So I’m searching on the internet to find the lyrics for the Mercy Playground song Sex and Candy right, cause that’s what normal people do, right? Anyway, I find this cover by some Russian girl (lunatik2706) who reminds me of of a girl I briefly dated in college. So I’m watching the video and trying to figure out that “devious stares in my direction” lyric and I’m noticing that she really does a great job in the video of showing you the chords and rifts in the song and it occurs to me, what was up with that kid? Not the kid in the video, although I’m sure she’s a perfectly pleasant girl when she’s not cussing in her out takes, and not the girl I dated in college, although I’m sure she’s a perfectly pleasant adult these days. The kid that I don’t get is me.
I remember the things I did, the places I went, the people I hung out with. I just can’t remember how I “felt” back then. What exactly was the plan? I look back now and there is nothing to gauge my life by. No journal, no body of work, no love letters, just some grades on a report card mark that semester. It was while I was losing my first girl friend and before I met my wife. It was the void that was college. It makes me wonder what there is to mark this time in my life.
Then I figure there is quite a bit to mark this time. A family that tolerates and occasionally loves me, a job that is ripe with “opportunities”, even a terrible blog to mark the passage of time. So what is different about this JJ from that one. I reckon I’m just more self aware. I’m more in tune with my mortality. I get that I’m only here for a finite amount of time and that as long as I’m here, there must be a reason for me to be here. That and I have more Benjamin’s than that bum did.
So my salute to the youth of the world. May your teenage and early adulthood be every bit as wonderful as mine was. May you have friends, lovers and confidants to light the way. May you find your true purpose in life. And if you’re not to busy, may you record the occasional cover video so us old dudes who are tone deaf and talentless can learn the odd song here and there.
Peace
