EDITED 07/06/2025 to remove identifying places/names.
Ever since Max started working evenings, I have a lot more time to myself, which leads to quite a bit of wallowing in my own misery and mourning the waste of my twenties.
Right now I'm laying on the couch and droning along to a Spotify playlist of Kesha's deconstructed songs. Some of these I've been listening to for over 10 years (2011-2012 being 10 years ago is batshit insane to me. I feel like I could wake up at any moment and discover everything since September 2011 was a dream and I would readily accept that fact.) but "The Harold Song" and "Supernatural", deconstructed, still make my heart weep like I'm 14.
But I need more wallow material. Maybe not as sorrowful as Nick Cave's Skeleton Tree or Sufjan Steven's Carrie And Lowell, both of which I've laid in a dark dorm room and cried my eyes out to countless times.
Yesterday, one of my favorite coworkers asked me what kind of music I enjoy. I hemmed and hawed because a lot of the music that especially touches me isn't something I want to share. I hold it to my chest protectively, like holding a wild bird. If I share it, will it still touch me the same way? I feel shame so easily, I'm scared that his opinion would alter the way my music expands inside my chest and wraps around my shoulders.
So I told him I like Doja Cat and he laughed at me. Fair enough.
All of this kind of reminds me -- Therese's mom put me in charge of music for her funeral. It feels like a tremendous task. Music was integral to who she was, and I want to honor that properly. I'm scared that I'm not the right person for the job, and terrified that I'm going to do it wrong. So, naturally, I've been putting it off.
I have a very, very, very rough playlist that I've started. It has to be church-appropriate, so that rules out a lot of what Therese liked.
Therese was a massive influence on me during my teenage, music-discovering years. She introduced me to Nick Cave, Oingo Bingo, Talking Heads, Golden Earring, The Eagles, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, Bjork, Kate Bush... And likely more. She recommended cooler music that nobody our age listened to. She would send me David Byrne's solo stuff while I was trawling through SoundCloud for the latest upload from The 1975, or downloading Passion Pit songs one-by-one via Youtube-to-mp3.
"Popsicle" by Talking Heads came on twice in a row today (on shuffle) and I felt Therese's smile.