empty
Most mornings when I'm walking to work I listen to music. The playlists I choose are generally like the music version of comfort food, or a favorite pair of comfortable shoes. It is something I enjoy for that twenty minutes or so on my way to work where generally there isn't any enjoyment. Or maybe I shouldn't say there isn't any enjoyment. I think from time to time my coworkers and I intoxicate and entertain each other with sarcasm about how stupid our f'n job is. Is fabricating joy by hurling insults toward a corporate employer behind their back better than no joy at all? I don't know. Probably.
Most days when I listen to music on the way there I usually end up with one of the songs stuck in my head. One morning I had a rather strange and unexpected thing happen. When I got to the edge of the parking lot at work I decided to sit for a moment on the picnic table and finish the song that was playing, which happened to be Empty by Metric.
I removed my phone from my pocket before sitting down. Right after I sat down I unlocked it with my fingertip so I could check and see how much of the song was remaining. Just as the screen illuminated a lyric in the song played, “ask the line on your face what the line on your hand meant”. Not only did I hear it as it was playing, but the lyrics were also showing up below the little picture of the album cover. I also read the words while hearing them.
I had heard the song likely a hundred or more times over the years but I hadn't heard it in awhile. All day at work I could not stop thinking about that one lyric. It was not something that ever stood out to me on previous listens, and I found myself wondering if it even would have stood out this time if I hadn't sat down just then and read the words on my phone while they were being sung.
The lyric seemed to have an implication that maybe (most likely) it would not have had to me earlier in life. Sort of like regret, or like I had missed something fundamental along the way. At the same time though I felt a kind of freedom in knowing there is fuck all I can do about any of it now. The past can haunt me all it wants, but I can't change it. I can only live with the consequences of my bad decisions and enjoy the rewards of the good ones. Try to learn from all of it, and hopefully use what I have learned to make better decisions in the present.