What Goes Up...

... Must Come Down (Or, Things That Happened This Weekend).

1.) Food Poisoning. Or something. Something awful and horrible and it might be awhile before I can look at a hamburger the same way again.

2.) My friend Melissa flew in from Chicago to hang out for the weekend. I drove to LAX to pick her up (while still suffering from the food poisoning mentioned above) armed with an entire bottle of Pepto Bismol.

3.) Traffic in L.A. kicked my ass. Melissa's flight got in at 3:45. We didn't get back to my house until almost 8:00.

Dear 405 Freeway,

I hate you.

Love,

Shannon

4.) Melissa, being on Central Time and having just spent four hours on a plane and three hours in the car on the damn freeway, needed food. (My stomach was still attempting to tear it's way from my body, so I was good). We stopped at Sharkey's but the wait was 40 minutes so we decided it would be easier to just go through the In & Out drive thru.

5.) This was not a good idea. Enough said.

6.) The next night (after a day of "haha, oh wait, you mean my In & Out adventure isn't over yet?" fun) we went to the local Community College production of Rent. It was actually pretty awesome and I was pleasantly surprised. I had only ever seen the movie version of Rent and I wasn't huge fan. Needless to say, the stage production = BETTER. One of my sister's friends was in the ensemble and it was a lot of fun to see him up there kicking ass with the singing and whatnot.

7.) On Saturday we attended our Alma Mater's Homecoming Game. Our team won. Yay! (And quite handily too. 38-7). Afterward there was a Festival where they had food and drinks and games and such.

8.) It was our five year reunion so there were a handful of people from our class there. Hardly anyone recognized me. And I'm not super surprised. I didn't have a million friends while I was there and the friends I did have are all scattered around the country and probably not going to make it for a little dinky 5 Year Reunion. Also, I'm 40 lbs lighter and brunette now. I don't look the same. These are good things.

9.) We took a drive down to the coast and had dinner at Duke's in Malibu. The food was delicious and the sunset over the water was gorgeous.

10.) This is where I realized I lost my debit card.

11.) Bank of America sucks.

12.) On Sunday we drove down to Burbank and had lunch with a couple of Melissa's friends, then walked through IKEA and found ourselves wishing for an endless supply of money.

13.) We ended out the weekend on the couch, watching 50 First Dates and Pretty Woman (Commercial free! Thanks USA!) and snacking on Pinkberry yogurt.

14.) We got up at 5:00 this morning so Melissa could get back to the airport on time.

15.) It took me 2 hours to get home. Once again 405 Freeway, see the above note.

16.) Despite the title of this post and the food poisoning and the In & Out drive thru debacle and the lost debit card and the utter FAIL that is the 405 freeway, it was a good weekend.

MELISSA! MOVE BACK!!!

That is all.

I'm Having a Moment

I can maybe understand why people get so easily addicted to drugs. Not that I'm personally into any illegal substances (that you know of mom, what what? - TOTALLY KIDDING). But there's something deliciously thrilling about being in a state of perpetual blissful high. Right now, my drug of choice? Life.

Life and friends and family and music and writing are lifting me up in a way, right now, that is hard to even describe. There's that whole Miltonian idea of Felix Culpa, a fortunate fall. Sometimes you have to know darkness before you can know light. Or, put another way, life has to really, really suck balls before you can appreciate the beauty of everything else that is there.

Now, yeah, obviously my life never got that dark, nothing completely tragic struck me down. Just a couple of crappy people and some bad decisions. But a year removed from all that muck and I feel like there is this constant light of happiness shining over me and I'm probably going to start freaking people out with my overzealous optimism and joy right now. (Seriously, how depressing was I that now every time I post something positive on Facebook people are like, WOW, WHO ARE YOU?)

So what's good?

Well, the next month is going to be filled with traveling and visiting friends and the Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago and really, this is all I need in my life - some amazing music, people to laugh with, and places to go and see and explore. And then I can come home and write about it all. This is my life. I like you.

Also, on July 1st I went to a promo shoot for some wrap-arounds that NBC is doing during a Community marathon tomorrow night. And let me let you, this day was incredible. There really are no words. Ken Jeong and Joel McHale were present and I'm not lying when I say that they were ridiculously kind and sweet and AMAZINGLY funny. And I got to spend five hours with them shooting these promo clips and laughing and oh yeah, now I'm going to be on NBC tomorrow. Say what?

Yeah, look for me. I'll be the girl with the WTF? expression as Ken Jeong whispers INSANE things in my friend's ear while sitting on her lap. Yes, this happened.

