where-i-havent-been-in-so-long

[where-i-havent-been-in-so-long]

imagine dragons, driving in the car

it's back to being 16, 17, driving back and forth from high school to work to home, with the Night Visions CD as my musical companion.

it's the specific feeling of being on the verge of some ineffable yet irreversible change- having become friends with a boy, texting on my knockoff blackberry keyboard phone in the basement during the commercials of whatever's on TV. It's been a couple of months of this, knowing he feels more and having pointedly brushed off his hints and questions. It was cowardly, to leave it unspoken and kick that can down the road, but it felt out of my wheelhouse. He knew what he felt, but did I? Did I really? I thought so- I thought I felt friendship- but really I'd never had a crush before anyway, so who was I to say? And perhaps there was a bit of one, almost certainly there was, but at the same time it didn't feel right. And in all of that my solution was to never address it.

Feeling the pot simmering, not to the point of boil-over, but... to the point of something.

Thinking on this when I was alone- specifically, during my 45 minute commutes. That feeling creeping in, but really the novelty of having a new friend, of maybe really making one on my own? It felt good, it felt warm, he found me funny and was funny himself, though in truth we never spoke in person more than three or four times in our entire acquaintance, so I could've been reading his tone however best suited me. But if this thing came to its head, wouldn't that mean it's just that classic case of his friendship with me being only to get to some other stage beyond? Like what I thought was warm and good was worthwhile only as an interstitial placeholder before this other stage he wanted to bring us to?

Why couldn't we just keep what was good the way it was?

I- as he accused me of later- 'led him on' like this for those 3 or 4 months of our friendship. But I felt it underneath all along, I guess. The malaise and the specific tonal sounds of the guitar on this album, which I listened to repetitively at the time, are so entwined now with that state. It's almost crushing to hear them now, years later, brought up on shuffled ai-generated playlists by surprise.

Like pressing the bruise of that time, those thoughts I worked round and round, seeing no other end to it but pushing it off all the same, unable to be straightforward with my words. Eventually, I forced it to come from him, in a way. I wasn't stupid, just pretended to be, but at the same time, I was a little stupid. I didn't really know how to do any better.

It's so teenage, so teenage. It's hard to go back there. But she (little me) really felt a lot, at that time. It was deep inside, it was hard to wrap my head around and really get a look at what I was feeling, or maybe, just hard to be honest with myself about it. I didn't like him that way, there was a feeling that it wasn't what I wanted, yet it was tough for me to face that and the consequent fallout. So i just... thought about it a lot. While I was by myself, driving, and happened to be enjoying Night Visions, and eventually they got wrapped up in each other.

It's Hear Me, it's Amsterdam, it's Every Night, it's Selene and The River. I laugh off the slightly-visceral reaction I get now when I instinctively skip their songs.

Their music isn't really my thing now, but the other day I felt compelled to put on Night Visions while driving to work, my commute nowadays only 15 minutes, and I let it wash over me. It took me right back, to that teenage, unsure place where I haven't been in so long.