Remember.
A year from now, we'll all be gone;
all our friends will move away,
and they're going to better places.
but our friends will be gone away.
Writing to remember. Because if I don't write things down, I forget them.
Remember that moment years ago when you blurted out, 'Guys, I feel like we're in Rent, except none of us have AIDS.' Remember what led you to say that. Remember that feeling of belonging to a quasi-family of self-considered Bright Young Things, all dreaming of futures that may never come to pass, but putting a brave face on it anyway.
Remember this afternoon, leaning against the door of your car with the GPS already fired up and pointing you south, to home, but is it home? You've lived there for a year, but is it really a place to come home in your head and in your heart? And this place, this place that feels so familiar it's as though you never left, is that home either? Maybe home's not a place, but people. (Mama once told me you're already home where you feel loved. I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind.) In that case, perhaps within a few short years it will cease to be home to anything except the ghosts of memories, just like those classroom wings that have long been torn to rubble and rebuilt into something alien.
Remember that other moment years ago when he told you how fortunate you were to have discovered what you loved to do, and already started doing it. Back then, he was still looking. The future seemed bright, but indistinct.
Back again to this afternoon, you were gazing up at the sky, trying to find reasons to put it off for as long as possible. You're in the future now, and it looks quite a bit bleaker than you had hoped. His is still ahead of him, but it's no longer gauzy and distant but roaring up upon him like a wave crashing to shore. He's found what he wants to do, but now's the time to begin. He doesn't air his feelings in public or wear his emotions on his face like you do (shameless as you are), but he says he's terrified even as he's completely confident it'll all work out, because he's used to wandering.
Most everyone has headed in different directions now; you're one of the handful that went somewhere else; many have stayed but fallen out of touch with one another. You all used to be a family, a family that chose one another. Now, not so much. No, you won't be a family again, save for a few people whom you'll always hold close. Well, that's what you thought about some in the past. It gets easier over time to let go of the need to be a part of a defined group, of an ad-hoc family. Maybe because you're one of the ones who went away. But to let go of people? Maybe that shouldn't get easier to accept. You don't want to accept it.
Nothing is as it has been,
and I miss your face like hell.
And I guess it's just as well,
but I miss your face like hell.
Two nights ago you left him a voicemail that shook him. You could tell from his tone of voice. It may well have shown him more of your brain's unsightly mechanics than you'd intended. But he said he was glad you called, disturbing or not, because that was preferable to the alternative. You made him promise he'd do the same if he ever got himself in that kind of trouble. You pinky-swore on it. Is that what family does? It used to be called nakama until someone in the forums pointed out that that's not quite the right translation; the preferred term is now True Companions.
Such people and such bonds do exist. Are you capable of maintaining them? You were trying not to ask yourself that as you stared up at the sky, at a future that may or may not be there, until he finally said that this isn't goodbye.
Been talking 'bout the way things change -
and my family lives in a different state.
If you don't know what to make of it,
then we will not relate.
So if you don't know what to make of it,
then we will not relate.
all our friends will move away,
and they're going to better places.
but our friends will be gone away.
Writing to remember. Because if I don't write things down, I forget them.
Remember that moment years ago when you blurted out, 'Guys, I feel like we're in Rent, except none of us have AIDS.' Remember what led you to say that. Remember that feeling of belonging to a quasi-family of self-considered Bright Young Things, all dreaming of futures that may never come to pass, but putting a brave face on it anyway.
Remember this afternoon, leaning against the door of your car with the GPS already fired up and pointing you south, to home, but is it home? You've lived there for a year, but is it really a place to come home in your head and in your heart? And this place, this place that feels so familiar it's as though you never left, is that home either? Maybe home's not a place, but people. (Mama once told me you're already home where you feel loved. I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind.) In that case, perhaps within a few short years it will cease to be home to anything except the ghosts of memories, just like those classroom wings that have long been torn to rubble and rebuilt into something alien.
Remember that other moment years ago when he told you how fortunate you were to have discovered what you loved to do, and already started doing it. Back then, he was still looking. The future seemed bright, but indistinct.
Back again to this afternoon, you were gazing up at the sky, trying to find reasons to put it off for as long as possible. You're in the future now, and it looks quite a bit bleaker than you had hoped. His is still ahead of him, but it's no longer gauzy and distant but roaring up upon him like a wave crashing to shore. He's found what he wants to do, but now's the time to begin. He doesn't air his feelings in public or wear his emotions on his face like you do (shameless as you are), but he says he's terrified even as he's completely confident it'll all work out, because he's used to wandering.
Most everyone has headed in different directions now; you're one of the handful that went somewhere else; many have stayed but fallen out of touch with one another. You all used to be a family, a family that chose one another. Now, not so much. No, you won't be a family again, save for a few people whom you'll always hold close. Well, that's what you thought about some in the past. It gets easier over time to let go of the need to be a part of a defined group, of an ad-hoc family. Maybe because you're one of the ones who went away. But to let go of people? Maybe that shouldn't get easier to accept. You don't want to accept it.
Nothing is as it has been,
and I miss your face like hell.
And I guess it's just as well,
but I miss your face like hell.
Two nights ago you left him a voicemail that shook him. You could tell from his tone of voice. It may well have shown him more of your brain's unsightly mechanics than you'd intended. But he said he was glad you called, disturbing or not, because that was preferable to the alternative. You made him promise he'd do the same if he ever got himself in that kind of trouble. You pinky-swore on it. Is that what family does? It used to be called nakama until someone in the forums pointed out that that's not quite the right translation; the preferred term is now True Companions.
Such people and such bonds do exist. Are you capable of maintaining them? You were trying not to ask yourself that as you stared up at the sky, at a future that may or may not be there, until he finally said that this isn't goodbye.
Been talking 'bout the way things change -
and my family lives in a different state.
If you don't know what to make of it,
then we will not relate.
So if you don't know what to make of it,
then we will not relate.