These things also happened:

Joel McHale tweeted a picture of me 

Joel McHale clearly thinks I'm awesome

These things feel surreal and not normal to my life. But hey, I'm up for change.

Also, did I say I have amazing friends? Cause I do and right now I feel like I'm wrapped in this constant cocoon of support and encouragement and love and hours long phone conversations about nonsense and friends who text me pictures of cupcakes when I'm sad, and genius people who flail with me for three hours at IHOP over television shows and writing, and okay I'm rambling like an idiot.

But life right now, is a beautiful thing and I'm having this moment and eating it too.

(I don't know what that means. Ignore me.)

LOVE.

Typicality

“I’ve always believed that you were meant for an atypical life.”

Someone told me the above the other day. I like it. I've never wanted to be typical.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The typical life is a beautiful thing about who we are as a people. It's foundation and core and society. But maybe it’s not meant for me. I’d love to have kids. I’d love to get married and share my life with someone. But maybe, maybe there’s something else.

Maybe I’ll be atypical. Maybe I’ll spend my days holed up in a little corner of this Starbucks, watching people come and go. Maybe I’ll be one of those people, sipping foamy dark cappuccinos and clacking in heels across the tile floor. Maybe I’ll leave tomorrow and head out on the open road, wind in my hair, stereo blasting some appropriate indie song. Maybe I’ll stay. I’ll fall in love and then fall out of love and cry myself to sleep and then laugh about it all later. Maybe I’ve already met the man of my dreams. Maybe I never will. Maybe I’ll sit and listen to the same song over and over again on repeat, wishing those words had been my own. Maybe I'll spend my entire life waiting. Or moving. Or singing. Or writing about other people. Maybe one day someone will write about me. Or write me a song. Kiss me under the stars. Hold my hand. Introduce me to his parents. Maybe we won't get married. We'll travel and talk and make love and dance and never settle. Maybe I’ll spend an entire day with my toes in the sand, salty sea air curling my hair in waves around my face. Maybe it will all come true. Maybe faith will be rewarded and love will be returned and smiles will be exchanged. Maybe I’ll survive. And laugh through it all. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will be typical. I’ll get married. Have children. A dog. A cat. A minivan. Maybe I’ll be blissful. Maybe the earth will just continue turning. Maybe none of this matters. Maybe all of it does.

Maybe there are possibilities that can't even be comprehended.

Maybe I just want to fall into this endless pool of maybe, float in lazy circles over the water, languid and relaxed, eyes shaded from the sun. Even just for a little bit...

Maybe.

Current Music: Finish Line by Fanfarlo

Into Your Hands

Not only does the cross demonstrate God’s willingness to love us at the ultimate personal cost, but Jesus also modeled for us how we can live in that trust – “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” When I can’t figure out what God is doing; when I’ve just messed up to the greatest degree; when I’m lonely and empty the answer is still the same: “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”

– Wayne Jacobsen, “He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father’s Affection

I like to be in control. I admit this freely. I am a first-born, Type A personality with control issues and I like to plan my day, plan my month, plan my year and life and everything down on through into eternity. I need to know what comes next. When I pick up a book to read I always flip to the last page first because I have to know how it ends. I spoil the endings of movies for myself because I can’t handle the suspense of not knowing. My blood pressure usually skyrockets during sporting events because there’s no spoiler or internet feed that’s going to tell me the final score.

And the fact that I can plan and make lists and schedule to my hearts desire and still not know what tomorrow is going to bring? Pretty much scares the life out of me. I mean, almost literally. It’s enough to make me want to hunker down in my closet, shut the door and put my hands over my hears while singing “la-la-la-la-la I can’t hear you” at the top of my lungs.

This is probably why I also don’t like to drink a lot. I’m not a huge fan of that slow slipping away of inhibition. I like my inhibition fully intact, thank you very much. And for the most part this has largely kept me out of trouble in my life. But. BUT. This is the problem. (And please understand me that I’m not necessarily condoning inebriated drunkenness right now). Fear of the unknown, fear of the future had kept me from experiencing… who knows what?

Luckily, over the past few years I’ve met some people who have helped me realize that not a lot comes from all this worry and stress. It’s just a big ugly cycle of panic attacks and insomnia and medication and more stress. What good does any of that do? Like the great Tom Petty sings, “Most things I worry about never happen anyway.” I can sit and worry about everything that could happen tomorrow and I can hide in the closet to keep that all at bay and yeah, maybe it will get me through until tomorrow night – but what amazing thing did I miss experiencing while I was stuck in that stupid closet?

