Your Urge (76/90)

We spent about three hours at the beach today. I traveled for about five hours. I haven't done much but sleep and be lazy.

When we got to the beach, I didn't know what to do. I had slept for the ride down, so I couldn't sleep any more. I had a book I tried to read last summer, but my parents kept interrupting me with mundane beach conversation. So I laid on a towel on the beach and plugged my iPod in. I was going to try to write, but nothing was coming out. I just laid down and thought about the music I was listening to.

Usually before I go somewhere or about halfway through the month I try to get a new CD from iTunes. Last night I bought Colbie Caillait's album, Breakthrough. Most of her songs were about the love that she was struggling to be with, or about the break up that was inevitable or just passed. And I just listened to those. I paid attention to the lyrics, but they didn't really mean anything to me.

And then tonight, while my family was huddled around the TV as usual, I started to erase some pictures on my camera, since we're supposed to be taking pictures. I only deleted pictures that were before Spring semester, but imagine my surprise when I realized that a lot of them had Dave in them. And then, even more surprising was the sadness that seemed to settle over me.

So to counter it, I started a conversation with one of my friends who is in a similar situation as I am. Distract myself from one potential problem with another one that was coming to a head sooner rather than later, as I previously expected. And that was the time that I wanted to write. I didn't realize it until now. I tried to talk to people to distract myself from the pull I was feeling to write.

I haven't felt the urge to write for awhile. I did have that poem, but it really was just about fireworks. I had been throwing around ideas about seeing fireworks in my head the week up to that poem. But before that, I can't remember. Writing just to get everything out, not because I have to with this, or because I should with my seven deadly sins idea.

But it's left me now. Now, I'm not sure where this post is going, and whether it's ending soon. This might just be a meaningless post, because I've already written something today on little sleep, and I'm trying to do it again. But I have learned my lesson, not to write when I'm tired. Usually it comes out the way I speak when I'm tired.

Slightly amusing, but overall a waste.

Do You Remember (27/90)

Helped out a friend with some issues, watched some TV, danced some more. No calls from jobs still.

There really hasn't been much of a theme with my thoughts today, but I've been trying to listen to different songs, mainly ones that have memories attached to them. Lately I've had the radio on when I'm in my room at night, and every time a certain song came on I had to change the station. Because of the memories associated with it.

There's usually a song that defines a relationship. Well, Dave and I had a few. "Fallin' for You" by Colbie Caillat and "Down" by Jay Sean. And every time these songs would come on, I would have to change the station. If I were across the room I would literally run to change the station when I heard the first few notes. There were a lot of memories with these two songs.

On one of the last days of school, I went to waste my meal plan, and "Fallin' for You" came on. I couldn't change the station this time. I had to endure it. And the memories from the beginning came back. Not the ones that I had been dwelling on. They were good memories, of course. But not as strong as the ones I had been going over in my head when something else reminded me of him. And I realized why - that song was for the beginning of our relationship. We already knew we had fallen hard for each other by October even, and things just continued to grow from there.

But "Down" has a completely different significance to me. When I heard it at the end of the summer, I thought it was just another song talking about girls dancing and wanting to have sex with them. But on our first date, he had the song stuck in his head, and was singing it. Somehow it became the defining song of our relationship. I never got sick of hearing it. And then at the Valentine's Dance we went to, they played both of our songs.

We somehow came up with a dance. It wasn't really a ballroom type of dance. It was indescribable. I guess we were so in sync with each other at that point that we choreographed a dance on the spot, and it flowed. We both agree that it was amazing how well it worked and how we thought it would've been fun to watch us perform it. And that's the strongest memory of that song.

The song's still getting airtime on the three radio stations I listen to, and I've always changed the station. But for over a week now, it's just been habit. I don't get a scared, tight feeling in my chest when I hear the first few notes. So today I listened to it. And it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I don't think I actually let myself relive anything of our relationship when I listened to it. I just had brief moments in time, nothing was focused.

Memories are a funny thing. Certain things are easily recalled, and certain others you can't for the life of you remember. It's getting harder to remember certain moments in time of our relationship. I guess that's what happens when you don't desperately try to keep the memories close. And somehow I can still remember how it felt to dance with him, and how he laughed at something he found hilarious. I can't remember, for instance, much about what we did for Valentine's Day. I know we went to see the movie, but that's about it.

And yet I can remember back to when I was three, sitting in a pew at my parents' wedding. I was bored, in a white dress, and rooting around in the pews. I pulled out a piece of Double Bubble gum, still in the wrapper. It obviously amused me, because I decided to chew it. I remember it was really hard. This is the earliest memory I have, and I don't really remember much else from my childhood.

The thing that seems to trigger some memories between then and middle school are songs. Give me a Disney song, and I can remember things my family did while singing them, the first time I saw the movie, and random other things. Give me something from Radio Disney, and I can probably still sing all the lyrics. Give me some jazz pieces, and I'll remember car rides with my dad.

No other medium gives me as strong memories as music does. Certain movies I can remember some things about the settings, but if there's no music that's accompanying my memories, it's a lot harder to remember. Even if I'm talking with the person I was there with. I wonder why music is such an important factor in my memories.

Maybe it's because music's always been a big part of my life? But that's for another time.