All But Given Up

The hardest realization I had coming out of the gate was the fact that nothing in life was easy.  All around me in high school it was a constant reminder, that what we did there would not amount to one iota of what the real world was going to do to us.  It wasn't until I saw first hand that I truly understood what they meant by that.

Summer of 2006 was a world of changes for me and those around me.  Friends, family, exes, and whatever else I can lump together were all no doubt going through the changes that the wonderful Mr. Bowie sang about so long ago.  Out of high school for going on a year, I was a bit of a mess.  Depressed, cynical, and ultimately bitter towards all that happened(which mind you was quite a bit), it didn't seem as though there was ever going to be anything worthwhile in my life for a very long time. 

I discovered Mark Lanegan in 2005 after falling in love completely with his on again off again bandmates, Queens of the Stone Age, finding Here Comes That Weird Chill for three dollars in a bin at a used CD store seemed a bargain at the time.  The first time I listened to it, I hated it.  So morose and with this foreboding sorrow underlying each stanza, I couldn't exactly find what made it so great.  

 A week later I lost my job and found out the girl I'd been seeing was sleeping with someone else.  Fairly cliche stuff all and all, but you'd be devastated trust me on this.  I picked up a pamphlet for the armed services on the way home and just sat in my room for a little while in silence.  I decided again to let Mark Lanegan's band try to break the silence and played Here Comes That Weird Chill.  Broke with debts to pay and lacking in the human affections we so desire, it started to resonate albeit barely.  Then Lexington Slow Down played.

For those who haven't heard it, it's a soft piano piece driven by Lanegan's powerful bass voice.  It drips of sadness and is most harrowing the first time you hear it.  I remember this so clearly, because the next line came on the bridge of the song if you will, and it hit the nail on the head for me.  "Spare me chance/I've wasted mine."  That mere lyric, nay those six words destroyed me as a person.  No longer was I maintaining this facade of normalcy.  No longer was this bitter cynic just sitting wondering what to do with the next decades of his life.  As soon as I heard that line, I started to cry.  

I had wasted all my chances before that.  Everything that came by me was pretty much brushed off, the dream of wandering the United States and finding my soul was being constantly postponed.  In three and a half minutes my entire outlook had been toyed with, no longer was I certain.  The fact that I had to struggle and persevere was not entirely tempting I'll admit.  But life is funny about having to make you appreciate what you get.