Always a Killer Queen

By MARINA TRAHAN MARTINEZ

Google’s recent selection to honor what would have been Farookh Bulsara’s 65^th birthday made me scramble to my iPhone for a marathon of the ol’ Parsi’s English hits.

I was shot immediately back to my adolescence and early adulthood, when I formed my adoration for what remains my favorite band of all time.

While screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs in my SUV to pick up the kids from carpool the pathetic introspection descended -- how and when did I go from a Killer Queen to a Fat Bottomed Girl for Lord’s sake?

I looked down at my backlit playlist and wondered if the song titles were written as the prequel outline for my life.

What I thought was my unique existence easily read like a greatest hits album.

Drifting through a Bohemian Rhapsody as a teenager, I wanted Somebody to Love. Shortly thereafter I had my first child.

It’s A Hard Life and I quickly learned Friends Will Be Friends as I wandered through high school, then college, mostly alone, but the most important ones were still there when I was through with life and all hope was lost.

My Best Friend and roommate spent rent money for our shanty apartment instead on my Christmas present, Queen’s Greatest Hits compilation, using her sweet Barnes and Noble employee discount.

I jumped Headlong into getting my bachelor’s degree. I Wanted It All and I was armed to Play The Game.

Steeling for my One Vision to Breakthru in journalism, no one could Stop Me Now.

But life had other plans. I had just turned 21 when A Kind of Magic led me to experience a Crazy Little Thing Called Love with a Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy who happened to show up in time to Save Me from a misguided focus on all work, all the time.

One thing led to another and together we created The Miracle (well, three of them) who now make me Want to Break Free -- constantly Under Pressure of ballet, soccer, gymnastics, girl scouts, baseball, basketball, choir and volunteer shifts. Our oldest, now a senior in high school, can bang her head in the car with me to the Radio GA GA (not the ‘lady.’)

Thankfully that angel of a musician gifted us his repertoire to keep me from Going Slightly Mad.

Now I’m Here, I’ve got mortgages and homes; I’ve got stiffness in the bones, but We Are The Champions -- the ones who lead the next game-changers.

I can’t give up and I can’t look back or wish away the day. I’m obligated to teach my family the terror of knowing what this world is about, not to turn away like a blind man. That you can’t sit on the fence. I’m proud to show them love dares you to care for people on the streets.

We live, we grow, we teach -- like Farookh Bulsara became Freddie Mercury so he could Rock You, Marina Martinez became Mommy Trahan to ensure The Show Must Go On.