At fifteen, my friends and I liked to compile "The Soundtrack to My Life" lists and post them on our livejournals.
I am utterly embarrassed to admit both that I had a livejournal and that the following list belonged to me.
- Dashboard Confessionals: Screaming Infidelities
- Nirvana: Come As You Are.
- Thursday: Standing on the Edge of Summer
- Jimmy Eat World: Chase These Lights
- The Alkaline Trio: Radio
No one could fake sadness quite like 15-year-old Kelly.
***
Lauren and I are driving home after stopping in to see two of my good friends in Minneapolis. They're in a relationship that just seems to work. I love going to see the two of them together because they compliment one another so well. I'm feeling more effusive than normal and am, in Betsy's words sharing my feelings.
"I'm just frustrated." I say, probably more than a little petulantly. "I don't second-guess myself. But Lauren, I'll be damned if I don't miss him. And it's not as though I'd ever want to date him again and it's not terribly bad. There are other men who make my stomach fluttery now. It's just...sometimes it takes me by surprise. When I'm writing a letter to someone, or come across a passage in a book I love and I think "Oh, he'd appreciate this." I'm brought up short by the fact that I don't get to have him in my life anymore."
"Oh, honey," she says. "I know."
"Oh, honey," she says. "I know."
***
If I were writing The Soundtrack to My Life for this part of my adulthood, I honestly don't know what I would put on it. My fifteen year old self would be struck dumb by that admission (thank God. Much to her chagrin, despite all of her Emo-kid clothes and time spent rereading The Catcher in the Rye she wasn't terribly interesting.) I've stopped thinking that way. Springsteen, I think, would make an appearance. So would Old Crow Medicine Show and probably some Patsy Cline.
There is one song that I can say, definitively, would make it onto the list. It's an Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong duet: "They Can't Take That Away From Me." It is perhaps one of the most bittersweet songs I've ever heard. Normally, jazz is my "I'm-falling-for-someone" music. I reserve heartbreak exclusively for Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and a bottle of Maker's Mark, but something in the way Ella sings: "The way you hold your knife/the way we danced 'til three/the way you changed my life/no they can't take that away from me" catches my heart every time. It reminds me of the little things I always savor at the beginning and conclusion of any relationship.
There is one song that I can say, definitively, would make it onto the list. It's an Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong duet: "They Can't Take That Away From Me." It is perhaps one of the most bittersweet songs I've ever heard. Normally, jazz is my "I'm-falling-for-someone" music. I reserve heartbreak exclusively for Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and a bottle of Maker's Mark, but something in the way Ella sings: "The way you hold your knife/the way we danced 'til three/the way you changed my life/no they can't take that away from me" catches my heart every time. It reminds me of the little things I always savor at the beginning and conclusion of any relationship.
When I fell for the last guy I dated (and fall I did, ridiculously hard and very, very fast) I fell for the most insane things. The way he fidgeted with the ring he wore. His dorky, contagious enthusiasm for woodcuts. The way he laughed at my exuberance over a new pair of rainboots. They were sweetly, unexpectedly endearing. They are things I miss.
I still can't look at Dore woodcut without feeling a tug.
***
Perhaps I've just learned to savor the bittersweetness.
At 15 I liked my sadness straight. Perhaps mixed with a little self-loathing or teenage angst. I prefer joy to sadness these days, the same way I prefer music where you don't need the liner notes to understand the lyrics. Sadness has lost its sharp tang, perhaps I lack the energy to mix in all that anger and frustration.
Perhaps I've just learned to savor the bittersweetness.
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