Pushing up the last few inches on the inclined shoulder press I really heard the lyrics to Carve Your Heart (Dashboard Confessional) for the first time. For the first time, when I've listened to the song at least 50 times. It's as if Chris Carraba (sp?) snuck into my carved out heart to find the lyrics (bold cliff notes idea thanks to Biffy):

Carve your heart out yourself
Hoplessness is your cell
Since you've drawn out these lines
Are you protected from trying times

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish that she had never dreamt at all

Oh look now
There you go with hope again
Oh you're so sure
I'll be leaving in the end

Dig your ditch deep enough
To keep you clear of the sun
You've been burned more than once
You don't think much of trust

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish she had never dreamt at all

Oh Look now, there you go with hope again
But I'll be sure your secrects safe with me
Oh you're so sure
I'll be leaving in the end
Treatin me like I'm already gone

but I'm not
I will stay
where you are
always

I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)
I will stay
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)

Tonight's been very thought-y, especially since conversation with Jody is so hard to do without including lots of thought-y thoughts. I was reminded yet again of how easy it is to forget how rapidly other people's lives move on simultaneously to your own, completely unaffected by you. You are irrelevant, kind of. At the same time, talking to someone with a vantage point mired in history serves to magnify how you've changed on a microscopic level that feels macroscopic to the person holding the magnifying glass. You're more adult, you're wiser, you've had all these thoughts that I've not heard or seen expressed, all these thoughts that influence your daily outlook; I'm more adult, I'm more confident, I've had all these thoughts that I've languished in contemplating without you there as my sounding board. You say you know yourself now more than ever before and I agree for myself. But at the same time it makes me sad to know that for every bit more that I know myself, it means I know you that much less.

And yet hearing your voice soothes my wandering soul and grounds me in the reality inherent in reaching out to a dear friend. Hearing your voice also makes me thirsty to climb out of my well and let D and H and JO and K's voices wash over my parched ears more often. I miss you guys. In that kind of way that makes me day dream about the last time we were together, the last conversation we had in person and what the first thing is we'll talk about when we see each other next (D - a joke about improved performance. H - a joke about improved performance. hehe) I especially am missing my IA right now.

How is it that parents serve as a mirror for the worst exaggerations of the impatient, selfish, unforgiving facets of your personality? They're the only two people in the world who I can love the most while pushing them as much as possible to test them, to be a jerk just because I can. Thanksgiving was satisfactory, but the magic of the holiday has been robbed from my idealistic imagination. Cooking the full spread's really not that hard. And the stresses a manufactured holiday create because societal morays dictate that the day go a certain way, that you feel and act a certain way, are just unnecessary. I'm on the verge of deciding that I'd much rather spend time with my parents on any random day than one with human-assigned, arbitrary importance.