It's Such A Burden To Carry 'Round, The Vestiges Of Dead Dreams, And I Don't Want To Make A Wake Out Of My Life, I Just Had To Let You Go
--"Requiem for O.M.M.2", Of Montreal
As Carly sang those lines for the second time on the way to the L.A. Weekly/Detour Music Festival this past Saturday, I couldn't help but smile. She had such enthusiasm for the lines and sang with such abandon that obviously she had some affection for the lyrics and it held some deeper meaning for her. For me, I kind of felt like Jules in Pulp Fiction. I just thought they were some cool ass words to say when one was reminescing, but I didn't really get the meaning behind them as I was hearing her sing them. To me, at that time, they were just some lines to a song I wasn't familiar with.
It wasn't until five hours later as I was taken her home later that night and the CD come around again to that song, that I started to really reflect what an insightful statement the words and phrases made and how all of it, the whole verse, could somehow relate to me.
"No, no, I didn't mind you doing that at all, Carly," I told her when she asked if I minded her smoking at the show. "If you'd done that like four or five years ago I would have totally thought less of you. But now I think I've become more accepting. I think before I was just an holier-than-thou jerk about stuff like that. You know what I mean?
"When I was with DeAnn, I was always trying to get her to stop or cut down on all these things because I was so sure my way of thinking was the 'right' way or the 'correct' way."
Carly broke her period of introspection as we were listening to the CD to join in with her take on the matter.
"Yeah, when Andrew and I were first together, he had a huge problem with it too. He was always trying to get me to cut down," she said.
"I've noticed that in all relationships there's always one person that's more open-minded, more adventurous and then there's one person who's more reserved. And it's never the guy or girl who opens up at first, it's always the guy or girl who's more open-minded who agrees to give up stuff more readily. It's like with DeAnn it bothered me so much that she drank, she smoked cigarettes and pot, that it was like a crusade for me to get her to quit all that. And then it's always this other person who's more eager to go with the flow that agrees to it because they're more accepting of change. The conservative one is always the one who imposes their will on the other one, at first."
"Exactly, he and I used to fight all the time about it, at first. But I wanted to make him happy and so I tried to do him the favor of doing what he wanted, but there were times it wasn't enough."
When I was with DeAnn I think I saw things in black-and-white terms. There was always my way and her way, and that meant to me that there was one right way and wrong way. I didn't entertain the possibility that both of us could be right for ourselves. I thought if she disagreed with me, then she was wrong. I came at the whole couple having two opinions as being a sin against nature. I actually thought when two people are in a relationship that there were certain areas they had to be of one mind. Back then I thought a couple having differing views on any topic was the exception and not the rule.
I was basically set in my ways and I would not budge.
"But then you know what eventually ends up happening or at least what happened to me, Carly?"
"What?"
"I think inevitably the more conservative person begins to loosen up because he or she has to. It just becomes too hard to be so strict all the time. He starts to come out of his shell out of necessity. The only bad part about my change was that part of the reason I loosened up was because she and I broke up."
"You're a wise man, sir," she told me after nodding her head. "Yeah, eventually Andrew loosened up too. Eventually, he started to go along more with my getting stoned and other things."
I remember every day
I began to think about the whole beginning of the conversation where I mentioned that she and I probably wouldn't have been friends for the mere fact she drank, she smoked, and she did pot. There would be no way in hell I would have been okay with it as little as five years ago. What changed? Why was I different? Those are the questions I started to hear in my head.
Was it her? Carly is a great person, full of more insight than she lays claim to and possessing an honesty I haven't found in too many people. Yet I don't think she's ever been this life-changing personality who elicits change in the people around her.
It had to be me. Something about me had to be different.
Then I realized what it was. Up until just about when I met her, I had been around the same group of people I've always had in my life so I never thought my attitude on vices had changed. Sure, I'd started drinking some in the last few years before I met her, but it was still something that I never thought I would get full-swing into. But when I met her, I started to see her as a new element in my life that I never had before, somebody who spoke about a life that I could have had when I was younger.
Here was an individual who, despite all these supposedly "bad" habits, still managed to become a decent, intelligent, funny, and compassionate person. They hadn't ruined her, just as they probably wouldn't have ruined me if I'd just been more open to trying out things, jumping in feet-first rather than wading into things like I usually did.
All my life I'd been afraid of being ruined by the evils of alcohol or smoking or drugs, when, in reality, it may have been the being afraid that was my ruin. People like DeAnn and others, who I felt so superior towards because I was able to remain chaste in the prescence of temptation, were strewn as casualties along the road to my moral highground. I'd missed out on so many great moments and great opportunities because I was too stubborn to think that what a person did in his or her friend didn't necessarily make them any more or less worthy of knowing. I'd made a shambles out of my personal network because I was too pig-headed to see past a person's lifestyle to his or her character.
This past Saturday was a blast. I had my beer. Carly had her smokes. And we listened to some great music. Not once did I feel the need to think less of her because she was pulling out her pipe every other hour. Not once did I wish to tell her she should stop. She was a person I liked. She was a person who was my friend. That's all I needed to know.