Whatever happens, happens. What will happen, will happen.

I don’t mean this is a crazy predestination sense – I do believe that we write our own destinies. But whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. What happens tomorrow is what happens tomorrow. We can live it or we can hide from it. We can be active participants in life or we can watch it happen.

Trust me, I know that it’s never easy to let go of that worry. I want to sit and worry over the future and my career and why I haven’t found the right guy and why I never have enough money and why this and why that and why why why. It’s not easy to look heavenward and say, “God, I give this to you.” And then, you know, to actually give it to Him. To let go and say, “Direct me where you will.” Which is crazy because it should be the easiest thing in the world. If someone came to you and said, “give me all your troubles, I will take care of it,” you’d think we’d jump at the opportunity. “Here! Have at it! ”

But we’re human and we’re faulty and we fight everything and we like to have answers, here, right now, assoonashumanlypossible. We're going to home onto that control until it kills us, right?

Matthew 6:25-34 reads "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; about your body, or what you will wear... See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry... but first seek his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own."

I do find a lot of comfort in these words. God is there, always, ready to take our troubles and our burdens and we just have to fall into him and trust. Trust – that tricky little keyword.

It’s almost unfathomable that at the moment of most excruciating pain and torture, Jesus was able to look toward God and say, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” He gave it up. He gave it up to God’s will and planning and good grace. He trusted. I can’t even comprehend that. Throw me a little bit of loneliness and a couple bills to pay and I’m ready to thrash around on the ground screaming “Why God, why?!”

Pathetic? Weak? Human? Yeah, maybe all of the above.

I am trying. I am trying to give up my worries and live in the moment and enjoy the here and now, the blessings I’ve been given. Terrible things happen and plans are broken and hearts are broken and there’s no telling what tomorrow will bring. But I do know this, that when I do give up my troubles to God, when I let Him direct me, when I just let a moment take me – I feel my most at peace, more content than I ever do when I plan and arrange and schedule. A fulfilled plan is nothing compared to a moment that is really truly lived in passion and laughter and relationship with friends and family. So.

In honor of this then, this beautiful Easter Sunday, I will go and live and leave that empty closet behind and prepare for… whatever happens.

Love always and blessings,

Shannon

City Street

I am born in the middle of the week. In the middle of a hospital. In the middle of a busy city. My parents hold me close and count all ten fingers and all ten toes. The nurses bustle in and out. In the room next door there is another sharp cry. Down in the city below a steady stream of business men and women cross streets and hail taxis.

You are born on a Saturday. Local news channels report record-breaking heat and monsoons. Your mother almost passes out after you take your first breath. Your father holds you in front of the hospital window as lightning streaks across the night sky.

I see the Pacific Ocean for the first time when I am three. I run across the beach in a pink bathing suit. My mother leads me out to the water. Her belly is growing again. They tell me I’m going to be a big sister. The wet sand is squishy between my toes. The water sprays up and I run away shrieking as a white foam wave chases me to shore.

You are four when you break your first bone. You’re climbing a tree with your brother and a branch snaps. You hit the ground and can’t breathe for a moment. Your arm is bent at an odd angle. You don’t cry much but your mother almost screams when she sees you. You’re in a cast for six weeks.

I fall in love for the first time on a Tuesday. I am ten years old and wear my hair gathered in a large pink scrunchie at the side of my head. He makes me laugh and my stomach begins to feel funny. I slide down in my seat and wonder if he will turn to face me again. The teacher stands at the front of the classroom and talks about fractions. The dry smell of chalk is faintly in the air.

You fall in love for the first time on a Sunday. She goes to your church and wears bows in her hair. She sits next to you in class and answers all the questions. Two hundred miles away I turn around in my sleep.

My first broken heart happens in the middle of July. I spend my days working and he comes to see me and tell me at lunch. When I get home I curl up in my mother’s arms and cry. She strokes my hair and offers me chocolate. We eat a tub of Rocky Road that night and watch three romantic-comedies in a row.

You have sex for the first time at her house. You are both nervous. It’s awkward and afterward you lie next to each other and stare at the ceiling. She holds the sheets against her body and you think about how she used to wear bows in her hair.

I have sex for the first time after a late night study session at the library. We are laughing and high on caffeine and lack of sleep. The sofa upholstery is scratchy against my back. He kisses my neck and tells me he loves me. There are tears in my eyes. Outside the moon is low in the sky, full and round, surrounded in silvery wisps of clouds.

