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Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
i hate winnepeg
I've recently rekindled a friendship with an ex-boyfriend. He was a very big part of my life for about four years, he was my everything. He was with me through many firsts, through most of college and was my best friend through ups and downs and everything in between.
When things dissolved between us, as things eventually do with high school to college romances, there was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. I had a new guy, a new life and a new perspective, but I missed him. When we were both finally to a point where our friendship could resume, I think both of us felt that troublesome void finally ebb, finally feel a little less empty. He's my friend again, and I'm so very glad he's in my life.
But this isn't really about him specifically, well it is, but isn't at the same time. You see, he was always really into music. Always providing me with new material for my auditory discoveries. He's since changed a little, as we all do, and the relationship is a little reversed now. He taught me to love music, to want to hear more, to find more that I loved -- never question, just enjoy.
But a few weeks ago, he gave me the name of a song, One Great City! by a band called the Weakerthans. I pulled up YouTube to listen, and I was surprised when I knew the song. I'd heard it before. Another guy, one not too long ago, had played it for me on his guitar. I'd lay there on his couch listening, quietly smiling at how cute he was, and how odd the lyrics were. The song was one I hadn't known, and I had asked who it was by, fully intending to look it up when I'd left and gone back to my other life, hundreds of miles away from him.
As I sat at my computer, all of a sudden my worlds collided, and I realized in that moment, listening to this beautifully written song about the monotony of life and the artful grace in its quirks, that everything is connected. That no matter how much I like to think I know myself, things like this moment throw me for a loop. I realized that everything builds on everything else, that as much control as I think I have -- there's another factor. These men were connected, not only through a love of this song, (I've always had a "type," and sometimes it's more obvious than others...) but through me and who I am.
I've always been one to believe that every person who comes into your life leaves a mark and changes you. It may not be a profound change, but it's there.
It amazes me how music, like smells, are incredible memory triggers. Even now as I write this, I'm listening to this song, singing along to its lyrics about a grungy city in Canada, I'm transported briefly to his couch in Massachusetts, then memories start to mingle, I'm in Iowa, in the car surrounded by snow. In the field under the tree...
When things dissolved between us, as things eventually do with high school to college romances, there was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. I had a new guy, a new life and a new perspective, but I missed him. When we were both finally to a point where our friendship could resume, I think both of us felt that troublesome void finally ebb, finally feel a little less empty. He's my friend again, and I'm so very glad he's in my life.
But this isn't really about him specifically, well it is, but isn't at the same time. You see, he was always really into music. Always providing me with new material for my auditory discoveries. He's since changed a little, as we all do, and the relationship is a little reversed now. He taught me to love music, to want to hear more, to find more that I loved -- never question, just enjoy.
But a few weeks ago, he gave me the name of a song, One Great City! by a band called the Weakerthans. I pulled up YouTube to listen, and I was surprised when I knew the song. I'd heard it before. Another guy, one not too long ago, had played it for me on his guitar. I'd lay there on his couch listening, quietly smiling at how cute he was, and how odd the lyrics were. The song was one I hadn't known, and I had asked who it was by, fully intending to look it up when I'd left and gone back to my other life, hundreds of miles away from him.
As I sat at my computer, all of a sudden my worlds collided, and I realized in that moment, listening to this beautifully written song about the monotony of life and the artful grace in its quirks, that everything is connected. That no matter how much I like to think I know myself, things like this moment throw me for a loop. I realized that everything builds on everything else, that as much control as I think I have -- there's another factor. These men were connected, not only through a love of this song, (I've always had a "type," and sometimes it's more obvious than others...) but through me and who I am.
I've always been one to believe that every person who comes into your life leaves a mark and changes you. It may not be a profound change, but it's there.
It amazes me how music, like smells, are incredible memory triggers. Even now as I write this, I'm listening to this song, singing along to its lyrics about a grungy city in Canada, I'm transported briefly to his couch in Massachusetts, then memories start to mingle, I'm in Iowa, in the car surrounded by snow. In the field under the tree...
Friday, October 3, 2008
looking back
I was reading one of my friend Bryan's blog entries today, it's about memory and change. And it got me thinking about how different my life is from a year ago. So much has changed, so much growth. It got me thinking about the fluidity of life, and whether or not this supposedly linear idea of time is truly true at all.
Bryan's blog entry (I suggest you read his blog in its entirety, because it's awesome) was about memories from a year ago, it was about change and love and how we remember things. Perhaps it's because I'm in phase of life where things are about to change big time, but I've been thinking a lot about people, relationships and life in general a lot lately.
At this time last year, to the day, my grandmother died. That feels like a lifetime ago, but I still remember details of my brother and I walking out of the wake, him ready to be in tears, but already at 13 unable to shed them because he wanted to be a man for Mama. I still remember talking to Nick on the phone, crying and feeling like he didn't understand, and holding my cousin Elsie, 2 years old at the time, and wanting to cry for her because she will never know our perfect grandmother. Perhaps sadness is something we try to distance ourselves from more because it's so painful, but I haven't thought of these memories for a whole year. I've put them away because they're sad, because even as I write them I start to cry.
I wrote a while ago that I don't like to relive the bad, that I hang on to it but choose not to revisit those things that bring back anger, frustration and bitterness. But as I dig back into the memories of Grandma's death, I realized that there's a lot of catharsis in coming back to things that hurt. There's a lot of wisdom in perspective. So maybe it's not so bad after all.
A year later, my life has taken a few turns. I've had a few guys, a few big decisions and a new direction for my career goals.
Most people measure a year from January to January, but why not measure from October to October? Or big decision to big decision? This year has been a year of change for me, and a year of learning to trust myself and take for myself what I want. I've always thought of myself as one who only likes to move forward, but more and more I'm starting to see that looking backward has it's importance too.
Bryan's blog entry (I suggest you read his blog in its entirety, because it's awesome) was about memories from a year ago, it was about change and love and how we remember things. Perhaps it's because I'm in phase of life where things are about to change big time, but I've been thinking a lot about people, relationships and life in general a lot lately.
At this time last year, to the day, my grandmother died. That feels like a lifetime ago, but I still remember details of my brother and I walking out of the wake, him ready to be in tears, but already at 13 unable to shed them because he wanted to be a man for Mama. I still remember talking to Nick on the phone, crying and feeling like he didn't understand, and holding my cousin Elsie, 2 years old at the time, and wanting to cry for her because she will never know our perfect grandmother. Perhaps sadness is something we try to distance ourselves from more because it's so painful, but I haven't thought of these memories for a whole year. I've put them away because they're sad, because even as I write them I start to cry.
I wrote a while ago that I don't like to relive the bad, that I hang on to it but choose not to revisit those things that bring back anger, frustration and bitterness. But as I dig back into the memories of Grandma's death, I realized that there's a lot of catharsis in coming back to things that hurt. There's a lot of wisdom in perspective. So maybe it's not so bad after all.
A year later, my life has taken a few turns. I've had a few guys, a few big decisions and a new direction for my career goals.
Most people measure a year from January to January, but why not measure from October to October? Or big decision to big decision? This year has been a year of change for me, and a year of learning to trust myself and take for myself what I want. I've always thought of myself as one who only likes to move forward, but more and more I'm starting to see that looking backward has it's importance too.
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