Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Relentless March of Time (Is Breaking My Heart)

I feel like I may have finally crossed the threshold into adulthood.

I know it sounds strange, me being like 34 and a wife and a mother of two kids...but I reside in a city where we revel in unending adolescence. It's like Never Never Land with more coffee shops. And I'm a musician. Adult avoidance is at the top of my job description.

But somehow as I crossed the threshold of 2012, I felt this change inside. A sadness and yet an understanding of the transience of everything. Maybe it was because there have been some close couple friends of mine who've parted ways and other friends who've gotten sick and other friends who've passed on. Maybe it's because having two children is such a strange mix of life affirming wonderment and heart crushing vulnerability. Or maybe I'm just finally old enough to see it -- everything changes, everything ends.

It's just breaking my heart these days.

Yesterday I found myself in the gym listening to The Street's "A Grand Don't Come For Free" in its entirety. I've owned it for years, but in true modern music listening form I never had listening to every track in order all the way through.  It's a great record; funny and hooky and very, very cinematic. The whole record is a story with plot and conflict and climax and pathos and by the last part of the last track I was near tears as I sat there on the mat, stretching my hamstrings. I hurried out of the gym and straight to my minivan and just let myself weep for it all. I hadn't realized until that moment how heavy this acceptance of endings had weighed on my heart.

So I want to share this track with the internet, even though I know it won't make any sense, it being the last track on a record where you really need to hear the whole record. And it's really the second half of this song, starting at around 3:10 that got me. I'm posting this unofficial stop motion lego video because it makes me smile. Cathartic music plus legos equals pure happiness.

Just so you know, this is Brit-hop with a bunch of cursing and a little violent language. If you have small kids or don't like anything that falls under the umbrella of rap, you may want to avoid this video. But you never know, you may really like it.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh Honey ... the mid-30s malaise. It hit me when I turned 35 and I realized that I had to get rid of so many things in my life that I'd outgrown. Particularly bad friendships. It came at the same time that people my age started losing their parents, dealing with illnesses and aging.

But the awesome part? With all the loss and vulnerability, it's easier to see that as an adult, you really can do anything you damn well please. The losses and sadness are inevitable, so you might as well surround yourself with as much awesomeness as possible - your people, your kids, your art, and everything that's good in the world.

I'd totally forgotten about The Streets. Revisiting today while I clean the kitchen.

The Next Beyond said...

This was a nice post, McQueen.

brooke michie said...

Yep. I'm thinking a lot more about this kind of stuff nowadays, too. I guess there is something to the age thing, but really, you are an introspective and thoughtful person. So I think this is a natural function of that. And it certainly seems esier to see now with some perspective and realizations about our own pasts and our new futures.

EMQ said...

Maybe we're all kind of gong through the same thing...you're right Robin, it does kind of make you focus on surrounding yourself with the good in the moment. Brooke, maybe it's also that my life Islas slowed down enough to really think about things. And Desaray, thanks the compliment. I feel like a baby blogger compared to you, so you know, thanks.