On the ride home with her I began to see my life before as some trip that had gone horribly awry. I don't know if DeAnn and I would have worked out had I been more accepting of who she was and what she liked, but I certainly think that we would have gotten along better and all of it wouldn't have ended as terribly as it did. I started to see that maybe, just maybe, Carly is my second chance at being the kind of person I would be proud to know, somebody who doesn't judge people on one or two aspects of their life, but instead judges them as a whole.
I mean--I think that's what she does with me and other. I'm sure I've told her a hundred anecdotes, incidents, and assorted stories that eighty percent of the population would think I've went too far or what I did was less than a decent person would do. But she's never once held my history or my personality against me. Maybe that's what makes it easier for me to do the same. She may be younger than me, but I think she's figured out at her age what it's taken me all these extra years to come to grips with.
If you want your life to be better, you have to let go of what you expect it to be. You have to let go of how you think everyone should act and everything should work. If you want your life to be better, you just have to let it be better.
Letting go of worry is a big step for me. I'm a fretter by nature. Before, I always used to worry about the friends I hung out with, the girls I dated, when I would see them again. With DeAnn it became an obsession to make sure we made plans for the next time we went out, that the next few weeks were all mapped out and to make sure that all her free time was monopolized by me.
I know I've changed in that regard too because, for the most part, I see Carly like once every five months or so. Most of the time it's spur-of-the-moment plans and most of the time we never leave with any idea when the next time we might see each other might be. Also, there is an inherent time limit on how long we remain friends because by next year she'll probably be moved away to college and there's a good chance I might never hang out with her again after that.
Instead of fretting that, though, I'm just happy when I do see her. She's always a delight when I'm around her and she makes every conversation interesting. If I only know her seven more months, I think it will have been seven months well spent. It will be sad to let her go, but I think it would be sadder if I still had it in my head that I need to keep my friends as tight to me as possible, smothering them in my attention. I stopped worrying about if she and I are going to be friends a long time and I've decided just to be okay that we're friends now. That's what's important.
memories don't go away
"I think in the end, Patrick, it's better that Andrew and I broke up when we did because letting go of people is how we learn to live. I think it's in the broken moments of being upset and when you're hurting that we're most alive. It's living in that broken time, when we don't know how to deal with the situation in front of us, that we learn to move forward. Yeah, it sucks to be hurting over him, but it's for the best, I think. I think it's what's best for me."
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
It’s such a burden to carry ’round
The vestiges of dead dreams
And I don't want to make a wake out of my life
I just had to let you go
As Carly sang those lines for the second time on the way to the L.A. Weekly/Detour Music Festival this past Saturday, I couldn't help but smile. She had such enthusiasm for the lines and sang with such abandon that obviously she had some affection for the lyrics and it held some deeper meaning for her. For me, I kind of felt like Jules in Pulp Fiction. I just thought they were some cool ass words to say when one was reminescing, but I didn't really get the meaning behind them as I was hearing her sing them. To me, at that time, they were just some lines to a song I wasn't familiar with.
It wasn't until five hours later as I was taken her home later that night and the CD come around again to that song, that I started to really reflect what an insightful statement the words and phrases made and how all of it, the whole verse, could somehow relate to me.
"No, no, I didn't mind you doing that at all, Carly," I told her when she asked if I minded her smoking at the show. "If you'd done that like four or five years ago I would have totally thought less of you. But now I think I've become more accepting. I think before I was just an holier-than-thou jerk about stuff like that. You know what I mean?
"When I was with DeAnn, I was always trying to get her to stop or cut down on all these things because I was so sure my way of thinking was the 'right' way or the 'correct' way."
Carly broke her period of introspection as we were listening to the CD to join in with her take on the matter.
"Yeah, when Andrew and I were first together, he had a huge problem with it too. He was always trying to get me to cut down," she said.
"I've noticed that in all relationships there's always one person that's more open-minded, more adventurous and then there's one person who's more reserved. And it's never the guy or girl who opens up at first, it's always the guy or girl who's more open-minded who agrees to give up stuff more readily. It's like with DeAnn it bothered me so much that she drank, she smoked cigarettes and pot, that it was like a crusade for me to get her to quit all that. And then it's always this other person who's more eager to go with the flow that agrees to it because they're more accepting of change. The conservative one is always the one who imposes their will on the other one, at first."
"Exactly, he and I used to fight all the time about it, at first. But I wanted to make him happy and so I tried to do him the favor of doing what he wanted, but there were times it wasn't enough."
When I was with DeAnn I think I saw things in black-and-white terms. There was always my way and her way, and that meant to me that there was one right way and wrong way. I didn't entertain the possibility that both of us could be right for ourselves. I thought if she disagreed with me, then she was wrong. I came at the whole couple having two opinions as being a sin against nature. I actually thought when two people are in a relationship that there were certain areas they had to be of one mind. Back then I thought a couple having differing views on any topic was the exception and not the rule.