Your first broken heart happens in the middle of her second year of law school. She drives two hours to tell you. You stare at a dry patch in the grass while she speaks. A door slams a couple houses down and she is gone.

I meet you on a Thursday. It’s the end of August and the air conditioner is broken. You walk in and make a comment about inflatable pools. I laugh because it’s too hot to think up a comeback. Later that night I will recall the way the corners of your eyes crinkled when you smiled.

We kiss for the first time on a Wednesday. We are watching a movie and I can’t even pretend to know the plotline because we are sitting so close and I have never been so acutely aware of someone that it’s made my toes curl like this and I’m thinking too much. And then you get up to leave and there is this voice screaming in my head and then suddenly you’re there and your lips are against mine as I practically breathe you in.

We have sex for the first time on a Monday night. It is frantic and hurried and full of want. You whisper words against my hair. I am shaking. My toes seem to pulse with electricity. The room falls away. In the morning you will find crescent shaped marks from my fingernails in your back.

We are married on a Saturday. In the church of my childhood. The bridesmaids wear green and we eat cake and dance until midnight. My feet are aching and your dress shirt collar is hanging open. Afterward we collapse onto a hotel bed and fall asleep within minutes. Down the hall a pair of lovers moves in gasping rhythm with the night

You almost leave in December. We’ve been fighting again about money and I’m crying into the phone as tears roll down my cheeks and under my chin. I’m sitting against the refrigerator door when you pad into the kitchen in your bare feet. We sit next to each other and talk until the sun comes up. You don’t leave.

Our daughter is born in the middle of the night. The contractions have been strong since we finished washing the dinner dishes. I lie on the floor in the living room. Counting. You run back and forth between rooms. We arrive at the hospital before midnight. I ask for drugs. I am worn and tired when they place her in my arms. She holds tightly to my fingers as I curl her tiny body against mine.

We buy our first house in our fifth year of marriage. The children run up the stairs to claim rooms. James helps you lug in all the furniture. We stay up late that night, cross-legged in the middle of the living room and unpack a box labeled “Knick-Knacks.”

It is June when our family first visits the Pacific Ocean. The kids pile out of the car and run toward the water. I have made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone. Susan dives headfirst into the waves. I hold Davey’s hand as he walks toward the water. The sand is squishy between our toes. The water sprays up and he runs away shrieking as a white foam wave chases him to shore.

We receive the call at 2:23 a.m. My heart pulses loudly in my ears at the sound of your voice. We drive toward the hospital in silence. Four days later I will lay a yellow rose on my daughter’s casket.

It is a Monday. Or a Tuesday. Or many days when we sit around the dining room table. We lean back in our chairs telling stories. Lucy tells a joke she heard in school. We laugh so hard our bellies ache. Later that night you move against me, whispering into my hair. The rest of the house is silent and still.

We dance at our son’s wedding in January. There are lilies in the bride’s hair. He rests his hand over her ever-growing belly and they laugh. You stand and say something with tears in your eyes. A photographer snaps a picture as you kiss the top of my head.

We fly over the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night. The vast waters are spread out beneath us in inky darkness. You hold my hand when the plan lurches suddenly. Two hours later we step out of an airport into blinding sunlight. Buses and taxis whir by in a blur. Strangers walk past murmuring in an unknown language.

I lose you in the middle of January. It’s been a long fight. Our children cry at your memorial service. I hold little Jenny on my lap. She asks about grandpa. I sit on the edge of our bed that night with your pillow in my arms. The night quiet is disturbed by teenagers laughing as they run up the street.

I learn yoga in the middle of my seventy-sixth year. It is Lucy’s idea. She and her husband want me to move into their house. I look at the framed photos scattered across our walls. There are marks in each of the door frames measuring our children as they grew. I wake up each morning and make my own coffee and try to master Downward Dog.

I die in the middle of the week. In the middle of a hospital. In the middle of a busy city. I don’t feel much. Someone is holding my hand and saying something far away. I love you. Down in the city below a steady stream of business men and women cross streets and hail taxis.

My Decade in Music

These are my heart songs
They never feel wrong
And when I wake for goodness sake
These are the songs I keep singin'
- Weezer

I've often found myself wishing that "real life" came with a soundtrack. In television and movies, the big moments are almost always accompanied by the perfect background song. Why can't life be like that? Why can't a stirring pop/alternative song start playing while I am coming to a life changing decision? Or falling in love? Or breaking up? Or hanging out with friends?

