Ponderous Ponderings.

So, I'm thinking of getting a PocketStudio, which is this little digital 4-track recorder...which would allow me to mess around and make my own rough demos, for under $300, which would be awesome. I really like the idea of doing that...I think it would make the songwriting/arranging process a zillion times faster and more precise.
The problem is....if I get that little gadget, I give up my planned tax return vacation. Which sucks. The smart choice is to get the tool that will be useful in the long run - plus, I'll feel good about finally getting some recording equipment, something I've been saying I'd do for, like, the past three years.

Don't you hate it when you've already made the decision, but you just don't want to admit you made the decision, because then you give something up?

Several good friends are currently going through the grieving/healing phase after the end of a relationship. I hate watching my friends suffer, especially when there's nothing I can do to help, and the only thing I can offer is a string of trite cliches that are cold comfort for a broken heart.

I remember being there, though, not so long ago. I remember the sting of it, the shock of it, the disbelief - the creeping, horrifying realization that the person who fills your heart doesn't want it. I remember spending every second thinking about it, going over every permutation and interpretation of every conversation, trying to find a reason, an explanation, a solution, a happy ending that just isn't there. I remember feeling the endless empty chasm in your gut when you finally understand and accept and the way you can't breathe under the weight of that brutal thought.

And then, eventually, after losing a lot of sleep and eating too much chocolate and having the inevitable rebound fling....I settled into a sort of comfortable bitterness. It didn't hurt so much as disappoint. I mourned the loss of the ideal, not the reality. I understood that despite my hormonal belief at the time, it never would've worked, that he really wasn't good enough for me, that whether he was an asshole who'd done me wrong or I had somehow pushed him too much or not enough....it just wasn't meant to be. And that's okay.

Now, it's been long enough that the bitterness sometimes fades out, and I can remember some of the good things, the movie moments - "it's the laughter we will remember," like the song says. When I hear of him and what he's doing, there are times it still hits me like a fist to the face....and sometimes I don't care......and sometimes I'm happy for him. Now, more than wanting him back or wanting him to suffer....I just want what I thought he was.

It doesn't really hurt to think about it anymore. I never thought that day would come, but it did, and when I hear my friends' pain it reminds me of that light at the end of the tunnel. It didn't help me to hear people say that shit when I was there....but on the other side of the words, all I can do is say them.