The Flaming Lips – Suddenly Everything Has Changed – The Soft Bulletin

Putting all the vegetables away
That you bought at the grocery store today
And it goes fast
You think of the past
Suddenly everything has changed

Driving home, the sky accelerates
And the clouds all form a geometric shape
And it goes fast
You think of the past
Suddenly everything has changed

Putting all the clothes you’ve washed away
And as you’re folding up the shirts you hesitate
Then it goes fast
You think of the past
And suddenly everything has changed

My dear, you’re not that old. People often patronise me; “oh, you’re still so young!” They’re four or five years older than me. I believe I lived my life until now faster and more intensely than they have.
Of course I’m younger than they are. Of course I have so much to see and discover. But I bet that the majority of them when they were my age hadn’t done and seen as much as I have. I bet they didn’t start as young as I did. I bet they didn’t read as much as I did, drink like I did, fuck like I did, take the drugs I did, travel like I did.

I sometimes leap to conclusions. Sometimes I assume people haven’t had as much experience as I have. But most of the time I leap to the opposite conclusion: that they have. They act so savvy, I assume that they know life just like I do. Then they let a detail slip: that they never took a train on their own; that they’ve only ever slept with two people; that they never missed a day of school in their whole lives; that the spliff we shared last night was their first; that they’ve never left the country they were born in.

Nostalgia. Things change. Too many memories. I sometimes am blown away by my memories. How things have changed. A year ago, four years ago, six years ago, ten years ago. Ten years ago, just over ten years ago, I was 13 and I had my first teenager summer. Accelerated. Too much, too fast, heading down the wrong roads. Nine years ago I was abused. Slammed on the breaks, changed tracks. Still drinking heavy, still out of control. Eight years ago weed saved me, chilled me out, slowed me down. Seven years ago Sonik came along and brought me stability and suddenly all the horrors of the previous three were just a nightmare. 13 to 16 were another girl’s life.

16 to 18 belong to yet another girl still. One who was settled, slow, happy. A snuggly little couple. We had a car, a flat, a social life. The occasional rave, the daily spliffs, the weekend drinks with friends. Anyone else would have been sucked into that life. Married and had kids, just like he wanted. I destroyed Sonik’s life. Those are the years where everyone else met their partner. He was lucky and got the crazy girl, the different girl, the girl who wanted things differently and who bolted suddenly, without warning. One morning I’m laying in bed teasing him, the next day he comes back from work to find me throwing my stuff into binbags and chucking them into the car.

I’m going to stop here. Too much digging into the past is a bad idea. But this song sums up those flashbacks that strike you when you are least expecting it; you look at yourself, at what you’ve become, at how easy life is now, or at least how different life is, or how easy it was. You used to be a different person and you would never have imagined that the routine you’ve carved out for yourself in the present would be a groove you could follow.

One of my favourite Baudelaire poems, from memory (I’m too lazy to google it and the pleasure lays in the recitation)
J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans.
Un vieux meuble à tiroirs encombré de bilans
de vers, de billets doux, de procès, de romances
avec de longs cheveux roulés dans des quittances
cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveau.
Je suis un pyramide, un veritable caveau
qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune.
Je suis un vieux cimetierre, abhoré de la lune
où comme des regrets, se trainent de longs vers
qui s’acharnent toujours sur mes morts les plus chers.
Je suis un vieux boudoir, plein de roses fannées
Où gît tout un fouillis de modes surannées
Et où les pastels plaintifs et les pâles Boucher,
Seuls, respirent l’odeur d’un flacon débouché.

~ by orange on July 8, 2007.