So weird to be back here.
It's been 734 days. For those of you not inclined to do the math (which I had to do on paper), that's two years and four days.
A lot has happened in two years, which should be expected, I suppose. A lot of it has been bad. Some of it has been exceptionally bad. But the good is somehow better. That's obvious, somehow. That's something that all people grow up knowing. Good things always outweigh bad things. It goes without saying. But, and perhaps only to justify something really stupid that I once said, I think I've developed a principle. Sometimes, the entirely intrinsic things need saying. Those things that we know so well that we don't always remember we know them? Yeah. Sometimes we need reminding. I call it the, "It would be worse to fail that test than to pass it" principle. The good was better than the bad. It's the nature of good.
Yesterday I got so scared I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you, it froze me deep inside
I don't recommend feuding with a best friend. I've tried it. Take my word. Hating someone who is a part of you, and that person hating you just as bitterly, it tears you apart. It leaves you empty, cold and hesitant.
Crosses flying high above the malls
Along the walk
Through Jesusland
President George W. Bush was reelected. I wasn't shocked, but I was saddened. It had been a horrible summer. I was glad to be back at school, even if it presented new and exceedingly painful social challenges. The election was a brushing point. Our lives touched again, briefly. Personal differences are easily set aside when the country you live in is going to hell via handbasket. At least for a time. But like I said, the election wasn't shocking. It was just sad, and that wore off quickly. The numbness was definitely wearing off, though. It was replaced largely with blind rage. Progress, right?
It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same things
Rage is exhausting, and can only be sustained so long before it drains you of most of your will to live. Once you recover from that, you can actually move on. Even though some things seem lost forever, and bridges may seem burned beyond repair, you might find a place to ford the river at the very least. And that wins bad analogy of the day. But seriously, a lot of feelings were hurt. Despite that, a civil, sometimes cordial and at rare shining moments even sympathetic relationship can exist. Especially when you're so inexplicably linked.
Often sara would have spells where she lost time
She saw the future, she heard voices from inside
There are times when no matter how hard you try, you can't shake a feeling. I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that if you can't forget or ignore something, no matter how hard you try, it's for a reason. If you spend a year and a half thinking that you were robbed of a proper ending, that things were cut short, that it wasn't over when it seemed to be over, you might just be right. Or you might be crazy. It's a fine line. Cling to your convictions, is all I'm saying.
And there will always be a part of me
Nobody else is ever going to see but you and me
No explication required.
and you're hanging on,
you're hanging on
If you haven't noticed by now just how horribly taken out of context these quotes are for narrative purposes, please notice now. Some things, it turns out, are incredibly worth hanging on to, even if you're just clinging to some tiny little thread way back in the back of your heart, so deeply buried that if you even contemplated it for a second, the thread would snap. Sometimes you hang on because it's the only completely natural thing to do.
Pat and I just watched the Ben Folds rerun of ACL. It nicely set off a long chapter of our lives in beautifully composed musical brackets. It was fitting. It was just. It was the appropriate.
It is weird to be back here. It's weird to be thinking the same thoughts. It's fantastically strange to be so compatible with someone. We're not the same. We're scarred. We're a little wary. We're not always nice. But we're together again in a way that I missed more desperately than I think I ever realized.
The ACL set ended with "Not the Same." We'd been wiping away tears since the set kicked off, and Pat said, "At least this one doesn't make you cry." I scoffed and cried. Ben's music is beautiful, and it has made me cry on more occasions than I care to recall for you. But I was crying for us. I was crying because I could close my eyes during "Gracie" and see Ben on a stage at Centre College, Pat beside me in a sea of people, the second crowd in the world to hear that song. I cried because "Zak and Sara" wasn't our song before. I cried because of all the meaning I've packed into all of those words simply because Ben is so bound in this thing that Pat and I have, and that we didn't have once. I cried because when we didn't have it, I couldn't listen to Ben. And then, when all that damnable history wasn't enough to cry over, the sheer awe I have for Ben was.
It is weird. It is beautiful and weird and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Also, the lyrics are all from Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five songs. In order of appearance, the songs are: In Between Days, Jesusland, Still Fighting It, Zak and Sara, Gracie, Not the Same. All lyrics are the copyrighted properties of their respective artists and publishing company, and are being used for educational purposes only. Blah blah legalcakes.
