I Get Restless

 A word of caution: there's not much redeeming about this video.  It contains a set of subpar lyrics set to an inconsistent tune sung in a cold truck by a girl who's been sick for two weeks.  You'd almost expect it to have been written in twenty minutes in the thick of an emotional attack, which happens to be true, and also its only redeeming quality.  It certainly won't win a Grammy, but it was written to capture a moment, not the nation's hearts.  I don't claim to be successful, just honest, though certain phrases may be misleading.  Whatever the case, it was written last night after the meeting mentioned in the title. The only person who really has any business being interested in this little mess is LotN hisself, and I don't know that I could recommend it even to him (not that he'll see this, I'm sure).  That being said, in the interest of being vulnerable, it's here.  But I did warn you.

  Good morning. I'm a fan of beautiful words, and I'd rather share someone else's than my own right now.  So in no particular order (except the first few are ones that were heavy on my mind at the beginning of my trip) here are some things that have been said by others. "I cannot bear to think that he is alive in the world and thinking ill of me." - Elizabeth Bennett, Pride and Prejudice (1995 miniseries) "Said woman, take it slow, it will work itself out fine. All we need is just a little patience." - Chris Cornell, Patience "All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone." - Anne Elliott, Persuasion (the freakin' book) "You see, songs fulfill a human need to sit back and watch another man bleed, So for a moment, we don't have to feel sorry for ourselves." - American Aquarium, One Day at a Time "It's not a ...

 This won't be a long post, because it's 10:23 and I'm very tired already, and I desperately want to brush my teeth, which isn't usually something I feel so strongly. Or who knows, maybe it will be long.  Anything goes at 10:23. I looked at mine and LotN's old messages tonight.  The ones he told me I should if I wanted to understand, but that I couldn't bring myself to at the time. It was an interesting experience.  I was able to relive those feelings, but at a distance, under the tempering of a little time.  It started not too unpleasantly.  My main goal was to understand more fully what I had done wrong.  The answer was more complicated than I was expecting. I hadn't done much wrong at first.  In fact, I initially found myself more frustrated with myself for how hard I was on myself than anything else.  Then things started to shift. I couldn't put my finger on how, but I felt the transition from vulnerable to uncomfortable in how I spoke....

 It's too early to know. It's almost over, I'm almost home, and I still don't know how it ends.   What's changed?  How am I different? Things have been different the last two weeks, but that's nothing if it doesn't have a lasting impact.   Right now I don't know.  I just trust and pray. It's the last night.  Here goes.

  Era: road trip I wrote this yesterday in the bed of my truck.  I've been trying and trying to turn the little song fragments in my head into a whole work, and this was the first time I succeeded so far.   It's certainly not perfect.  It tries to say a lot, and I think that diminishes anything it doesn't say.  As with all my songs, the goal is to capture a feeling, a moment, or a perspective as truly as I can, but there are more sides to everything. The process of moving on is not an easy one, and not one that I want to take lightly.  I've had to be intentional in not allowing any bitterness to grow, in trying to be as accurate as possible in my recollections of the past, and to look at myself and my future in a way that's God-honoring and not melodramatic.  I knew that no matter what I did, I didn't want to move on improperly.  The wound needed to be cleaned and stitched in a straight line, not simply have a bandage slapped on it so I didn'...

  Era: post-LotN Of all the songs I'm posting tonight, this is the most imperfect.  It's overly long, has no chorus to speak of, and contradicts its own structure at least once.  But it also might be the most perfect representation of my feelings immediately following the breakup, and best sums up the story from beginning to end. I actually wrote the song the day after we broke up, not the day of like it says; still too soon for me to have developed the regret that showed itself in Why I Let Him Go, only a deep sadness and feeling of loss. Things turned quickly, and in One Month I tried to put into words all the things that were lost overnight.  I failed, unfortunately.   More was lost than I can explain in two and a half minutes.