What I have discovered

Since the flood, as I’ve thrown ruined stuff away, I truly do understand that things are just things and most are replaceable but some are not, and I just have to deal. I am dealing, actually.

But sometimes a thing is more than a thing. Here’s an example.

I’ve featured this album on my blog before. It’s utterly ruined. Every record inside is in its own sleeve with lyrics, and those sleeves remain a soggy mess stuck to the records.

I’ve long had all this music in my iTunes. There isn’t one song from it I can’t hear whenever I want to. I don’t need the album replaced.

It can’t be replaced. It was given to me by Riley when I was a teenager, and we’d lie on the floor in front of my parents’ stereo and listen to it and talk about the Beatles and music and everything else that came into our heads for hours. It’s one of the things Riley touched and I touched, so our energy is in it together. Riley is dead, and there’s never going to be any new tangible thing like this album for us.

So while it’s just a thing, it’s a thing with an energy that is connected to my heart and soul. It’s a thing that’s hard to throw away. But I will, and everything will go on because after all, all things must pass.