My theme songs
Me: Look, we just have to make this work for…
Simultaneously: 40 years
Her: Jinx! You owe me a coke.
Me: What? That’s not a thing.
Her: Yes, it is grandpa…
The Firecracker likes to poke fun at our age difference but I don’t really mind at all.
See, I wear it like a badge of honor.
Cause the ability to get old is a privilege. Not everyone gets that chance so I’m grateful to get to be an old man.
Years ago, I asked you what your theme song would be.
I think our lives go through a series of thematic changes.
Back when I was young and stupid in my early thirties, I thought that my debilitating insomnia and my breakup with the Reporter was the worst thing that coulda happened to me.
Looking back, I’m shocked how naïve I was.
During that time, my life was a dramady – some comedy mixed with some minor drama.
During that time, my theme song was Overkill by Colin Hayes.
Speaking of Colin Hay, when I met Alison, I think that my life was still a dramady but definitely more drama than comedy, as we felt the weight of life as a young married couple.
We had our ups-and-downs but we were just trying to figure out how to have a life together. With a fatty of our own, somehow.
Always felt that, once we got the kid, our real lives would begin, that any minute now, our ship would come in.
But it never did.
It never occurred to me that I was living my real life until it was too late.
See, every day was a holiday with her…
…until it wasn’t.
Until it all turned to shit.
During Alison’s sickness, Lorde was huge because it was the only album I had on my phone and I was so busy trying to save her and our life that I didn’t have time to change it.
Still never listen to Lorde because it brings back such vivid memories.
Think I would throw up if I heard Pure Heroine again.
Jesus, I musta heard that album easily 200 times during the first four months.
I was so busy that I literally didn’t have a moment to download any new songs and it was waaaaay before Spotify.
Anywho, in the song, Buzzcut Season, there’s a line that goes, “It kissed your scalp and caressed your brain.”
Remember hearing that line and thinking that, even with Alison bald and stick thin, I still thought she was beautiful and I was so lucky to have met her.
When she was sick, suppose that my life was probably best summed up by Chaos Chaos’s Do You Feel It?
Some days I’m built of metal, I can’t be broken
But not when I’m with you
You love me real, we have it all
Can’t leave me now
I love the way, you are today
Run away with me now
Kept hoping it was all a bad dream, I’d wake up, and she I could run away somewhere with the boy and live the life we were supposed to live.
The years afterward were gutting for so many reasons that I’ll just keep my theme song during that time to myself, if you don’t mind.
But right now, at this moment, honestly don’t know if my life’s gonna be a dramady again, another tragedy, or something altogether new.
There’s a song by a fella named Mike Blume, who released his latest song under the name Whatever Mike for some reason, called In-Between.
The chorus goes:
I’m inbetween
Right here where I want it
Right here where I want it
I′m inbetween
Dunno if the rest of the song is really super appropriate to my life right now but those few lines perfectly encapsulate how I look at my life right now.
I’m in-between alla these memories and hopes, life and death, happiness and sadness.
All of it. I’m in between all of it.
Somehow, it’s ok because it’s better to be in-between than toward the end. Nowadays, at least.
Nothing is as I wanted it to be, but I’m happy where I am right now.
Which makes me anxious because happiness is so rare for me. Then again, what is life, if not a tragedy fulla joy?
I think our theme songs changes with the years, so I suppose we’ll revisit this topic again from time-to-time.
What about you?
What’s your theme song?
Me: Why do you hurt me?
Her: (laughing) If I don’t have old jokes, I have nothing here, Logan. Nothing!
Location: this afternoon, walking in the sun with Firecracker down Broadway
Mood: introspective
Music: I’m between, right here where I want it (Spotify)
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