seeing things I never saw

Rather than bemoan what a crap blogger I have become, before the week officially comes to a close, I thought I should at least point out that I did actually post a song this past Monday. For some reason, I kept hitting a block when it came time to explain myself.

Because, and I know this sounds a little like the kind of gloating that makes people throw up in their mouth a little and think I'm either Sister Mary Sunshine or an immodest jerk, but lately I have been suffering from an embarrassment of riches. Well, suffering is not the right word, of course. The song this week, Inside Out is not just for nostalgia's sake, although it does make me wistful for an entirely different time in my life, when I was less aware of what I was feeling so much as feeling that something big was happening. And the song this week does not really fit with my current mood.

But the song is belligerently happy, even if it does not mean to be. Some of the lyrics are a bit somber and even angry, but if you just sit and listen to it with your eyes closed, it's a bit hard to feel that way. Or maybe it's based on your own mood. Maybe if I was fifteen again and listening to this song, it might bring back those more appropriate feelings of isolation and heartache. But I don't feel it right now. I just can't feel it.

Instead, I hear this song, and it's almost like a battle cry: you can't stop my heart from turning inside out, try and stop my heart from turning inside out. Oh, just try to bring me down. It's like a dare to the fates, which is most ill-advised, but impossible not to issue when you feel this high.

I know it's missing the whole point of the song, and maybe that's why I haven't written about why I posted it. The real pull towards the song is that I got two presents in the mail the week after my birthday. Both were very sweet, one from a new friend and one from an old friend.



The one from the old friend made my heart break and soar all at once, and that's what brought me to this song. It reminded me of who I was when I was young, and what I wanted, and how it all turned out better than I could have ever hoped even though I didn't get any of the things that I thought that I wanted. And I kept trying to write a post about that, and then I realized that was impossible. So, unfortunately, you get this instead.