I was basically set in my ways and I would not budge.
"But then you know what eventually ends up happening or at least what happened to me, Carly?"
"What?"
"I think inevitably the more conservative person begins to loosen up because he or she has to. It just becomes too hard to be so strict all the time. He starts to come out of his shell out of necessity. The only bad part about my change was that part of the reason I loosened up was because she and I broke up."
"You're a wise man, sir," she told me after nodding her head. "Yeah, eventually Andrew loosened up too. Eventually, he started to go along more with my getting stoned and other things."
I remember every day
I began to think about the whole beginning of the conversation where I mentioned that she and I probably wouldn't have been friends for the mere fact she drank, she smoked, and she did pot. There would be no way in hell I would have been okay with it as little as five years ago. What changed? Why was I different? Those are the questions I started to hear in my head.
Was it her? Carly is a great person, full of more insight than she lays claim to and possessing an honesty I haven't found in too many people. Yet I don't think she's ever been this life-changing personality who elicits change in the people around her.
It had to be me. Something about me had to be different.
Then I realized what it was. Up until just about when I met her, I had been around the same group of people I've always had in my life so I never thought my attitude on vices had changed. Sure, I'd started drinking some in the last few years before I met her, but it was still something that I never thought I would get full-swing into. But when I met her, I started to see her as a new element in my life that I never had before, somebody who spoke about a life that I could have had when I was younger.
Here was an individual who, despite all these supposedly "bad" habits, still managed to become a decent, intelligent, funny, and compassionate person. They hadn't ruined her, just as they probably wouldn't have ruined me if I'd just been more open to trying out things, jumping in feet-first rather than wading into things like I usually did.
All my life I'd been afraid of being ruined by the evils of alcohol or smoking or drugs, when, in reality, it may have been the being afraid that was my ruin. People like DeAnn and others, who I felt so superior towards because I was able to remain chaste in the prescence of temptation, were strewn as casualties along the road to my moral highground. I'd missed out on so many great moments and great opportunities because I was too stubborn to think that what a person did in his or her friend didn't necessarily make them any more or less worthy of knowing. I'd made a shambles out of my personal network because I was too pig-headed to see past a person's lifestyle to his or her character.
This past Saturday was a blast. I had my beer. Carly had her smokes. And we listened to some great music. Not once did I feel the need to think less of her because she was pulling out her pipe every other hour. Not once did I wish to tell her she should stop. She was a person I liked. She was a person who was my friend. That's all I needed to know.
On the ride home with her I began to see my life before as some trip that had gone horribly awry. I don't know if DeAnn and I would have worked out had I been more accepting of who she was and what she liked, but I certainly think that we would have gotten along better and all of it wouldn't have ended as terribly as it did. I started to see that maybe, just maybe, Carly is my second chance at being the kind of person I would be proud to know, somebody who doesn't judge people on one or two aspects of their life, but instead judges them as a whole.
I mean--I think that's what she does with me and other. I'm sure I've told her a hundred anecdotes, incidents, and assorted stories that eighty percent of the population would think I've went too far or what I did was less than a decent person would do. But she's never once held my history or my personality against me. Maybe that's what makes it easier for me to do the same. She may be younger than me, but I think she's figured out at her age what it's taken me all these extra years to come to grips with.
If you want your life to be better, you have to let go of what you expect it to be. You have to let go of how you think everyone should act and everything should work. If you want your life to be better, you just have to let it be better.
Letting go of worry is a big step for me. I'm a fretter by nature. Before, I always used to worry about the friends I hung out with, the girls I dated, when I would see them again. With DeAnn it became an obsession to make sure we made plans for the next time we went out, that the next few weeks were all mapped out and to make sure that all her free time was monopolized by me.
I know I've changed in that regard too because, for the most part, I see Carly like once every five months or so. Most of the time it's spur-of-the-moment plans and most of the time we never leave with any idea when the next time we might see each other might be. Also, there is an inherent time limit on how long we remain friends because by next year she'll probably be moved away to college and there's a good chance I might never hang out with her again after that.
Instead of fretting that, though, I'm just happy when I do see her. She's always a delight when I'm around her and she makes every conversation interesting. If I only know her seven more months, I think it will have been seven months well spent. It will be sad to let her go, but I think it would be sadder if I still had it in my head that I need to keep my friends as tight to me as possible, smothering them in my attention. I stopped worrying about if she and I are going to be friends a long time and I've decided just to be okay that we're friends now. That's what's important.
memories don't go away
"I think in the end, Patrick, it's better that Andrew and I broke up when we did because letting go of people is how we learn to live. I think it's in the broken moments of being upset and when you're hurting that we're most alive. It's living in that broken time, when we don't know how to deal with the situation in front of us, that we learn to move forward. Yeah, it sucks to be hurting over him, but it's for the best, I think. I think it's what's best for me."
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
posted by mojo shivers @ 11:52 PM
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