Well, despite the fact that there is no omnipresent speaker piping in music to the moments of my life, some of those moments are still made through music. Some music will always take me back to those moments. And at the end of this decade I find myself reflecting on the songs that have made the moments of my life over the past ten years. So, to the songs that annoyed me, made me smile, changed my life or played on endless loops in the car - this is the soundtrack of my decade

1. I Hope You Dance – Leeann Womack
I first heard this song in 2000 during a summer youth group trip. It made me cry then for all the friends that would be leaving for college in the coming months and the lyrics remained etched in my mind over the next few years. My senior quote was “If you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” The song doesn't make me cry anymore but the message still remains one that I try to remember.

2. Drive – Incubus
Incubus was at the height of popularity during my senior year of high school and this was voted as our class song. I never thought much of it but as I was leaving campus for the last time after grad night this song came on the radio and I cried the entire way home. Class of 2001.

3. Breathing – Lifehouse
There are moments in my life that I will remember forever. This song was playing during one of those moments during a summer water-ski trip before I started college. My friend Matt was there and it was one of the last trips we would go on together before his death the following April. I will never forget him or the way he touched my heart.

4. Like a Prayer – Madonna
Many things can be said about my freshman year roommate but we did have a lot of fun together. One of my favorite memories is of her dancing around the room, blasting this song as loud as possible and pissing off the R.A.

5. Swing, Swing – All American Rejects
I worked at Jamba Juice for three years during college. It was mostly an obnoxious job but it also helped me buy my first car so I can’t complain too much. During the summer of 2003 this song was gaining popularity and whenever my boss wasn’t around we would play All American Rejects over the sound system. I still can’t hear this song without being reminded of the recipe for a Razzmatazz.

6. Hey Ya – Outkast
I’m pretty sure this song was the most overly played song during my junior year of college.
And yes, I do have to admit to occasionally shaking it “like a Polaroid picture.”

7. In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
Sometime during my junior year I discovered the awesomeness of Lloyd Dobler and Say Anything. It was also the year I discovered the friendships that would change my life. Girls of 702 forever!

8. I Don’t Want to Be – Gavin DeGraw
Yes, I watched One Tree Hill. But this was way back at the beginning when it was still kind of cool and the plot lines weren’t COMPLETELY ridiculous. More importantly than the actual show though, is the theme song, which introduced me to my favorite artist, Mr. Gavin DeGraw. He opened a Maroon 5 concert at the House of Blues and from the moment he stepped on stage, I was hooked. I have now seen him in concert six times and I can say in all honesty that he is one of the most electrifying performers I have ever seen in concert. Beautiful.

9. Particle Man – They Might Be Giants
How or why we started listening to this song, I have no idea, but my roommates and I listened and laughed to this song a lot my senior year. Whenever it pops up on my ipod shuffle I am instantly transported back to that year and the wackiness that ensued whenever the four of us girls were together.

10. New Slang – The Shins
Well, Natalie Portman was right. This song changed my life… Or maybe not. But this song and the entire “Garden State” Soundtrack changed the way I listened to and felt about music. It opened up this new world of indie music, with it’s nonsensical lyrics and odd hooks and rhythms. When I’m listening to this song through my headphones, the world just looks and feels different.

11. Transatlanticism – Death Cab for Cutie
I admit it, I may have been introduced to this band by the adorkable Seth Cohen, but they’ve since catapulted to the top of my “favorite bands” list all on their own. Ben Gibbard is an incredible lyricist. This song? There really are no words. Have you ever heard something and thought “wow, I wish I had written that”? Well, this is that song for me. Like “New Slang” this song, doesn’t always make complete sense but it doesn’t matter because it makes me feel something. And that’s what music’s supposed to do, right?

12. Black Horse and a Cherry Tree – KT Tunstall
Wikipedia tells me that this song came out in 2005. Well, since 2005 it has remained my LEAST favorite song of all time. The opening “Whoo-hoo” still creats a visceral reaction under my skin that causes me to shudder. I. Can. Not. Stand. It. Why? I’m not completely sure. Maybe it was the constant overplay. But every time at it came on the radio at work I found myself in a sudden foul mood… it did however, give my co-workers something to laugh about and taunt me with. Fun for them.

13. Something Pretty – Patrick Park
My grandparents moved from their home in 2005 up to a retirement community in Oregon. In doing so they had to sell the house that my dad grew up in, a house that I had known my entire life. To me, it was more than just a house; it was a home, it was memories, it was family and laughter and peace. It broke my heart to have to say goodbye. I will never forget this song playing in the car as I drove away from the house for the last time.

