer one of the most trying questions I had been asked in seventeen years of life. What do you want the final song you ever hear to be? Z99.5 and RadioNow 100.9 would be playing any number of Black Eyed Peas singles at exactly the same time. I couldn’t possibly have “Let’s Get It Started In Here” written on my gravestone. X 103.9 would be playing Cage the Elephant if I was lucky, Shinedown if I was not. And HOT 96 FM would probably be reading the daily horoscopes for their listeners to mind. I decided that I would entrust 93.2, Indiana’s premier independent radio station with the ultimate power. Paul Mendenhall or Brad Holtz would be deciding my swan song, and I felt confident in their decision. Maybe something poetic like “New Slang,” or “Wolf Like Me,” or maybe even “Time After Time” if someone was feeling nostalgic. “WTTS would be fine,” I answered with an air of confidence mixed with unrelenting paranoia. The assisting nurse turned the station.

A couple moments of introductory promotional spots drowned out the pre surgery clatter around me. As they put the mask over my face, I braced myself for whatever singer would walk with me to the other side. “Heeeeeeeeyyyyyyy, juh-juh-jaaaadeddd,” Steven Tyler mocked me. I had spent years running away from this song, and here it was steam rolling over me at my most vulnerable moment. Disappointment poured down on me like a wave. But before I could protest, I was instructed to begin to count down from one hundred. Around about ninety-five, I let go. I was in the lion’s den. It was just me, Steve, and the darkness around us. A week after my surgery, I was out of the hospital. A week after that, I was back in school. And after another handful of days, I was sitting in front of my bathroom mirror, waiting for my prom date to pick me up. We were going to go get our pictures taken, have a nice Italian meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory, and plunge into one of the most unforgiving social affairs of my high school career, as is the promise of such lavish dances. These days are still a blur, and the only thing I could vividly remember from the day of my surgery was the parting song. I was never one to look in mirrors—something about Urban Legend had stuck with me, or perhaps I just didn’t think about how I looked that much. But my surgery had left me with a glaring scar in the shape of a frown on my chest, between my collarbones. It was red and puffy, still fresh.

My surgeon had recommended a steroid treatment to help reduce its visibility, but this was only to be done after I underwent subsequent radiation treatments to rid of any lingering the cancer cells. He told me I had to be patient with the healing process, but also had the nurse inform me of some temporary makeup solutions. I considered it at face value, and didn’t really take too much account into what it would look like. It couldn’t be that bad, right? When I realized that the scar was going to be just as severe as the doctor’s treatments had made it sound, I decided that I ought to seek out the aforementioned alternatives. I had borrowed a friend’s cover up, which I had never used before. I was unfamiliar with its application. Touching the make up applicator to my skin was harsh, as the area was still sensitive. My skin was so fair; I couldn’t find the right shade to match. In retrospect, it was all very silly—me sitting there in an 80′s prom dress, staring into a mirror, trying to make pretend like there wasn’t a thick, red mark on my chest. But I did. And it wasn’t going well. In a last ditch effort to hide away behind any sort of foundation, I went to my mother for support. She told me words that I think about anytime my hand brushes over that patch of skin below my neck. “Jeanette, this scar is beautiful—you’re beautiful. If you didn’t have it, you wouldn’t have the cancer out of your body.” And she was right; I would not be alive if I hadn’t had my thyroid removed. This scar was a sign of life. It was not something I should try to keep from the world. I had nothing to be ashamed of; in fact, I knew I should wear that scar with an unwavering sense of pride. I walked back to my bathroom, and put the make up in a drawer by some turquoise eye shadow and other beauty products that would never see the light of day again. Suddenly, I understood the bridge of the heart and the body.

It’s hard to see past moments of sorrow when the burden you carry is too heavy, when your body is has been taken over by something harmful, when your heart feels broken beyond repair. My fears of being jaded were squelched in that moment by the realization that you’re only ever as weary as your outlook on life. You can see almost any experience you weather in one of two simple ways: as a failure or a success. One of these ways leaves you disenchanted, while the other keeps you optimistic. It’s true; I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without these bumps and bruises, without the upside down frown. Be they from love or war, our scars represent triumph over any number of elements. You only become jaded when you see these scars as signs of defeat rather than signs of victory.

Whether it’s a tumor on your thyroid or Steven Tyler’s malignancy on your love life, the battles that bring you down are ultimately the wars that raise you up. The lights were about to go up, and the DJ called for everyone to return to the dance floor for one last song. My date, Anthony, and I spent the majority of the evening against the wall of the Egyptian Room. He and I were good friends. Anthony had visited me in the hospital just weeks before. I had been so pumped full of painkillers, and I apparently tried to eat a hamburger simultaneously with a grilled cheese sandwich. I was glad that he still thought me enough of a lady to accompany me to such an elegant event. We talked and made fun of the couples who saw prom as a definitive life passage. We just were there for a reason to dress up. Despite our small investment in the whole affair, it only seemed right to participate in the finale. We stepped out, light hearted and ready for anything. “Here’s a slow one to see you all off for the night,” the DJ crooned into his microphone. When I looked up at the screen to see the chosen music video to the last dance of the night, I couldn’t help but smile. The opening hum of violins with the accompanying images of outer space could only mean one thing. I may not have seen Armageddon, but I had watched enough music-centric television programming at this point to know what was amiss. The camera quickly zoomed in on one of the many dazzling signs of life on Earth, and Steven Tyler appeared on screen. It was such a sweet surrender; Anthony and I laughed aloud as we awkwardly swayed back and forth. A couple girls were crying, perchance seeing the beginning of the end in the breadth of Steven’s gaping mouth hole. All I saw was a bright future ahead. I wasn’t going to miss a thing. I was here to stay, as was the promise of true love around every corner.