“Long Live”

“Hold on to spinning around

Confetti falls to the ground

May these memories break our fall

Will you take a moment,

Promise me this

That you'll stand by me forever

But if, God forbid, Fate should step in

And force us into a goodbye

If you have children some day

When they point to the pictures

Please tell them my name

Tell them how the crowds went wild

Tell them how I hope they shine

Long live the walls we crashed through

I had the time of my life, with you”

--Taylor Swift, “Long Live”

12-13-2019. Just going to through this one in one last time. Since we never got that last group photo. Maybe your kids can point to this one.

June 15, 2020.

We graduated a month ago, and I’ve been putting off writing this blog ever since.

I don’t want it to be over, and if not publishing this would make grad school last longer, you’d never read it.

But, like everything else—good and bad—the world keeps turning and time keeps ticking, and it only feels a lot suffocating—but that doesn’t change the fact that we did graduate, that “it” is over.

So I might as well say it all, right?

As you may have guessed, this blog was always going to end with Taylor Swift’s “Long Live.” I’d love to tell you guys that this is our song (haha, T. Swift pun), but it’s not. It’s my song, the one I share with everyone I love when it comes time for us to go our separate ways. If someone cold only listen to one song to understand me, I’d want it to be this one.

2-7-2020. Long Live all the pregaming we did at the Girls' House. Long Live all the trips to Aggieville.

12-13-2019. Long Live Auntie Mae's'
board games and bad lighting.

On the first day of the Spring 2020 semester, Mikayla left a note on my desk and told me that “Long Live” reminds her of me. (I still have the note. I have every note you guys have ever written me. And if that makes me a hoarder, so be it.) She didn’t know that I was doing this blog or that I’d had these songs picked out for weeks, so when she pulled it out of thin air, I was touched to say the least. This has forever been one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, and I cry just about every time I hear it. It’s the bridge that really gets me, so that’s what I opened this post with. Part of me wants to go line-by-line and just explain how every line rings true for me—for us—but we don’t have that kind of time. So just know that I’ll be telling my kids about you one day. I’ll show them the pictures and tell them the stories, and I hope they’ll love you because they can see how much I do.

There’s just so much about this song that resonates with me—even more so given what we’ve been through this semester. I mean, “If, God forbid, Fate should step in and force us into a goodbye”???? We’ve been pushed and pulled around so much these last few months, and we all know how I hate not being in control. Thinking about how I’ve handled quarantine, I’m reminded of the story of when I was barely 2-years-old and wanted to hold my newborn bay brother by myself. As the story goes, Mom (reasonably) wanted me to sit in a chair, but I stamped my chubby foot, crossed my chubby arms, and insisted, “Myself.” I’ve been throwing a similar fit internally since March. I tried so, so damn hard to hold us together against the will of God and Fate and the Universe and COVID-19.

I don’t know how well I succeeded, but I definitely didn’t succeed to the degree I wanted to. If sheer willpower was all it took, COVID would have been cured before Spring Break ended, and we’d have an entirely new justice system already, and we could have had the graduation we deserved.

But, like Taylor says, we have memories to break our fall.

I’ve been peppering these posts with memories

I think a lot the reason I love this song and a lot of the reason I started this blog is because I’m terrified of forgetting. You’ve already read the long post about my fear of being forgotten, but I’m equally afraid of forgetting. My memory is, honestly, pretty good (for better or for worse sometimes), and I’m constantly trying to create a tangible reminder of moments, in case, God forbid, I ever do forget. It’s why I take pictures. It’s why I write.

Long Live coming in second in trivia. (Disney trivia this time)

At the last Christmas party—or was it the end-of-the-year banquet last May? See, I’m already forgetting—I was talking to Phil Nel and a group, and he said to me that I was “nostalgic about things that haven’t happened yet.” There’s not really a word for that, yet, thought the Internet has queried many times about what it should be, based on my Google searches. “Saudade” is a Portuguese word that’s close, but it still centers on the past. “Desiderium” can be extended to things that one has never experienced, but it doesn’t account for how I feel knowing how much I’m going to be nostalgic for a particular moment when I think about it in the future. So, actually, the best word I’ve found for being nostalgic about things that haven’t happened yet is a joke. The word is “prelament,” a portmanteau of “pre” and “lament” that means “to miss someone before they’re gone or something before it has ended.” I found this definition in a book I bought over Christmas break called The Emotionary: A Dictionary of Words That Don’t Exist for Feelings That Do by Eden Sher.

12-13-2019. Long Live our Kids Lit group.

Long Live those, like, 2 times, you guys
actually got me to go hiking.

I’ve been prelamenting graduation since that first day.

August 13, 2018. (That’s our friendship anniversary, btw, and we will be celebrating it, so get ready.)

I don’t know if prelamenting is healthy, strictly speaking. It definitely causes me to carry a knot in my chest a lot. But it’s not a totally sad feeling, either. After all, you don’t feel nostalgic about things you hated. So, that knot in my chest is also brimming with love and pride and gratitude. And, on one hand, I’m glad I can recognize these moments as something I’ll miss, because, when I bring myself around to focus on the present, I appreciate them even more.

There’s a mid-2000s country song by Trace Adkins that didn’t make the cut for this blog called “You’re Gonna’ Miss This.” It’s always stuck with me, despite never really liking country music all that much. (Admittedly there are a few that are just, well, nostalgic, that I keep on my Spotify.) The song just aligns so much with my personal mantras. The chorus goes, “You're gonna miss this / You're gonna want this back / You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast / These are some good times / So take a good look around / You may not know it now /But you're gonna miss this.” I’ve always been emotional, so Trace didn’t have to tell me twice: I knew I’d miss “this.” I knew I’d miss you all from the moment I met you.

I can’t pick just one favorite line from “Long Live,” so I’ll give you two, and then I’ll stop, and then this blog will be formally over until I pop in for an anniversary post ever year and then every few years and then eventually never again. I hope that when I write the final post, I don’t realize it’s the last one.

11-1-2019. Long Live the ICONIC Nick Cady.

So, one of my favorite lines is “If you have children some day / When they point to the pictures / Please tell them my name / Tell them how the crowds went wild / Tell them how I hope they shine.” Like I said earlier, I’ll be telling my kids about you someday. I desperately hope that they get to meet you, get to call you “Aunt” and “Uncle” and be friends with your kids if you choose to have them. I hope you want the same. But even if we’ve already spoken for the last time, please tell them that I genuinely want the best for them. God, I hope they shine. I hope they’re always happy and that they never get hurt and, when they do get hurt, that they know how strong they are, and I hope they get to follow their dreams, and I hope they know how proud I am of them and that I got to know each of you.

My other favorite line is, “I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.”  How can you not love that line? It’s the epitome of nostalgia. No one particularly likes fighting dragons in the moment—I imagine it’s dangerous and scary and that there’s a lot of sweat involved—but when you look back on it, you can’t help but think about how exhilarating it was and that you did it. At ChLA last year, Christopher Myers said, “We are no less dragon slayers when the dragon is inside us.” I liked that quote so much, I wrote it down and painted it on a canvas. I’ve fought a lot of dragons these last two years. Inside and out. We all have. But like I’ve said this entire blog series, you guys made it fun. You made all the hard times worth it.

2-21-2020. Long Live lectures and learning and scholarship.

When I used “Rollercoaster” as the first song on this blog, I had no idea that there was another giant drop coming. I’m glad I took the time to love those past moments.

So, if I may mix several metaphors, I’ll end with this:

Long live all the mountains we moved.

I’d go back and ride that rollercoaster

With you.

Love ∞,

Me 

12-7-2018. Long Live us.