We'll always remember how we remained...

Tonight was the first early night of the fall. Walking through the parking lot to my car has once again become a little more fearful, and the crisp air mingles with the faded light to create an ambiance of closure, the fading and chilling reality of the end of another year.

Not to delve completely into melodrama, I also happen to have suffered from a not so mild case of the Mondays. Life behind the computer, as great and as much as I love my job, is not entirely satisfying and is nowhere near the dream of the office overlooking the mountains with the over-sized leather chair, over-sized sweater, a fire behind me and a novel before me, one that I am writing.

But as I was driving home tonight, "Emma Discovery", one of the anthem songs off of The Anniversary's "Designing A Nervous Breakdown", started playing off my iPod. It was a different time for me, when this song was a symbol of a life filled with possibilities, ignoring the logistics of bills and wages and the effervescent battle between the two. I was prepared to conquer the world with my pen, rocker boyfriend in tow, and live a life filled with passion and romance and intrigue.

The Anniversary.

Now, with my life mapping its way out before me, involving little of the seat of my red and faded bell-bottom corduroy pants that I used to fly by on so precariously, I am aware of all the things I thought I had time to discover, how quickly that time is flying by, and... so poetically... how all of this is great for the makings of a nervous breakdown.

Why can't life be like the dreams of the 19 year old?

19 and free.

Don't get me wrong. I do love my life. I love my husband [who still happens to be the rocker that I fell in love with so many years ago]. I love my job [that so graciously does not keep me trapped behind a computer all that often, and when it does I am usually writing or communicating with artistic people, not so shabby]. I love my friends and my family and Jacksonville and the great things it gives me. But I miss being 19 and fearless. I hate to think that that is all behind me now. That all my Monday's will pile up into one long stream that takes me to a place I never intended to go.

Sat on your roof young in eighty-two
How you remember is how it remains
Turn down the light so now I can die
We'll always remember how we remained

-Emma Discovery, The Anniversary