Here Is Gone

"Here Is Gone" - Goo Goo Dolls

(Subtitled in Spanish, no less)

My love for the Goo Goo Dolls has waxed and waned over the years, mainly waning with some of the newer stuff they've put out. But I've always loved their older stuff. This one fell kind of in the middle, and for some reason, I've always seen it as one of their darker songs.

"I thought I'd lost you somewhere, but you were never really ever there at all."

I've been thinking a lot about the people we are and the people we create around us. One of the strangest moments in my life was spending a good amount of time with someone that I thought I was getting to know pretty well, and then spent a 45-minute car ride with them and never felt further from anyone in my life. I had no previous experience or feeling to attach it to. It was such an unknown feeling to me - the physical distance so small but the connection between us so far apart.

I think a lot about people I've known and don't keep in contact with anymore. Funny thing is, one of my friends was just recently talking about this same thing. It's so difficult to maintain friendships over time and distance. It's not that the feelings necessarily lessen, but time wedges its way between you, and before you know it, it's weeks or months or years since you've spoken.

Why do we let life get in the way? I have no good excuse for it. All I know is that it's so hard to have the energy to do damn near anything after spending eight and a half hours at work, coming home, attempting to get the house in order and cooking dinner. It's pretty much snoozefest from there on out.

On some level, too, I guess I'm a bit embarrassed that I'm not really doing anything too exciting with my life at the moment. What big news do I have to share? What great things am I doing with my life? Well, nothing, really. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer of the conversation.

Someone close to me is going through a breakup right now, and I wish I had better advice. Or maybe that I'd be a better listener or be able to support them in just the right way. I don't, I'm not, and I'm probably not doing that either, but I'm trying. We've all been there. And it's so hard to see beyond that moment. Nothing else matters, you start to obsess over it, you stop doing basic things like eating regularly. It's horrid, really. But it just takes time, I think. There's no way that you can wake up the next morning and feel great. You just can't. And you want to help your friend and you want to give just the right advice, but in the end, time is the only thing that can really heal.

Heal and destroy all at once. Isn't that funny?