Now my mind is open wide. Your concentration paramount. Remember what was meant to be this year...

 *Rattle-rattle-rattle* 

     The clicking together of Scrabble tiles around the inside of my skull is a not-altogether-unpleasant reminder that when the world gets too big for me, I can write everything down and breathe again. Oh, the thumb, the thumb, the thumb. 

So.

     I have been posting a lot of things on Facebook, mostly music, and someone sent me a private e-mail that wafted out snark even before I read it. "You are (like) sooooooooo  melodramatic!  Whyyyyyyyyy do you (like) keep pohhhhhhhhhhh-sting  those (like) music viiiiiiiiiiiiideos? (like) Nobody caaaaaaaaaares what you're (like) feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeling!!" I, of course, filled in those (likes) and took phonetic liberties where I imagine I would hear them were the e-mail to be delivered vocally, which would never happen because, as is the case with bullies, face-to-face...unpleasantness is to be avoided. Don't get me wrong--I am wont to be unpleasant...downright mean on occasion, but it is something I am trying to fix. Baby steps. Baby steps. This is not about that. In fact, I mention the unkind e-mail only as a catalyst for the real reason.

*ahem*

     This time last year was nearly and unhyperbolically catastrophic (if you know, you know). My "Facebook Memories" (quotes, as usual, not accidental) appear every night like the psychological gremlins they are--rootin' around in my brain, teasing me with the carrot of pleasant experiences and thwacking my heart with the stick of unpleasant ones, but my compulsions make me look every time. I know, I know, I'm a creature of habit, and a foolish one at that. The thing is, however, that those crises (again, using the term unhyperbolically), while they made me feel as though I would never mend and recover, did NOT destroy me. I face each of those memories with an upheld chin (probably asking to have it kicked in by the universe), and in a grotesque way, I am grateful to see those sad postings, to read the misery made verbal, to hear the notes in the minor keys, and to re-experience the agony. 

Well.

     The last several weeks have been not much better in terms of my skull, the tiles, the thumb, the universe (again, if you know, you know). This time, I am posting the music, the thoughts, the feelings, and, recently, the words in the hopes that next year, I'll be able to wade through it all, holding high above my head a lantern and some happiness, and remember that sadness, like joy, is temporary. I think that being able to use music to represent a feeling is the closest I'll ever get to actually being able to create music to express it. I play to my strengths, you know. To that end, I'll post as many goddamned music videos as I want to. After all, better days are ahead. 

And since I don't kid myself that anyone actually reads my thoughts, I'll end with this lovely image from one of my favorite authors (Douglas Coupland):

"Nothing very, very good and nothing very, very bad ever lasts for very, very long. I wake up and it's maybe 5:30 or so in the morning. [We] are sprawled on top of the bed where we fell asleep. The [cats] snooze next to the near-dead embers. Outside there is only a hint of light, the breathlessness of oleanders and no cooing of doves. I smell the warm carbon dioxide smell of sleep and enclosure. These creatures here in the room with me--these are the creatures I love and who love me. Together, I feel like we are a strange and forbidden garden--I feel so happy I could die. If I could have it thus, I would like this moment to continue forever. 

I go back to sleep"

It is one of last above-40 degree-nights of the year. See if you can guess what I'm going to do?

One by one the teardrops fall as I write you...

     I have some questions, and, yes, I am still using the literary apostrophe (my former A.P students will remember the definition of that one) to send impossible thoughts to impossible absences. First of all, HOW? HOW has grain-by-grain of sand filtered its way through yet ANOTHER series of seemingly infinite hourglasses? Second-minute-hour-day-month-year...YEARS, in fact...seven of them, excruciating, and marked by hollows of missing you. Secondly, WHY? WHY does everyone I love go away? Such a stupid, pointless question asked with all the selfish idiocy of a child stamping her tiny, tyrannical feet, but I cannot help myself. The phrase "it's not fair is still reverberating around in my skull (I know someone you would have loved who tried to explain to me about acoustics. Had I gotten more time there, I would have understood the science better, but it was never about that. To be honest, I could have simply listened to that voice forever; however...see previous complainant question). 

     This year, Autumn lingered just a bit longer than usual, and you know how strong a tether that forged between us, and I am trying to comfort myself that the tether is still there. The moon, too, has been brazen and friendly, and I'm sure that your vantage point affords you a better view. It is a tiny comfort but it does little to mitigate the lack of YOU. I think what is the most difficult is that nearly daily, I see or hear or experience or FEEL something that immediately fills me with so much need to tell you that I fear as though I might drown. What do I do with that? Remember the thumb on my lungs? You are one of very few who not only know that feeling and what it means, but have also caused that feeling, that pressure in my chest that accompanies too great an emotion, some enervating and some destroying. Rest assured that you only ever the caused the good feelings, the ones that carbonated me. I miss you.

       Back to the whispered "shhhhhh" as another year without you grain-by-grains itself from top to bottom of the glass. I know how silly it is to write to you words that you  can't see, but tonight, just tonight, I will comfort myself with the absolute certainty that though you will never read them, you already (and forever) know them. 

I love you.

I miss you,