This Year

PS I type these out on my phone and sometimes mistype faster and more atrociously than autocorrect can be bothered to keep up with, so any typos will eventually be noticed and corrected by me, but do not expect perfection by any means.

It's so interesting to see just how someone's brain jumps around.

Couldn’t choose between these two, they’re both such, they’re just good lines, what else can I say about them? Haven’t we all been driven to the edge before? With no easy way back from it? You can see the downward spiral before you and the upward trek ahead, and for a moment, they’re just the same path, and you won’t know which way you’re going until you’re already there.

Loneliness can kill you if you sit with it too long. I feel like Darnielle knows that very well, so I’m glad he shares that with us; a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved after all.

“Well, the first thing you learn is how strong you can be if you have to And the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night”

There is nothing quite so terrible as being so alone in the company of someone you love so much.

It’s just so difficult not to romanticize the loneliness when it feels like all you have sometimes, because the only other choice then is to acknowledge your own hand in how lonely you are, and that so much worse.

The thing with Darnielle telling a story, is that he speaks so clearly of such universal experiences, that it circles right back around to being so deeply personal.

Curiosity kills the cat, and satisfaction might bring it back, but you are not a cat, you do not have nine lives, and to mix metaphors, you cannot let the canary’s sacrifice be for nothing.

Being real and vulnerable with someone is so terrifying, at any moment they can decide that no, you are too much and not worth the effort. Who doesn’t fear the mobs with pitchforks at times like these?

As I write this, it is right before 2 am, I am using a skull-shaped lamp as a light source in my bed, and Mexico has just made history, entering the fifth round of the World Cup for the first time in 40 years with absolutely NO goals conceded. Honestly, I don’t usually care much for sports, but this, this means something. I have lived my whole life hearing from others how dangerous my sepia-toned country is, and to be honest, my family is from Reynosa, so it’s uh, not entirely untrue. But we are so much more than cartel violence. We are love and acceptance; we are “Iran hermano, ya eres Mexicano,” we are kissing Koreans and dancing with South Africans in the street, and we are lifting grannies in their wheelchairs up into the air. No one expected us to get this far and yet here we are “ a little worse for wear/practically walking on air,” whether we face the English or Congo DR on Sunday (Godspeed Congo DR, decimate those colonizers) I believe we will play with all our hearts and nothing but joy. After so many decades we finally get to see el fucking quinto partido. I am going to bed now, content that at least this burden has been cast aside for now. And that I owe my Ecuadorian coworker a drink as a pity prize.

Everyone’s favorite TMG album The Sunset Tree featured prominently this month, and yeah, it’s a basic choice, but it’s probably my fave album too. And some very Gender™️ songs too this month: Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod, You Were Cool, Attention All Pickpockets, and Going Invisible. For being a very cisgender heterosexual man, Darnielle writes some songs that so perfectly convey the experience of coming to teens with who you are. But I guess at the end of the day, that’s really just a human experience, realizing you can never live up to some expectations, even your own. I’m looking forward to next month, perhaps I should keep a count of how many songs make me cry, or maybe it would be easier to count how many don’t make me cry, ha.

I’ve listened to Going Invisible 2 so many times, but I think this is the first time I’ve heard part 1. I know this is a breakup song, but as always, that means nothing to me, because this is about gender now. It’s about trying so desperately to fit into what’s expected of you and finding you just can’t measure up to that. You’ve got to find your breaking point, either you break yourself into what they want, or you break out of those expectations. Only you can decide what the next step is, and only you can deal with the fallout.

I have a long history with ghosts, it’s a family trait really. The first ghost I ever knew, though I don’t remember him as I was so young, was my great-grandfather, Ito he was called, he would tell me stories, the same ones he told my mom and aunt and my siblings. Most of the ghosts I’ve ever known have actually been quite kind; they’ve only ever hungered for connection, which, isn’t that just the most human thing of all? That even in death, we might read out one last time to our loved ones. Gracias Ito, por amarme siempre.

Oh what’s this? Me? Crying? At a TMG song that gives me gender feels? Next you’ll say you’re thinking florals for spring.

Oh, oh, this song really, if it had been on Sunset Tree, could anyone have ever emotionally recovered? Would it be worse before or after This Year? I get it, I really do, some things must be written, they even must be shown, but they can’t ever be shared.