"Anyone who ever played a part / Never turned around and hated it"

My melodramatic side has been getting a bit out of hand lately; that's what you get when you don't post enough, I suppose. The latest episode occurred when all someone did was ask me my name. The act of repeating those familiar syllables, as I've done innumerable times, in many places and at many stages of life, for some reason made me pause on the inside and begin one of my inner monologues. While these soliloquies may sometimes seem amusing in hindsight, this time, believe me, even I was struck by how odd it was. What I was thinking was, roughly, as follows: I can recall a time when I knew the person who used that name and earned everything that was associated with it. But these days, I don't know what it means to use that name anymore. Certainly none of my past accomplishments or adventures count for anything to those I encounter. My past may well have never existed, then; but even more than that, there is this nagging belief that somehow, this is all a dream that I can someday wake up from and resume the life that seems most familiar. It feels like a tragedy that gets renewed every day, even though each morning I rise and have some desperate hope that somehow it has all been called off, and I am free to resume reality. Who am I even performing for anymore? I used to have stakes to fight for, to hold on for, no matter how slight or ephemeral. Now I just have crumbling memories, and a deepening sense of doubt.

Guinness records, canvas shoes, finishing moves. I never knew I would take those memories and keep them so safe, only to...wake up in a world where no one cares.

A great song somehow finds a way to transcend the apparently insurmountable limitations of its form, and reveals a secret world that you suspect only you and the composer share. Meaning is never what it appears to be on the surface, and whether it's the instrumentation, vocal delivery, or intangible feel of the music, it can take one to a strange space that we never otherwise see in our waking moments. Sometimes, when reminded of a particularly favourite lyric, and unable to express the feelings it induces, I feel as though I've been bequeathed something very special. How odd that someone's thoughts and words, expressed in a few minutes' worth of music, should trigger a reaction in someone born a generation later, someone living in an altogether different world. I wonder if I am meant to do something with these keepsakes, put them to some use beyond the pleasure they give me. My humblest response and offering is an attempt to facsimile my internal processes when the music hits me; in hopes partly of reaching to other wanderers who may have stumbled onto the shared secret, but mostly to pay some respect to the spirits that created them, so that some part of them may live forever.