Old Tunes, Memories, and [very randomly] Hair.

I was perusing Spotify while making dinner tonight, and I had this sudden desire to listen to all of these bands/songs I barely remembered I knew. One such impulse led me to Jimmy Eat World. I saw the list, and was trying to remember the name of a song that had good timing in my teenager life.

One of my best friends died in a car accident at the beginning of my junior year. We'd spent much of the summer together. I'd just mutually unofficially [it was so complicated] broken up with a boy I'd been dating for WAY too long in teenage years (a year and a half). The relationship had been quite toxic to both of us, and splitting was the best thing in the world, but it left me very alone as we'd spent just about every waking minute with one another for the last year. Yes, I was a teenage girl and had pretty much hung out with one person for the first year and a half of high school. So, I'm pretty all alone, and my friend had just graduated, was pregnant, and her boyfriend was in Ohio with his dad for the summer. We needed one another. We applied for jobs together, hung out, listened to and talked with one another.

I never gave her the details of the split, just that we were "on a break." I didn't know how to explain it, and she never asked. She was just the only one who knew we weren't this weird little idealized couple (when we had no business being on anyone's ideal list). So while everyone I knew would come up to me and report to me that they saw my former with so-and-so here and there, I would just smile, and say, "Oh, they're just friends." Awkward.

August 19th rolls around. A friend called to tell me about a horrible accident she'd seen while out for lunch after church. I felt heartbroken for the woman involved and prayed that she'd be okay. The next morning at school, I heard the news. Tabby was dead. Her baby was in the NICU. I fell a part. For weeks I felt like I was existing somewhere between awake and asleep. I couldn't sleep at night. And in normal waking hours, I was fielding questions about my relationship (or lack thereof), missing someone to talk to about anything, and grieving for my friend. Enter Jimmy Eat World and Hear You Me:

There's no one in town I know
You gave [me] somewhere to go
I never said thank you for that
I thought I might get one more chance 

May Angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends
On sleepless roads the sleepless go
May Angels lead you in...

I used to repeat "May Angels lead you in" when I was trying to fall asleep. When I was listening to it today, I harmonized a bunch of different ways, and it's no wonder with as many times as it went through my head. As time passed and the shock wore off, and I knew that her baby was going to be okay, I got better. I had a lot of friends already (even though I'd spent most of my time with one person, I was still nice and social), but I learned I could confide in them. And it was so liberating to not be attached to anyone so I could spend my time with anyone whenever I wanted to. My friends from high school will always remain a sort of collective gem to me. I moved away from them so long ago, but I love most of them as if no time has passed between us. A facebook perk. My friend would be 30 at the end of September. I can hardly believe it.
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On a completely unrelated note, so unrelated, I can't believe I'm including it with this post: I have a hair appointment tomorrow. I was convinced I would cut it, but I'm having second thoughts. I've always wanted long hair, but I've never had it. It grows so slow that I lose patience. I know that I almost always regret cutting my hair. Tonight, I read that hair grows an average of 6 inches per year. According to some old color grow out and a cloth measuring tape, mine has grown about 4 inches in the last year and a half (plus a month or so). Lame-o.

 I will go with shorter styles in hand since I have this whole weird color issue, but I'm going to discuss grow out options. I will not let the pace of hair growth defeat my dream. In all reality, I hardly ever "do" my hair. I have visions of long braids and a hope that maybe one day all of my hair will decide to be the same texture instead of wavy with the very top layer deciding it would like to rebel and remain stick straight. Why can't the super straight part be under the wavy part? The perplexities of life, for sure.

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