“Good Old Days”

“I wish somebody would have told me babe
That some day, these will be the good old days
All the love you won't forget
And all these reckless nights you won't regret
'Cause someday soon, your whole life's gonna change
You'll miss the magic of the good old day”

--Macklemore ft. Kesha, “Good Old Days”

8-23-2019. SAGE Welcome Back Party. Absolutely, totally, and completely obsessed with you beautiful people. Thank you for sticking by my side throughout this wild Presidency. Couldn't have done it without you (and wouldn't have wanted to)!!

I mean, it’s no “Thrift Shop,” but “Good Old Days” is kind of a mood, isn’t it? Or maybe it only is for me. don’t know. I have complicated feelings about this song, but the way it weirdly tugs at my heartstrings (like every song I’m using for this little project) means I have to include it. I have to say something about the way it makes me feel.

When I was little, my mom used to tell me all the time “Don’t wish your life away.” I was constantly thinking about the future: about the weekend, about the next holiday, about graduation. And then, some time in high school probably, I did a 180. I was barreling toward the future, but all I wanted to do was walk down memory lane—heck, I’m “pre-nostalgic” about grad school, and it’s not even over yet!—and I figured out what my mom meant…or I thought I had.

2-21-2020. All smiles in the bad lighting at Arrow fro Driptorch. V and Jimmy were the featured readers, but I think this was taken during Winniebell's "stand-up" routine (aka reading thirst messages from men on dating sites.)

Now, I try to take in every moment. I try to be aware that there is only ever going to be one March 9, 2020 in the history of the universe. Or that I’m only going to be getting my Master’s degree once. Or that I’m only going to be 24 for 365 days so why not??? I take pictures of everything and everyone, because I so desperately want to capture the moments. I want albums full of memories to look back on one day. I want to know that I appreciated these days in the moment and not just in retrospect.

I guess I have the biggest kind of FOMO there is. The fear of not valuing the days and the people around me while they’re here. Thankfully, you guys have given me so many experiences that I don't think I'd be able to forget them if I tried.

I’ve told you about the classmate who committed suicide my freshman year of high school, right? It was January 18, 2011. I wasn’t quite 15. Jacksonville was a relatively small high school in a relatively small town, so this was the first time anything like that had happened in decades. The whole class was visibly rattled, but most of us felt like we didn’t have the right to be. I had classes with him—let’s call him P—since he moved here, but we weren’t best friends. I wasn’t on the baseball team with him. The closest we got was when we were in a group together in pre-Algebra or in science class when our teacher would playfully (and, now that I think about it, illegally) pit us against each other by telling us how well the other had scored on the last test. But we weren’t particularly close, so I didn’t feel like I had the right to mourn him the way that his friends did—and that led to me forming some really dangerous thoughts that I may still have not really worked through. I don’t know. P’s death ripped those rose-colored glasses off my face before I had even realized they were there. And I thought all the things you’re not supposed to think when someone dies: “Maybe I should have been nicer.” “What if I had said ‘hi’ when I saw him yesterday?” “What if I had done anything?” “Could I have saved him?” “I should have done more.”

I don’t admit that to a lot of people. I didn’t tell my youth director at the time. I didn’t tell my parents or my friends. I hesitate even now to say it, because, 9 years later, I logically know that none of that’s true. I was a 14-year-old kid. I didn’t know. I couldn’t have. His death is not my fault. And, I know now, that I had every “right” in the world to be sad about it. To be mad. To hurt and to grieve. Because he was a person, and he was hurting, and life isn’t fair sometimes.

5-11-2019. The Real Career Women of Riley County. So blessed to be surrounded by strong, smart, sassy, kind, generous women like you. Let's keep kicking ass, ok? Meet up for a high-powered business brunch in a few years?

P’s death changed me. I like to think that I’ve always been kind, but I’ve always been afraid of being “too much.” And even though I know I couldn’t “save” him by being kind, since P died, I’ve tried to be extra kind. Extra patient. Extra compassionate and understanding. It was then that I really started telling people that I love them. Telling them how much they matter to me. They were things I had always felt but didn’t know if I “was allowed” to say. After he died, I didn’t care if I was allowed to or not. If I felt it, I shared it. I started writing letters. I think P is part of the reason I gravitated toward English. The fall after he died, I started writing the Youth column of my church newsletter. I tried to put all of my feelings into those columns. I even wrote a column about him on the anniversary of his death, trying to make sense of it all. I couldn’t then. I still can’t now. All I know is that I’m here, and I genuinely love my life 95% of the time, and I owe it to myself to appreciate these moments I have.

Sorry for another tangent. Actually, I’m not. This is why I am the way I am. I lived 22 years before I met you guys, and those years molded me—for better or for worse. If we had infinite time, I’d love nothing more than to sit down with each of you and hear about the things that shaped you, the major accomplishments, the lowest points, the things that you never told anyone but for some reason don’t mind publishing on the Internet. I want to know you guys. You’re remarkable people who have had a lot thrown at you, but you haven’t let that dull your sparkle. It reminds me of that quote that no one can accurately attribute to anyone: “We’re all broken; that’s how the light gets in.” (It may be a conflagration of a Hemingway quote from A Farewell to Arms and a lyric from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem.”) We don’t have to have it all together to be beautiful. And I hope you all know that I love every bit of you—cracked or broken or taped back together. I have a lot of baggage, too (as you can see by my outpouring of personal information in these blogs), so I have no room to judge anyone else.

5-5-2019. Karin and Phil's Children's Lit Track Mad Tea Party.  Drowning in tears, eating mysterious free food, and saying "We're all mad here" sure makes Wonderland sound a lot like grad school, and I'm so glad I get to do it with you guys. Here's to many more years of Disneybounding and theme parties together!

I hope you find time today to appreciate it. I hope there’s one little thing that makes today good for you. I hope that, right now, you’re able to look at today as a good day and not just fondly remember it in 10 years’ time. I hope I’ve made shown you that these days spent with you have been some of the best of my life and that I’ll cherish them all—breakdowns and deadlines and triumphs and celebrations—for forever.

Love ∞,

Me