The Dar Williams song “Mercy of the Fallen” makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry because in that song it is too palpitably Summer 2004. I hear that song and I’m driving up Glen Ave and it’s dark, and there’s an Iced Skim Caramel Machiatto in my cup holder, because I stopped by work that evening, because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I was sitting on my roof (my new favorite place) and that song came on over my shuffle and I wanted to throw my laptop off the roof.
Then I put on JBJ’s “Welcome to Whereever you Are” and it’s October of 2005 on the promenade in JC, where I was feeling pretty much the way I am now. Sitting on a bench, looking across the river. I still look across the river now, it’s just from the other side.
It’s growing pains. That’s what it is; or has to be. I was pretty firmly entrenched in growing up, but then I had to be all intellectual and go off to grad school and now I have to start over. There’s this expression in the last of the Jessica Darling books about how NYC lets you NOT grow up because instead of cooking, you get take-out, and instead of doing laundry, you can send it out, and you can take a cab if you get too drunk, and you never buy, you rent, etc, etc and despite the fact that its chick-lit its some pretty accurate truth.
Michael called me this morning and we talked about this phenomenon of impatience and frustration and waiting. Michael will occasiaonally frustrate me due to his inherent optimism/faith etc, but lately, he’s been my rock. I tell him things I can’t imagine telling anyone else. Despite the fact that we have seen each other IRL a small number of times since I transferred out of Hampshire we have apparently had a big influence on each other.
A Dashboard Confessional song comes on. It’s April 2004 and I’m floundering. I just dumped my boyfriend. I’m trying to find love with my crush of 2 years who is suddenly interested in hooking up with me. I am being profoundly stupid, generally, and getting my heart broken because seriously Rachel, hooking up with no strings is what people DO in college, and HWSNBN never indicated anything but.
So there are a lot of songs that there to remind of stupidity, and sadness, and ickiness and blah. And when I’m missing a piece I can always go to iTunes and download. Curse and bless technology!
Right now, I hope I’m just having the problem Michael diagnosed: that I’m in a weird place in the growing up process and nothing is settled and that’s why I’m all on edge and nonsense.
But then, it’s 6:30 on a Saturday, and I should be getting ready to go out or whatever, but instead I’m wearing a hoody and underwear, and I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even have an appetite. And all I’m going to do is maybe have some crackers and watch TV.
