Primordial Chaos

Can't believe I'm here in my hometown...

If you're reading this sometime the weekend it was posted, you'll notice the where am I map says I'm somewhere called Mustang, OK. I grew up here, from like age 2-20 this is where I lurked. It's changed so much...there's so much traffic now, and the ever spreading plague of strip malls. It's devolving into just another small city like all others. I was having a hell of a time driving around here, I was so overstimulated by new lights, buildings, lots of traffic...trying to reconcile my memories of of where stuff is/was with the new reality. That whole picture based memory thing. There were too many changes to make at once...brain overload.

I've seen one person I know here. It was a shock, he was overweight, balding and married with two kids. I didn't recognize him, he noticed me. His wife pinched him or something on his back when he said I look good and have aged well, I saw the flinch and recoil. I was friendly and chipper and all that jazz, but I was truly horrified.

Is this what has happened to my classmates? A boring suburban life in a small town you know a little too well? Marriage, jobs, kids, weight gain, hair loss and/or migration, house in a small town...Have they lived their lives at all? Did they ever find out who they are, or did they just settle for what was easy to adopt as an identity? The idea of that being my fate is really scary. It seems almost like a form of death.

Your priorities are always someone else, never you. Want to go back to school and fulfill a dream of studying/getting a degree in a particular subject? Too bad. Want to change jobs because you're miserable? Yeah, probably going be far too much of a strain on your family.

Like, holy shit. To not get chances to live for me and not just others? I don't know if I could handle that. There's so much I want to do and see...being responsible for one other, not so bad. However, when you have a full blown family like that...you'll receive pressure from both society and your family to do what has become expected of you. And it doesn't have to do with you.

Talking to him and hearing a similar fate has befallen many others I knew was a bit of a mental jolt. I know I'm still young and I can calm down about such things, but these are people who are my age! I'm not talking about people in their 30s or 40s, I'm talking mid to late 20s! HOLY SHIT.

My innate default is to want to be free. I've wandered dangerously close to being that married housewife in the 'burbs, but I usually sabotaged the relationship before then but even if I hadn't, I know I wouldn't have gone through with it. This isn't hindsight, I was having those thoughts THEN. I need to be free. I can't see myself settling down like that.

It's funny, but I am commitment-phobic. I know most people can't see it, but let me point it out to you. I can devote myself to someone, sure. But at the same time I always ensure a large amount of freedom. Or even worse, I sometimes pick relationships I know won't work in the long run. But not just commitment-phobic to people, think of how many times I've changed majors or careers I've wanted. Yeah, A LOT. How often do I change my hair cut? Hair color? Clothing style? Fuck, I can't even commit to a specific emotion about a situation. Love him? Yes. Hate him? Yes. One day I'm blogging about all the cool stuff I'm doing and how happy I am, next day I'm whining about what was so cool yesterday, or being all emo about Warren.

This is compounded by whatever music I'm listening to swaying my mood or if I'm not listening to music. Like a few minutes ago when I wasn't listening to music, I was getting kinda sad about Warren and had him on my mind, but I went and got my headphones, and the song I'm listening to has me feeling like "whatever, I'm bad ass regardless, his loss". I've mentioned a million times that my link with music is quite different from anyone else's, and this is just another example of that. You can literally change my mood by changing the song or turning music on. Song just changed to Cosmic Girl, and now I'm dancing a bit, smiling, feeling all confident and shit. What the hell? I wonder why my bind to music is SO strong. I've never really explored why, I just know that it is. I plan to do a lot of self analysis over winter break, let's throw that in the mix. I want to know who I am and more about me.

I went driving around earlier as I mentioned, and I made a stop at my high school. I walked around between the buildings, remembering this and that, good and bad, it was surreal. I could stop and see myself as a high schooler, and what I was doing and who I was with and what the weather was like.I got lost in A LOT of moments like that, and spent way more time than I meant to, at least over an hour, wandering around the high school.

I had what my friend JT likes to refer to as one of my moments. I got back to my car, and put down my driver's side window. It was cloudy and cold, not a  really great day. I played my senior song from my high school graduating class. Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. (Just decided to make that the blog title, actually.)

I HATED that song when I was in high school, I hated it being our senior song too. Then one day, I actually sat and listened to the words, and realized hey, this resonates with me. I actually became a big fan of The Verve at the point, so the song being in my car wasn't planned, all their albums are in my car. :P

Anyways, I was cold and in a weird mood, it was like being happy but indifferent. I was leaning against my car listening to the song, and suddenly started crying, just tears running down my face as I thought about who and what I was then, and who and what I am now, and how far I've come...and how there's so much further to go. The song went off, so I got in my car, and the clouds had opened up to reveal the sunset, and as I drove away from the school the light hit me. A couple of seconds later Van Hunt's song Hidden Charm came on. The first line of the song is "drive where the sunset leads you", and I couldn't help but smile and think that despite what it took for me to get to where I am now and what I went through, it was worth it.

I had to go listen to Hidden Charm after mentioning it, it has become my theme song and where I'm at in my life and what I'm trying to do. I'm about to cry. Argh, sometimes it's irritating how easily music throws me into a flux.

I'm not bipolar, my playlist is just on shuffle. :P

~A.