a friend of mine/a classic rock enthusiast has a sister who recently moved to California. she went without a job, but with an apartment and a 3,000 mile desire for change. he sent me a text message in the hours and days after, noting the thick layers of irony guised as song waves on his radio.
later that same night at one of the three bars in South Orange, NJ, i heard 'the favorite song' of someone i very much care about, that i probably shouldn't care about. and i probably wouldn't care about as much if these sobering reminders didn't weave their way into my life, particularly in the mediocre bar scene.
around that same time my sister's friend gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby. i don't remember if the child was a boy or a girl, or how much it weighed, or what overpriced stroller they purchased. what i do remember this child was a reminder of how beautiful life can be. what i do remember is that this long time friend of my sister, and new mother, had recently taken on the role of taxed and grieving sister. her far too young sister had recently passed in a painfully long death from cancer. whenever people say it's the 'natural process of life' and that this person is 'in a better place,' they forget that the pain, especially in cases like these, that the pain is incredibly unnatural when the person dying isn't ready to go, and they don't want to be 'in a better place.' they just want to stay.
after she gave birth, she said she heard all of her sister's favorite songs and all of the songs related to her. because child birth just doesn't make enough of an emotional impact.
and that's just music.
those who know me by now know that i think music writes our souls, sometimes revealing, or even forcing ourselves to admit to pieces of ourselves that we may not have even known were there. and if it isn't writing our souls, it is at least punctuating it.
in instances like the aforementioned, i debate whether these occurrences are fate or merely extreme coincidences. and if they are fate, are they fate in the way that we project?
i once vowed i would never live in Manhattan. i don't know why.
i now live on E. 88th street and work in Murray Hill. i hesitantly scooted across the bridge into Queens/Closer to the Mets because i was still unemployed after an entire summer of job hunting in my cozy South Orange studio. i loved my apartment, but having graduated i knew there was not much left here for me anymore. i also didn't have a choice.
i was 'supposed' to move in with people i met in college by now. but it turns out, the economy isn't so great right now. who knew?!
so it turns out, i was 'supposed' to sublet a room at my sister's place until at least mid-December. instead, we got bed bugs (see previous post that is now a wretched memory). there are few things harder to get rid of and more disgusting.
so now i'm 'supposed' to live in Manhattan--which i was supposed to do. i was supposed to be one of those anxious New Jersey transit/PATH people that had to face copious amounts of commuters and New Jersey and New York taxes. i know that i ended up here by a series of decisions. informed decisions. decisions that were planned and weighed and thought out. this isn't what i wanted, and i've never been happier.
i think it's pretty cool that God gave us this free will thing. and i appreciate it. i'm stubborn enough with my parents dictating decisions, who have a direct dialogue with me. normally they have the 'we say so' or 'it's our money' card, but they still let me grow. they also read this blog ;)
regardless of our free will, i'm confident that he (or she or it) is still in charge up there. back to fate.
maybe all of it is fate. maybe it's all serendipity. maybe there is no such thing as coincidence. maybe each move we make is carefully plotted by something greater than we can even grasp. maybe there is a marionette that let's us pull the strings, but still yanks us back to where we should be. i'm inclined to believe some aspects of this; i make decisions(not hugely important ones) based on lucky pennies. before this postseason i would totally accept that A-Rod's post season mishaps were partially to blame on his #13. i proceed cautiously after black cat sightings.
the obvious counter argument is 'then why do bad things happen?' if someone or something were in control of every detail, why would they be so cruel? i don't fully believe that you can appreciate the good without the bad, although the good does taste a whole lot sweeter after. but i do know a lot of people, who have endured a lot of bad things, and are a lot better off for it. bad is more than a perspective check. sometimes bad is just a road to good. sometimes bad makes you see what you were blind to, or opens up doors that you were content with being closed. sometimes bad turns predictable and comfort upside down for the better. sometimes what is incredibly painful ends up protecting your heart from something worse. maybe the fact that i realize this is an argument to believe in fate enough. easier typed than believed.
my mom says 'what's meant to be will find a way.' this opens the door to wear fate isn't always what we project. this sometimes drives me up a wall and sometimes makes me smile from ear to ear. this is because what's meant to be and what i think is meant to be don't always align. or maybe they do. but i also thought i should be in new jersey right now. fate's not instant gratification. that's the part that drives me nuts. fate is usually right and makes us happy. that's what makes me smile. maybe the fact that someone keeps biting their way back into our lives says something about them, or maybe it says that we will learn from the battle instead. maybe someone being driven away for change rather than chasing a hanging dream will teach us to make a change. or maybe they will fall flat on their face and realize the comfort of home. either way, i think it's important to keep our hearts open to what we should learn, rather than what we think we're supposed to learn. otherwise, we'd be learning what we already know. which in essence is nothing at all.
or maybe i'm full of it. maybe we arrived here because of decisions we made with no outside impact. maybe we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache if we took our own determined paths. maybe our itunes are just a random collection of songs that sync up at inconvenient times. in a way, this would be comforting. because we would control everything except for death and taxes. but in a way, that's no fun. and until fate proves otherwise, i can't buy into it entirely. i didn't want to be where i am, but i'm happy here. even though i made the decisions to get here, i think the fact that i never wanted to be hear says something, and speaks volumes when it does.
believe. believe. believe. don't stop believing. but don't imitate journey in any other way--they kind of suck. but maybe as i'm curing myself of my bronchitis and sinusitis--or as i like to call it, bronchusitis, i'll hear journey and never forget this blog.
-k.
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Now playing: Charlotte Martin - Beautiful Life
via FoxyTunes
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