End scene.

Ok, so I haven't listened to Shakira seriously since I was in middle school.  I was a Spanish class “Superestrella” and the CD that was my prize and compensation for being a total nerd had “Estoy Aquí” and “Ojos Así” as two of its tracks.  Certainly those were the two tracks I listened to the most, learning words by heart that were beyond the emotional comprehension of my twelve year-old self.  I'm not sure what ever happened, why I stopped seeking out Shakira's music.  I just rediscovered Shakira in a big way a few weeks ago and guau...that woman lets loose a sound that pours into my ears and heart and paralyzes my overactive brain.

And of course my brain is overactive again.  I say “again” because for awhile here it was really easy to block out the things that I was trying to leave behind in the U.S.  Being overly scheduled, overly stimulated, and overly tired is a great cure for heartbreak and one that I've tried and found true once before.  But it just takes one moment to change – some small memory surfaces because I see a guy wearing dress socks and sneakers.  Bam.

Soon other accidental observations haul more memories out of the dark corners they've been creeping in.  Like yesterday, I was on a bus listening to Shakira sing, “Cada día pienso en ti.  Pienso un poco más en ti...” and yelling at myself inside my head, “I do not want to think about this!”  In a panicked motion, I clicked on the next track which happens to have the chorus, “...bruta, ciega, sordomuda, torpe, traste, testaruda es todo que he sido...no sé como olvidarte...”  Well...eff.  So I searched out “La Tortura” because it's one of my favorites and I though it was safe.  God damn.  “...Me duele tanto que tu fueras sin decir adonde.”

So then I switched to some Mumford and Sons.  “I have other things to fill my time...now let me at the truth which will refresh my broken mind.”  Word.  The truth in this case is that I have so many better things going for me right now than dwelling on what was not possible and is clearly never going to be.  It's an easy conclusion to come to, but difficult to live by.  I'm hoping that by posting this it'll help my resolve – not that there's a world of people reading my blog, but at the very least now it's a massive issue of personal pride that I've made my commitment to move on public.

This isn't a time to drown in fabricated meaning and half-formed truths and maybe-could-have-beens and all the misery that stuff entails.  This is my time to, “Decide what to be and go be it.”  So that's me, shelving the Shakira and letting the wisdom and sound of the Avett Brothers carry me back into this awesome existence that I've been distracted from lately.

“I say it's not that simple, see, but then again it just may be...”