14. Sing - Travis
I like to think that my life as it is now, really started in 2006. A lot of things changed that year and set in motion the events that would change me over the next three years. It is also marked by being the year that I discovered The Office. It sounds stupid that a television show affected me so much but I had just moved back in with my parents, I was otherwise lost and confused and something about the show provided me a lot of comfort. I found myself completely enthralled with the Jim and Pam relationship and this song (the song they once listened to on his ipod) reminds me a lot of those times and feelings.

15. Snow – Red Hot Chili Peppers
Several summers in a row my dad's side of the family had a reunion up at a ranch in Oregon. It was a beautiful mountainous piece of property away from the “everything” of a busy life. We spent our days lounging in and around the pond and our nights watching the magnificent show of shooting stars and constellations in the sky. This song takes me back to those summer days, riding in the back of a truck with my cousins, sunburned and windchapped and completely content.

16. The Bad Touch – Bloodhound Gang
It’s a ridiculous song that was popular when I was in high school but it will forever remind me of my sisters. It's weird, I know, but the three of us listened to this song a lot on a road trip we took up to our cousin’s wedding. I’m only slightly embarrassed to say that I know almost all the lyrics.

17. Your Hand in Mine – Explosions in the Sky
I suddenly realize how many of these songs came from television shows. This one is the theme song to the incredible Friday Night Lights. I fell in love with the music after watching the show and this song, as well as many others by this band, became my go-to writing music.

18. I Hear the Bells – Mike Doughty
Another song from a television show: Veronica Mars. I really just love this song and according to itunes it is one of my most played songs on my playlist.

19. Love and Memories – O.A.R.
I’ve started working out a lot more over the past few years and this is one of my favorite songs to run to. There is nothing more therapeutic than my running shoes against the pavement, the sun setting in the distance and a really good song streaming through my earbuds.

20. New Hampshire – Matt Pond PA
In 2006 I participated for the first time in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The goal is to write a novel, or 50,000 words, in the confines of 30 days. I was successful that year, somehow churning out 50,000 words of a story that, truthfully, I don’t even remember. But what I do remember is the soundtrack that existed in my head for that story. This song was on that mental soundtrack and has somehow ended up on the soundtrack of every other piece of fiction I’ve ever written. There’s something just so fitting about it. I find myself constantly intrigued by the line, “what you had in your hand was so much more than the gold I let go to grab.”

21. Just Like Heaven – The Cure
I love the 80’s and there is something so perfectly 80’s about this song. It’s the perfect kind of song to play while driving along the coast with the windows down. One of the best friends I’ve made over the past few years has made it her life goal to see The Cure in concert and I cannot hear any of their songs without thinking of her. She’s changed me for the better and I don’t know what I would do without her.

22. Don’t Stop Believin – Journey
This song is not here because of The Sopranos or even because of Glee. It is here because 1.) it is just an awesome song and 2.) for a long time it was our go-to song to blast on the jukebox whenever we were at our local bar. And when I say “we” I’m referring to a group of people who were briefly vital to my life. These people, for better or for worse, changed me. One guy in particular (it's always about a guy, right?), someone I will never forget, and yet never want to see or know again, altered my life in ways I’m not even sure I comprehend yet. I both love and hate this person and I probably always will. Whenever I hear the opening chords of this song playing in a bar somewhere, I know a part of me will always think of him.

23. World Spins Madly On – The Weepies
I fall into music when I’m sad or lonely or moping. I have a playlist in itunes titled, “Wallowing.” It is filled with some of the most depressing songs of all time, including this song. There’s comfort in that much depression and emo whining. Maybe it’s the knowledge that someone out there, somewhere, has just as much (if not much more) to cry about than I do. Whatever it is, this song has helped me out of a many a serious wallowing funks.

24. The Bleeding Heart Show – The New Pornographers
I just really f*****g love this song. The coda that starts at 2:08 rocks my world.

25. Open Your Eyes – Snow Patrol
"I want so much to open your eyes, 'Cause I need you to look into mine." And so we’ve come to my favorite song of the decade. I can't say for sure why it is that I love this song so much, why is makes me feel so much. From 3:55 on, there is something so epic about the cacophonous harmony of guitar and drums. This song was absolutely amazing live in concert - I walked away saying that it was something akin to a religious experience. Goosebumps.