Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Honest Soldier

10/23/16

Its funny the way your mind views the past. Things that meant one thing to you then fade and change in memory.  Sometimes perception shifts and though none of the facts have changed, the way you view them morphs into something new with the clarity of hind sight. Not as much of a tarnish but a patina forms around things you once held dear that now have to be handled with a different kind of care.

Ganging Up On The Sun was released in 2006, while the man I was going to marry was sleeping with my best friend. Granted, this things didn't coexist in the same plane of my life, but looking at it from a decade away I cannot separate their timelines in my past so easily. Though the blow up (and break up) wouldn't come for another year, I can see now how this was the beginning of the end (Guster pun intended.)

I have been counting down the days to #Guster25 with a construction paper crafted paper chain, like the kind you made in 2nd grade. I wrote a song on each slip, and each day as I tear one off I am surprised with a randomly selected Guster song to ponder on. When I have the time I try to turn each one into a simple project for myself like finding a video from a show I attended, or singing a new harmony as I listen on repeat during my commute. Anything to distract myself from the ever-barreling freight train of Holiday Retail Madness that I hear echoing in the background. Today's song was Lightning Rod, and it struck me more than I was prepared for.



I have this album on vinyl so after work I threw it on. It happens to be the opening track to this album, and I was immediately flooded with memories of post college life. Where I lived, where I worked, what hair cut I had - all these things attached to this song as if a movie montage. That phase of life is always full of change and big decisions. Figuring out my career was my main focus, but I had also been shacked up with my boyfriend for a few years and china patterns had been chosen. I was settled down and happy* Stress in our jobs had sent us through a rough patch but things were leveling out and I was optimistic about our future. I played this song often then. It's steady and simple, the same way I wanted my life to be. (*little did I know, I wasn't happy at all)

Standing on a building, I am a lightning rod
and all these clouds are so familiar
descending from the mountaintops the
gods are threatening
but I will return an honest solider 

Then it all came down crashing. My lover and my friend, a tale as old as time. And seemingly everyone around me had known through the entirety of their affair. When the flood broke and I came out of hiding I found the hardest part was just being seen. I felt like everyone who laid eyes on me knew that I was a mess and there was nothing anyone could do to help. Anyone who is going through the stages of grief learns quite quickly to put on a happy face. The kind of tired you become from pretending that you're OK is easier to manage than the kind of tired you become from rehashing your nightmare over and over. You learn to steel yourself, slide on the mask of "over it" and carry forth.

Steady on this high rise like everything lightning rod
and all these clouds are boiling over
swimming in adrenaline the sky is caving in 
but I will remain the honest soldier 

The thing about losing your entire support system in one fatal blow like that? It forces you to figure it out alone. You comfort yourself. You console yourself. You cry to yourself and you laugh to yourself and you listen to records and think to yourself. Or at least I did, anyway. Was it the healthiest of attitudes to turn so inward? Likely not, but you have to do whatever it takes to get through the day. What got me through those days was this album, and hearing this song now feels as though I'm looking at an x-ray of my past. I can hold it up to the light and see where the fracture was, but I don't feel that pain anymore. I realized today that I visit this song less frequently than I do others in the catalog, though maybe unknowingly so.  These words and notes are the cast I wore around myself as I healed, and for that I am grateful. My life today is not like I thought it was going to be 10 years ago, but it is steady and simple the way I wanted it to be, and there's so much beauty in that.