I will.

Jimmy Eat World & My Heart.

Last night I got to see Jimmy Eat World perform at In The Venue in Salt Lake City.  Let me tell you a little bit about my relationship with Jimmy Eat World.  I was introduced to them about 11 years ago.  The connection was instant.  I didn't have to warm up to them or ease into anything, no, I was hooked.  I fell hard.  Sometimes you just find this perfect fit, this piece that fits right into the puzzle of your soul.  Dramatic, I know.  But really.  Jimmy Eat World is a piece of my puzzle and I am not ashamed to be dramatic about it.  When you love someone (or something?) so deeply for so long all common sense as well as fear of being embarrassed, goes out the window.

I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.

Now all I need is just to hear a song I know.

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.

I wanna fall in love tonight.

Lately I've been struggling.  And not just recently, but for a while.  And when I struggle I don't deal with it well.  I don't spiral out of control or anything, it's actually the opposite.  I keep it to myself.  I push it away. Out of sight, out of mind.  I don't talk about it, I just don't deal.  I never have.  Opening up is not something that comes easy for me.  Letting people know that I need someone to listen or that I need someone to be there for me is not something I can really do.

The things we think might be the same

But I won't fight for more

Its just not me to wear it on my sleeve

Count on that for sure

Instead, I turn to music.  I get lost in lyrics and I find comfort, therapy, answers... I find it all in lyrics.  I pretty much relate everything to a line I've heard in a song.  When I'm really struggling, when I really am at a loss, I use lyrics.  I quote a song and I hide behind it.  From time to time someone will read into it.  From time to time someone will ask me if I'm ok.  I don't deal and I don't want to talk about it so I say, "Yes, I am great, it's just a song I love."  Most of the time I want someone to say, "I don't think you really are ok."  But I play the "I'm happy!" card pretty well so most of the time they don't.  Having been struggling for a while I turned to Jimmy Eat World's album Futures.  It came up on my iPod a couple of months ago and I fell in love with it all over again.  I really have been listening to it constantly for about 2 months.  I can't get enough of it.  It speaks to me, gives me comfort, and really does lift my spirits.

I, I always could count on futures
That things would look up, and they look up

Seeing Jimmy Eat World last night was perfect.  When my boss asked a few weeks ago if anyone wanted to see them I JUMPED at the opportunity.  Not only have I had an on-going love affair for years, they are a big part of what's been pulling me through these days.  I needed this.  When the music started and they jumped right into Praise Chorus my heart was happy.  

Are you gonna live your life wonderin' standing in the back lookin' around?

Are you gonna waste your time thinkin' how you've grown up or how you missed out?

Things are never gonna be the way you want.

Where's it gonna get you acting serious?

Things are never gonna be quite what you want.

Or even at 25, you gotta start sometime.

They were so good.  Like really, really good.  Every song was better than the last.  Even the new ones that I hadn't heard before were perfect, and I don't always like to listen to songs that I don't know at a live show.

Jimmy Eat World @ In The Venue 5/15/2011

Obviously I loved every song.  I stood there staring, practically not moving the entire time.  I stared.  I listened.  My heart felt like it was going to burst out my chest, which was probably just because of the enormous amount of bass, it's been a long time since I've been to a show.  I hung on every word, singing along in my head, but not ever out loud.  I couldn't bring myself to sing out loud.  Or to jump. Or dance.  Or show any emotion, really.  

It's funny that these type of shows used to be my life.  I mean really.  Every weekend of my late teenage years was pretty much spent at some venue in Seattle watching some band that I would have died if I didn't get to see.  If 16 year old me would have seen someone standing there in the crowd, right up front, just staring.  Not moving, not singing, not smiling... she would have wondered what in the world they were doing.  I know I would have wondered what they were thinking.  What they could have been so seriously contemplating, what could have been holding them back from jumping around like a crazy person and singing their heart out like I obviously would have been doing.   

No one else will know these lonely dreams

No one else will know that part of me

Sometimes I allow myself to grieve the loss of my childhood.  To truly miss the absolute simplicity of not having a care in the world.  To actually be able to laugh out loud and and dance and sing and live IN THE MOMENT without a single thought to what was going to happen an hour from now, a day from now, years from now...  Sometimes I have to grieve.

When the time we have now ends.

When the big hand goes round again.

Can you still feel the butterflies?

Can you still hear the last goodnight?

I needed Jimmy Eat World last night.  I needed to be reminded to feel and to open up and to grow up and to let go and to move on.  I needed my love for them to be solidified, which it absolutely was.  I needed some live music therapy, to feel the insane beating of my heart along with the bass and to hear the ringing in my ears, and I needed the people moving around me.

I need you to show me the way from crazy.

I wanna be so much more than this.

{Aaaand I realized that the reason I am attracted to skinny boys is most likely the countless boys I have adored from the crowd as they sing their heart out on stage with their guitar.  They are mostly always skinny.  And pale.  And perfect.}

They ended their set with the song Sweetness.  For the first time all night I really wanted to dance.  The music therapy was working and my heart was feeling so much better.

Are you listening?

If you're listening

If you're listening, Are you listening?

Sing it back

If you're listening, Are you listening?

I'm still running away

I'm still running away, uh oh, uh oh

Won't play your hide and seek game.

I was spinning free

with a little sweet and simple numbing me.

What a dizzy dance

This sweetness will not be concerned with me.

No the sweetness will not be concerned with me.

{The video above is actually from the Seattle Jimmy Eat World show that I was able to go to exactly one week after the SLC show.}

LA LA LA

Journal.

I am thankful that I have kept a journal.  Many journals actually.  I can say that since 2002 (at least) I have kept a fairly steady journal.  Whether it be an actual written journal, deadjournal.com, livejournal.com, or my blog, I have records of so much.  I love to read back and remember exactly what it was that I was feeling, hear the music I was listening to, and see how much things have changed.  Or how they haven't changed at all.  I'm older.  I'm old.  I don't use as many exclamation points.  I don't write down every. last. detail. of every. single. day.  I'm more subtle now, I hold things back.  I keep things to myself.  I miss the raw honesty of my deadjournal.  I said anything and everything that I was thinking.  EVERYTHING!  What happened between 2002 and 2011 that makes it so I sensor myself with my own journals?  The line "It's just not me to wear it on my sleeve, count on that for sure" comes to my mind.  Except, it kind of is.  At least it used to be.

I found a paper journal yesterday from July 08 through February 2009.  It's only half full, of course.  I buy blank notebooks like they're going out of style.  I LOVE THEM.  There's something about a blank notebook that screams, "POSSIBILITIES!"  It's a story waiting to be written and a story waiting to be read.  Writing and reading.  Two of my very favorite things.  So when I find a beautiful blank book I buy it.  And I write.  And years later I find it in a closet at the bottom of a storage bin, half filled with the thoughts, lyrics, and drawings of a younger me.  They are never finished.  Except one.  I filled one entire journal in 2003.  Where is it? I would love to know.

Some time later, getting the words wrong

Wasting the meaning and losing the rhyme.

Nauseous adrenaline, like breaking up a dog fight

Like a deer in the headlights, frozen in real time

I'm losing my mind.

The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Live, 1964)

I think I was born in the wrong time period. This music makes me feel like no other music does. Sigh.