#or the Christian rock station (the one I usually listened to despite my uncomfortable relationship with religion especially at the time).

[averbaldumpingground]

Life almost disappears, those summer afternoons spent reading in the park, your head half-leaning on his shoulder. Those mornings in the spring, a little late for work.

It didn't matter then, the way he took two sugars in his coffee. The way you let your hair grow out too long.

But these, the memories we keep, crammed in a shoebox full of polaroids, saved somewhere on a half-forgotten hard drive, they're what remains behind. They're what your sister finds, the weekend that she helps you pack your life.

And then it's sitting on the couch, your kitchen stuff already wrapped in paper. It's styrofoam containers, soda cans. It's wine that she's already drinking from the bottle.

And you can't figure out whose silhouette that was, who showed up to your party with a boa. And she is pretty sure her ex has kids.

But maybe that's why you and I keep postcards. Somebody's bow tie, paperclips, that bit of string.

They don't remind us of some other time, exactly. They're pieces of the people that we were, they're feelings that we'd wanted to hold on to.

#June 12 2023 #I've had 'Spin' by Lifehouse stuck in my head all day. #Is it about some girl? Is it about god? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who the heck even knows. #I mean that's like a very large percentage of Lifehouse's musical output. #Well this one could also be about parenthood I guess. #And I'm pretty sure 'You and Me' is definitely about Jason Wade's wife and 'Hanging by a Moment' is about god per comments he's made. #But it's a fun party game isn't it? #Speaking of 'Hanging by a Moment'. Even though it came out when I was like 12 and I hadn't yet realized the whole religious thing. #I associate it most with the summer I was 25 and living with my parents for the summer for a grad school internship. #I remember driving my mom's car to work after dropping her off along the way and cranking up the radio. #Unfortunately my options were limited to the pop station (too many commercials) or the Spanish station (I don't speak Spanish) #or the Christian rock station (the one I usually listened to despite my uncomfortable relationship with religion especially at the time). #And the first time I heard them play Lifehouse I was like wtf? Why is the Christian rock station playing something I actually like? #And then I really listened to the words of 'Hanging by a Moment' and I was 'Oooooh.' #And that was how it took me like 13 years to realize a band I liked and owned cds of may or may not have written a bunch of songs about god #Which honestly would have turned 12 year old me off a lot because like it's not fun being an atheist when almost everyone's a dick about it #And I'm not sure it was the healthiest coping mechanism for the whole having my heart shattered by a religious dude when I was 25... #Actually that's not true. That year I mostly played the fuck out of Emmylou Harris's and Bob Dylan's most depressing hits. ('Gold' anyone?) #Followed by Royal Wood's divorce album when that came out. #But blasting the Christian rock station in the car? Definitely kind of intentionally masochistic. But also I really hate radio commercials. #I did listen to a lot of Lifehouse that summer. #So regardless of what the songs are actually about they all remind me of the highway and my mom's old car and carpooling to work. #Except 'Blind'. 'Blind' still makes me cry. #That was a really pointless aside because I don't feel like writing or going to sleep and will probably stay up listening to Lifehouse now. #I guess the moral of that story if it needs to have a moral is: #If you're a godless heathen and someone makes you feel like shit because they act like there's something wrong with you for it #you're much better off not wasting your time trying to understand why they think like that and living your best heathen life instead. #Or something like that. Idk.