Wasted Spare Time.

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Sometimes it’s better to be in love with no one in particular.

Ay weh.

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Sometimes great tunes happen to bad times, and when the bad time is over, not all the tunes get to move on with you.

Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

It happened to me again, yesterday. I was hitching a ride home with two friends, and one of them decided to play Snow Patrol’s “You Could Be Happy.” My friend was trying to sing along during the chorus, alternating between humming and guessing the right words; I, on the other hand, was trying to maintain an air of indifference, even though just the first few notes brought me back to a time in my life when I thought I was happy, right before life flipped the switch off and made everything dark. Say what you will about romanticizing break-ups, but that was when songs such as this could make me feel gutted and morose, alone and forgotten in such a wicked, wicked world.

Funny, how a song can sometimes simultaneously stand for such a polarized pair of emotions; specifically, how a song about love could elicit the worst feeling of remorse we are capable of wrenching out from the deepest pit in our heart. I wonder, has it ever occurred to those who wrote the greatest love songs that, at some point, the music and lyrics they’ve laid out for the world to hear could backfire in earnest and be the reminder of the exact opposite?

I remember the talk we had about avoiding places that held memories of those we’ve once loved and lost; how we can’t seem to be in these places - once our favorite spots, once we considered safe havens, maybe even another version of home - because now no matter how discomfitingly familiar everything still is, things will never be the same. And it’s too oppressing to think there is nothing you can do about it - that you were powerless to keep it all together, to keep it all intact. I feel the same way about the songs that once stood for moments in that one relationship held important - I am reminded of a certain weakness, of a failure and a defeat I could never redeem myself from, even if I wanted to, because to do so would mean possibly subjecting myself through all of the pain again. And no, thank you, but I am done with that.

So what I did was find new love songs for myself, ones that didn’t bring anyone specific to mind, ones that carried a blank slate, waiting to be filled with a new memory. I never discarded the old ones, though. I listen to them once in a while, when I feel like remembering things. But a lot like love, I move on from songs make me sad, and look for ones that could make me happy again - songs I am willing to share again with someone, in the hopes of making a new moment to remember things by.

I’ve learned just now, while making this mix, that it’s never the song that attaches itself to a particular moment, good or bad; it’s us who makes the connection, and so we decide if we’ll let this partnership between a song and a moment endure, or if we’re willing to let go and make room for something new.

They’re just songs about love, Chelsea. Let them be.

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“Goodbye, goodnight, farewell, whither, writher, prosper, fuck-off, good luck, and good riddance,” said the moon, the clock, the jilted-lover, the dying man, the adventurer, the conflicted believer, the damned soul, the blood, the bone, and the eye.

When I started making this mix a week ago, I had a monologue babbling on repeat in my head, an imagined dramatic piece to say should the time come that I’d be handing this to you and an awkward silence ensues. It was about regrets and bad timing and being open to the possibilities of meeting again, the what if’s and why not’s, the thank you’s and the remotest hint of the L word being blurted out should you shake your head and walk away. I imagine it’d be raining that day, like all the past days, and that I’d be wearing one of my obscenely short shorts and you’d be smoking your pretentious e-cigarette. I don’t know if I’d made an ambush trip to your place (though I don’t really know where you live, honestly) or if we’d a chance at being friends again before you leave and have a late-night meal at that McDonald’s branch near your place that you frequent. You’d be chatty (for sure) and I’d be averting eye contact (as usual). We’d be awkward right up to when the evening ends and you graciously thank me for this experience - yes, I’m certain that would be how you’d phrase it - and you’ll drive away in that big old car that you’re so proud of, and I’d wake up the next day wondering for the rest of my life if there was something I forgot to tell you.

I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen now, though. In the span of the week I’ve made this mix, I have wallowed in whatever convoluted set of emotions I have developed and accumulated for you for the past two months, and I’ve pretty much gotten through every single one of them and translated them into songs. I think it will all make sense to me alone, this jumbled up playlist, but I do hope you find some semblance of what and how things were between us when you listen to it. I don’t mean for you to like it - I doubt it that you would, you have such mainstream taste in music - but in the off-chance that you would, I’m glad.

I took the part of me that’s got your name written on it and turned it into a mix because this is how I deal with things. I guess this is my way of saying goodbye.

Don’t forget to write, Geneva.