I should really look at the calendar before I post hysterical things

That is all.

Rambles in the key of Imogen Heap

Inside out, upside-down twisting beside myself.

I have plenty going on. Full load of classes plus research and TAing. I'm keeping myself busy in the hopes that I won't have time for heavy thoughts. Obviously that hasn't worked; otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this.

I knew that I'd get like this again.

I've told myself everything was all hunky-dory from day one. I even convinced myself of it for about a month.  That's changed, a fact which I knew deep down was inevitable. At least no one else has noticed.

You said yourself this wasn't easy.

I did know this would be difficult going in, didn't I? Then why am I surprised now?

My self-worth measured in text-back tempo, it's been two days and eight minutes too slow.

Except that's not true. There's plenty of back and forth. I just feel guilty every time I start a conversation and have nothing to say. The truth is that I just want to be talking.

I'm dying to know what's in your head.

I don't, though. Because I know I'll be setting myself up for disappointment.

The stickler is you've played not one beat wrong, never promised me anything. Even sat me down, warned me just how they fall - I knew the odds were I'd never win.

Maybe that's why I'm feeling this way. It was better while we were having the conversation. But we don't talk about that anymore.

What of the wretched hollow, the endless in between? Are we just going to wait it out?

Two months isn't a very long time, and it hasn't even been that. What the hell is wrong with me? I know that whatever is meant to happen will happen at the end of this all. But this intermediate limbo is so hard.

Things are not always how they seem. They don't turn out always, don't quite turn out always how we think. Will we be ready?

That's what I'm scared of though. It was so easy to speak optimistically at the beginning about the unknowns to come. Stepping slowly towards that future, uncertainty settles in for real, and I realize I wasn't ready to bear that weight. I don't know how things are going to turn out, and I don't know how I'm going to feel at the end. Is it the same for you?

No I just can't sit still. Are we there yet?

We are, in fact, not there yet. So I should really just get over that fact and continue on with my daily life.

I'm dying to know, to help make some sense of it all.

I just want to talk, but I'm afraid to bring it up.

The more you look, the less you see. So close your eyes and start to breathe. Oh, you said yourself this wasn't easy.

I should focus. I shouldn't be putting this pressure on either of us. Again, why am I surprised at myself?

I feel a weakness coming on.

I feel alone, and I need you to confirm to me that I am not.

Tell me, is it my fault?

Am I pushing you away? This is your adventure, not mine. I have been so selfish. I'm sorry.

Life Soundtrack, Part 1

The Maryland public school system requires that high school students do a project each year involving the use of various literary vocabulary words and MLA citations. My AP English Lit teacher liked to bend the rules. During our senior year, to satisfy this requirement, she assigned to each of us the task of creating a fifteen-song soundtrack to our lives, songs that characterized our progression through early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school. For each song, we'd write a paragraph justifying its presence while including some vocabulary word, and then we'd do the MLA citation for it at the end.

As a highly introspective person, I enjoyed the project and got a lot out of it. Every memorable period in my life has had some piece of music associated with it, and I found it very hard to limit myself to just fifteen. Reading over my commentary now, I'm slightly embarrassed at the overly maudlin quality, which I'd like to attribute to the need to fill space. The songs themselves, though, are exactly the ones I would have picked again, given the opportunity. I'm listing them out here with the TL;DR just below.

1995: 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Bonne Nuit (Brahms' Lullaby)

 - Lullabies my mom would sing to me every night. 

1996:

The Martian Hop

 - I liked little kid songs that pretended to be techno.

2001:

Musical Times Tables

 - I was the multiplication tables champion, and that was all that was important to me as a third grader. (Not like my parents' divorce a year prior was a big deal or anything...)

I Hope You Dance

 - I just liked the way this one sounded, but my mom would always tear up and hug me when this one came on. I didn't appreciate why until later.

2002:

You Can Close Your Eyes

 - This was another lullaby my mom would sing to me, but there was a section that always ripped me up.

"But I can sing this song // And you can sing this song when I'm gone. // It won't be long before another day. // We're gonna have a good time. // And no one's gonna take that time away. // You can stay as long as you like."

It took a while for reality to settle in with respect to my parents' divorce, and things were pretty ugly. My mom had remarried and was pregnant with my baby brother, my father forbade references to our stepdad as "Dad" around him, and my grandfather was dying of cancer. Lullabies were supposed to promise peace and safety, but this one talked about disappearing and lost time. I wanted certainty and got none. 2002 was a sad year. 

2003:

Russian Easter Festival Overture

 - Adventures in orchestra and the beginnings of teacher crushes. Orchestra remained the driving motivator in my life from that year on.

2004:

For the Star of County Down

 - More adventures in orchestra, with a Celtic twist. I had just started playing fiddle. ("Star of the County Down" and "The Rakes of Kildare" are okay, but "Gravelwalk" is a LOT faster than what is played here.)

2005:

Where Will You Go?

 - I found Evanescence as a sad seventh grader with no self-esteem thanks to my father and the guy I competed with in all aspects of life. There was nothing I could do to please the former; any mistake I made was a public embarrassment to him .The latter, though, was an insecure little boy who helped himself up by bringing me down. I recognized that and pitied him for it, but it didn't make the taunting or the insults hurt any less.

Field of Innocence

 - More Evanescence. Five years after the divorce and things weren't much better. Then I started learning the details of why things fell apart. 

2006:

10,000 Days

 - Spritual explorations led to me rejecting everything and slowly accepting only those things that I needed. I didn't come around full-circle, but I did become convinced that confirmation was the right step. Still living in doubt, but I'm in a place where that's okay.

Roses Are Red

 - A breath of fresh air from all the angst, à la Europop.

2007:

What the Devil Ails You!/Loch Ness

 - This is my favorite fiddle set, and I'd been playing it for four years by that point. I started getting involved in our local Celtic group, and my sound improved hugely at that point. If you'd like to hear it, I'd be happy to play it for you. 

2008:

La Folia

 - Suzuki Vol. 6, the first song in the book. Corelli's adaptation for violin of one of the oldest known chord sequences, in D minor. This was my song for the year and no one else's. I knew that I had peaked there, and it made me kind of sad. That's the choice you make when you decide not to be a career musician, though.

2009:

One Day I Slowly Floated Away

- Things finally started settling down and have been getting better since.

"Wake up in the morning. // I will wake up and so shall you. // And I'll wake up. The sun is beautiful. // And it is warming you and I, fragile as we lie."