A lot has happened in two years, which should be expected, I suppose. A lot of it has been bad. Some of it has been exceptionally bad. But the good is somehow better. That's obvious, somehow. That's something that all people grow up knowing. Good things always outweigh bad things. It goes without saying. But, and perhaps only to justify something really stupid that I once said, I think I've developed a principle. Sometimes, the entirely intrinsic things need saying. Those things that we know so well that we don't always remember we know them? Yeah. Sometimes we need reminding. I call it the, "It would be worse to fail that test than to pass it" principle. The good was better than the bad. It's the nature of good.
Yesterday I got so scared I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you, it froze me deep inside
I don't recommend feuding with a best friend. I've tried it. Take my word. Hating someone who is a part of you, and that person hating you just as bitterly, it tears you apart. It leaves you empty, cold and hesitant.
Crosses flying high above the malls
Along the walk
Through Jesusland
President George W. Bush was reelected. I wasn't shocked, but I was saddened. It had been a horrible summer. I was glad to be back at school, even if it presented new and exceedingly painful social challenges. The election was a brushing point. Our lives touched again, briefly. Personal differences are easily set aside when the country you live in is going to hell via handbasket. At least for a time. But like I said, the election wasn't shocking. It was just sad, and that wore off quickly. The numbness was definitely wearing off, though. It was replaced largely with blind rage. Progress, right?
It was pain
Sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same things
Rage is exhausting, and can only be sustained so long before it drains you of most of your will to live. Once you recover from that, you can actually move on. Even though some things seem lost forever, and bridges may seem burned beyond repair, you might find a place to ford the river at the very least. And that wins bad analogy of the day. But seriously, a lot of feelings were hurt. Despite that, a civil, sometimes cordial and at rare shining moments even sympathetic relationship can exist. Especially when you're so inexplicably linked.
Often sara would have spells where she lost time
She saw the future, she heard voices from inside
There are times when no matter how hard you try, you can't shake a feeling. I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that if you can't forget or ignore something, no matter how hard you try, it's for a reason. If you spend a year and a half thinking that you were robbed of a proper ending, that things were cut short, that it wasn't over when it seemed to be over, you might just be right. Or you might be crazy. It's a fine line. Cling to your convictions, is all I'm saying.
And there will always be a part of me
Nobody else is ever going to see but you and me
No explication required.
and you're hanging on,
you're hanging on
If you haven't noticed by now just how horribly taken out of context these quotes are for narrative purposes, please notice now. Some things, it turns out, are incredibly worth hanging on to, even if you're just clinging to some tiny little thread way back in the back of your heart, so deeply buried that if you even contemplated it for a second, the thread would snap. Sometimes you hang on because it's the only completely natural thing to do.
Pat and I just watched the Ben Folds rerun of ACL. It nicely set off a long chapter of our lives in beautifully composed musical brackets. It was fitting. It was just. It was the appropriate.
It is weird to be back here. It's weird to be thinking the same thoughts. It's fantastically strange to be so compatible with someone. We're not the same. We're scarred. We're a little wary. We're not always nice. But we're together again in a way that I missed more desperately than I think I ever realized.
The ACL set ended with "Not the Same." We'd been wiping away tears since the set kicked off, and Pat said, "At least this one doesn't make you cry." I scoffed and cried. Ben's music is beautiful, and it has made me cry on more occasions than I care to recall for you. But I was crying for us. I was crying because I could close my eyes during "Gracie" and see Ben on a stage at Centre College, Pat beside me in a sea of people, the second crowd in the world to hear that song. I cried because "Zak and Sara" wasn't our song before. I cried because of all the meaning I've packed into all of those words simply because Ben is so bound in this thing that Pat and I have, and that we didn't have once. I cried because when we didn't have it, I couldn't listen to Ben. And then, when all that damnable history wasn't enough to cry over, the sheer awe I have for Ben was.
It is weird. It is beautiful and weird and I wouldn't change it for the world.
Also, the lyrics are all from Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five songs. In order of appearance, the songs are: In Between Days, Jesusland, Still Fighting It, Zak and Sara, Gracie, Not the Same. All lyrics are the copyrighted properties of their respective artists and publishing company, and are being used for educational purposes only. Blah blah legalcakes.