The entire year of 2009 was one of those periods of angst in my life. I remember the sources, but not why I found them so distressing at the time.
I am a chronic playlist maker. Today, I am working on one called "Angst Like It's 2009." There are a lot of tracks from The Decemberists. And a couple Shins songs. And I can't remember what else I was really into back then? Boys with long hair and Mozart, maybe. I owned a lot of blue tank tops.
Late at night on Monday, I got a call. "Elika, do you have time to play in FSO this semester? We need someone to play last oboe."
I signed up for a poetry class, but then dropped it again when I thought about what a slut time is (she screws everyone).* The professor asked us who we were--why we were there--what are we doing--where are we going. And I said I wanted to write.with.pauses./tell stories that weren'tsostraightforward--didn't have such c.l.e.a.r. facts--couldn't be Understood From Headlines. I wanted to take the class, but dammit the required reading would have killed me.
Now that there is Beethoven in my future [update: there is Beethoven in my future], I am examining my hands and reaching for something that used to be. It's good it wasn't Tchaikovsky; I probably would have passed out. But it's not like Beethoven's Ninth doesn't have any memories attached to it.
I got stuck at nine songs. No, really. What did I listen to back then?
My best friends all ended up on the front page of Reddit the other night in their underwear, which is a searing reminder that when they took that picture, I was breaking a European terrorism law to live on Deshani's couch and how I've barely talked to her all year. Traveling is a harsh lesson in moving on.
When I went to go pick up music for the symphony last night, Candy said, "You look good. You look like you've grown up." I feel like I have. I'm not a confused affair who perennially feels as if she's on the edge of something important.
But, then again, I listened to a loop of nine songs by The Decemberists and The Shins today.
*attributed to John Green in his novel The Fault in Our Stars
