I'm not gonna be one more casualty

I keep listening to the music of my freshman year of highschool- the soundtrack of that year has always been particularly vivid for me.

There was a point in time, in the spring of 2000, when I was listening to The Best of Adiemus, Sting's "Brand New Day" album, and Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt's compilation "The Western Wall" on repeat, day after day. I'd put them on the stereo in the family room and play Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for hours on end, and I'd steal the CDs themselves when I figured dad wouldn't miss them. I took them to school. I took them to Norway. (Actually, of those three, the only one that made it to Norway was Adiemus.)

The other CDs I listened to incessantly that year were Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" and Sarah McLachlan's "Mirrorball." To a lesser extent, I listened to Tracy Chapman's "Telling Stories"- that was another one of dad's, and he played it in the kitchen at dinner a lot.

Freshman year was before I got a CD player that didn't suck- I was using a handmedown from one of the brothers, a giant square thing that skipped if you looked at it too hard.

Listening to Tracy Chapman again makes me think of nights in the winter, when we had dinner at seven and it was pitch dark, and I'd be grimy from band practice. I'm on the opposite side of the year, seasonally, right now- but early spring feels so much like late October- just a little warmer and a little wetter. And this is my favorite time of year to lose myself in the weather and in music.

There's always a point, towards the end of winter, when it seems as though the sun has come out. The whole word is just that much brighter. I can remember that transition first year, and sophomore year- I can't remember it happening last year, though I know it had to. We just hit that point here- unsurprisingly enough, Daylight Savings marked it, because the weather has turned and the light is practically solid.

I'm listening to "Casualty" by Missy Higgins, and the twilight is drawing itself out as long as possible- but it feels like I'm sitting in my room, playing roms on my computer, six years ago or more.

(I no longer feel as though I am doomed to fall in love with a liar, or as though I was born six years too late. My voice is still too quiet, but I've come into my own, just a bit. Not as much as I need to, but I am more than who I was.)