Blood

I connect to things, inanimate things, a lot by picturing it in certain situations. Sounds weird, here's my point. If I'm clothes shopping I connect to a certain sweater or, say, pajama bottoms by picturing myself wearing it on Christmas morning. I then create the whole day in my head. I imagine wearing the sweater and the pajama bottoms and smell breakfast in the oven, and picture smiling and drinking coffee all while wearing the sweater and pajama bottoms. So then, I feel the need to buy these clothes and wear them on the very morning I imagined. Do you ever do that?

I recently bought a pair of boots. I have a dress the boots would go great with, but that's not enough. I picture wearing them on a walk with Hall and Jack and having the leaves fall off the trees while we walk. It's cold outside and I'm wearing a big chunky scarf. Seriously. This is the process I go through with each article of clothing I wear. I've pictured it in someway, and I don't buy based on what my clothes will go with I buy based on feeling. I imagine these clothes will make me FEEL a certain way. Am I the only person who does this?

I find I connect with music the same way. I love my workout music because when I hear it I picture myself running my heart out to it. I love my Christmas music because I picture that same cup of coffee, those pajama bottoms, and that chunky Christmas morning sweater. I connect to Mumford & Sons because I picture sitting with Hall drinking wine and eating dinner with it raining outside and the baby fast asleep in his crib. (Okay maybe I connected to Mumford & Sons before there was ever a baby ;)) There is a new song I love that makes me tear up everytime I hear it. It reminds me of my grandfather. Blood by The Middle East. I picture driving in a car on a two lane road with the autumn leaves turning yellow, and the sun trickling into the car window, tickling my face. And it makes me cry, every time. It's sad and lonely. My grandfather is not sad and lonely. But this song just makes me think of him. He lost my grandmother who he had been married to for 67 years this year, and I can't imagine that he isn't grieving, that he isn't a little sad, and maybe a little lonely without her. Their marriage like any other was filled with bumps and rutts in the road, but in the end they didn't give up on each other. Growing up I imagined they went together like a pair. They were one unit. Like Salt and Pepper, one didn't come without the other. I figured they went effortlessly together, they were two halves of a whole. The whole nine yards. Then as I got into my mid-twenties, I realized that wasn't true. Sure in some ways they are like a pair, but in others they are two totally different people, who had two totally different lives but were tethered together throughout it all. They, like every relationship existed in two seperate worlds, worlds that intertwined and roped around the other, but in the end seperate, individual. I think that is easy to forget sometimes. My life is my own personal experience, enriched completely by others, but mine all my own. In the end, when I, by the grace of god, enter heaven, its just me, on my own having that conversation with Him. Hall, Jack, my parents, friends, they won't be there that day, only me. So I have to live my life for me, I have to make me happy, I have to fullfill myself. Sure in fullfilling myself it involves those closest to me, and my role in shaping their lives and that's a good thing. That makes me whole. Listening to that song this morning reminded me of a lot of things. I love music and lyrics for that very reason. It can be powerful, uplifting, sad, happy, revrent. It makes you feel, and it's insightful. In linking up this song to this page I was reading one of the comments on the page and it's true. Some songs speak to you, deep down. You don't understand why you feel so much in listening to them. This person wrote "this song makes me so emotional. i don't know why i'm sad, but i love it. it's overwhelming how it makes me feel and i don't even understand the meaning of the lyrics yet." The lyrics only make it better.