White Houses (...amazingly enough, not a political post)

[missroserose]

I was playing with the iTunes Signature Maker just now, and it brought up a clip from White Houses, probably because it was on my favorites list for a while some months ago.

I don't really remember it from when it first came out; I don't think I was listening to the radio much at that point, anyway. It struck me mostly in retrospect, when I put Harmonium in my listening rotation a year or so ago. I looked up the lyrics (about the singer's first experiences with the world in general), and in that rare way that happens with music on occasion, it all clicked - the bittersweet chord progression, the almost childlike piano hook, and the dizzying suddenly-overwhelming instrumentation. It's a song that encapsulates, nearly perfectly (for me), the intoxicating rush of being on your own for the first time.

I don't know how well I can explain the feeling, especially since it seems to be one of those marvelously subjective things - depending on one's experiences, it may be stronger or weaker or never really happen at all. But I can't be the only one who's felt that delirious joy of having left the relative safety of home and plunged headfirst into this strange new world of heady freedom, where all sorts of new experiences await and all kinds of pitfalls make themselves known in short succession, but it's all okay because you're not waiting to live your life anymore, you're not wondering what your life will be like anymore, you're out there living it for yourself - who cares if you just got caught in a downpour in a white shirt and no bra, what does it matter if you just overdrew your checking account by $100, why bother worrying about the messy relationship tangles you're creating? You're creating them - you have the power to create your own life as you see fit, and when you inevitably fuck it up, it's still amazing because you created the fuckups, and you can get yourself out of them as well.

It's giddy, and overwhelming, and dizzying, and mad, and sweet and nostalgic all at once because you know that it can't last, and really you don't want it to. But while it's happening, it's an amazing ride, and when it's all over and you're (slightly) older and wiser, when you have a better idea of who this "you" person is...you know that it's a time you'll always look back on with fondness, for your massive failures even more than your successes. In retrospect, I wonder if that process of self-identification isn't the time in our lives when we're most free - without (most) parental restrictions, without many solid notions of who we are, without much in the way of better sense to guide us, and if we're lucky, with a family with enough forbearance to help cushion the worst of the blows when we inevitably get ourselves into trouble, and enough love to refuse to fix our problems for us entirely.

Does anyone else have the slightest clue what I'm talking about? And if so, is there a song that encapsulates your experience?

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I've seen this experience on television, which probably means I know nothing about it. But I never lived it. Maybe because I spent too much time being the grown up in the house before I moved out.
But I'm very fond of this song. This whole album, really, even the goofy unicorns and vampires song.
I think I'm going to start drinking Coke again, maybe big 148 ounce MegaGulps, and see if that helps with my insomnia.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Brian never experienced it for much the same reason - his father dying when he was 17 kind of forced him to grow up early, and also reinforced family ties. He didn't even move out of the house until he and I got an apartment and his mother moved to Kennewick, and that was more because he was taking care of his family rather than his family taking care of him.

Please enjoy your self-pity as you move along out the door marked "Authorized Personnel Only." Ignore any loud electrical buzzing; I'm sure you'll be too preoccupied anyway...

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Of the things I'm feeling self pity for right now, that sort of chaotic overwhelming nostalgic lost experience isn't one of them. Maybe it's like roller coasters--last month I tried them for the first time. The person I was with was shrieking and throwing her hands in the air, and it was chaotic and overwhelming, and I was a little irritated and uncomfortable.

Or did you mean the insomnia?

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

+1 to (belated) comprehension!

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

My circumstances of leaving the nest (as it were) were profoundly different -- it was less a sense of something being created and certainly not you being the creator, but a sense of something being chipped away or infected or hollowed out. So our personal soundtracks might diverge right there, and honestly, I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone else (and maybe that explains the whole "never quite grew up" aspect of me, or maybe it's that I'm just still a child). Everyone should feel that sense of ownership and self-creation when they take wing. Something to be thankful for.

Probably the best song that encapsulates my experience is 22 minutes long, so I won't inflict that on you. Unless insomnia descends upon you, too.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Yeah, you've made reference to your less-than-stellar relationship with your family in the past, but I was sort of hoping that perhaps that had made getting out on your own all the sweeter. :( If you feel like sharing at all, I'd be interested to hear the story.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

It's...it's a good story, if not a fantastic experience, and entirely too melodramatic for my tastes. And it features me making a few really, really bad decisions, so it's not one I rehash frequently. But you might appreciate its eye-rolling-patheticness. It's a bit Long Day's Journey into College, if I hadn't been there for a year and change already....

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Funny how the correlation works between "times I made really, really bad decisions" and "times in my life that make the best stories to tell people", isn't it?

I totally understand if it's not something you feel like revisiting with a near-stranger, but the interest remains - it's a hobby of mine, figuring out what makes people tick, and this particular aspect of your history seems to have had a particularly strong influence on your views of the world in general. So on the off chance you feel maudlin sometime and feel like writing it out, and/or I'm in the area and you want to have a drink and talk about it, let me know. :)