Memory, grief and expectation.
Music can be so powerful.
Can I get an Amen?
I was just turned on to iTunes Genius. I had it make one playlist for me based on a Rough 90s sounding song by Ben Kweller. A whole lot of music like that made me kinda hyper--but the Genius concept had me hooked already. So when I was ready to get in bed I had iTunes Genius make another playlist based on Suzanne by Leonard Cohen. I lay in bed, and oh, wow. How could I possibly sleep?I was transported through places I used to live and back into the people I used to be.
I was in my backyard garden two summers ago picking basil and enjoying my late cat, Hobbs.
I was lying on the floor of the Middleburg farmhouse surrounded by friends in awe and awkwardness.
I was up in a tree in a forest preserve the fall of my senior year of high school, decidedly having no friends because mine had gone sour and it seemed too late to invest in making new ones, a college already picked out for next year.
I was in a bathtub my Junior year of high school with two other friends from my American Short Stories class in bathing suits, burning insense and talking about smoking pot, although none of us had.
I was sitting in the Humble Bean at a table by the windows/door pretending to do homework but really just soaking in sun through the glass, admiring the snowy landscape and daydreaming.
I was riding my bike through the rain across Dordt's campus on a Saturday morning before anyone else was really about and about yet.
I was riding down a gravel road in a huge van full of friends my first semester of college, trying to understand how they got so cynical.
I was fighting with my Junior year roommates about food and secretly feeding them things from the dumpster.
I was trying to make it through a lonely Christmas break away from all my college friends, sad about my family.
I was spending my summer free time at the Library in my home town, checking out books then lying in the park reading them under trees.
I was walking down the streets of Roger's Park, Chicago, my last semester of High School trying to convince my brothers best friend I really liked him just as a friend and that I didn't want to date him.
I was directing a ridiculous One Act Play in the New World Theatre, praying and laughing and being sleep deprived with my cast.
I was driving down a snowy street in Lake Park, Iowa drinking Coca-Cola from the gas station with the man I had decided to marry.
Robert Taylor once told me (maybe it was the whole RA staff that year) that while marriage is a great and wonderful thing, you also are giving up that single person you were and the life you used to have. Therefore, even at the start of the very best and strongest marriages, you may go through a period of grief over the separation of your single self and all you were in the past.
I guess I don't think about it very often, but in this event of music bringing it all back, I realize that there was a lot I went through (good, bad, ugly, blood, sweat and tears) to get to this point-the point of getting married quite soon. For all the time I spent in all those adolescent and very young adult years looking forward to this time in my life, there is almost a grief in the wait, the expectation, the longing and pining almost being over. Because that is a core part of who I've been and it's about to be no more. It is like a old woman dying and a new baby girl being born on the same day--just in the sense that there is both bliss and mourning rolled into one scary yet electrifying moment in life.
Well, I guess I'll see what feelings actually happen when my wedding day arrives. (146 days to go...er...not that I'm counting or anything) And I may or may not mentally go though the same thing while going to other people's weddings in the near future. (There are so many people I know also getting married this year--more than I have known in any years prior--I almost feel unoriginal for it.)
Wow, I really should go to bed--this time with no music playing.
Can I get an Amen?
I was just turned on to iTunes Genius. I had it make one playlist for me based on a Rough 90s sounding song by Ben Kweller. A whole lot of music like that made me kinda hyper--but the Genius concept had me hooked already. So when I was ready to get in bed I had iTunes Genius make another playlist based on Suzanne by Leonard Cohen. I lay in bed, and oh, wow. How could I possibly sleep?I was transported through places I used to live and back into the people I used to be.
I was in my backyard garden two summers ago picking basil and enjoying my late cat, Hobbs.
I was lying on the floor of the Middleburg farmhouse surrounded by friends in awe and awkwardness.
I was up in a tree in a forest preserve the fall of my senior year of high school, decidedly having no friends because mine had gone sour and it seemed too late to invest in making new ones, a college already picked out for next year.
I was in a bathtub my Junior year of high school with two other friends from my American Short Stories class in bathing suits, burning insense and talking about smoking pot, although none of us had.
I was sitting in the Humble Bean at a table by the windows/door pretending to do homework but really just soaking in sun through the glass, admiring the snowy landscape and daydreaming.
I was riding my bike through the rain across Dordt's campus on a Saturday morning before anyone else was really about and about yet.
I was riding down a gravel road in a huge van full of friends my first semester of college, trying to understand how they got so cynical.
I was fighting with my Junior year roommates about food and secretly feeding them things from the dumpster.
I was trying to make it through a lonely Christmas break away from all my college friends, sad about my family.
I was spending my summer free time at the Library in my home town, checking out books then lying in the park reading them under trees.
I was walking down the streets of Roger's Park, Chicago, my last semester of High School trying to convince my brothers best friend I really liked him just as a friend and that I didn't want to date him.
I was directing a ridiculous One Act Play in the New World Theatre, praying and laughing and being sleep deprived with my cast.
I was driving down a snowy street in Lake Park, Iowa drinking Coca-Cola from the gas station with the man I had decided to marry.
Robert Taylor once told me (maybe it was the whole RA staff that year) that while marriage is a great and wonderful thing, you also are giving up that single person you were and the life you used to have. Therefore, even at the start of the very best and strongest marriages, you may go through a period of grief over the separation of your single self and all you were in the past.
I guess I don't think about it very often, but in this event of music bringing it all back, I realize that there was a lot I went through (good, bad, ugly, blood, sweat and tears) to get to this point-the point of getting married quite soon. For all the time I spent in all those adolescent and very young adult years looking forward to this time in my life, there is almost a grief in the wait, the expectation, the longing and pining almost being over. Because that is a core part of who I've been and it's about to be no more. It is like a old woman dying and a new baby girl being born on the same day--just in the sense that there is both bliss and mourning rolled into one scary yet electrifying moment in life.
Well, I guess I'll see what feelings actually happen when my wedding day arrives. (146 days to go...er...not that I'm counting or anything) And I may or may not mentally go though the same thing while going to other people's weddings in the near future. (There are so many people I know also getting married this year--more than I have known in any years prior--I almost feel unoriginal for it.)
Wow, I really should go to bed--this time with no music playing.