Emo AOL Away Status:Blogtober14

 In college AOL was all the rage-long, long before Gchat or even Myspace.  When you were "away" from the computer it was customary to put a quote or song lyric that gave a vague reference as to how you were feeling.  I always knew Boyfriend was irritated at me when he would put up the poem Birches by Robert Frost.

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

Confession-I just looked it up to see what the meaning of the poem was since I never really understood a decade ago.  Apparently Frost was using it as a metaphor for getting away for awhile. Boyfriend was deep and emo back then.

 

I don't really spend my time looking up quotes anymore.  Though when I read the prompt, the lyric above started singing in my head.  I suppose the lyric both has meaning to me as well as brings nostalgia to me around a combined hard and uplifting time.

When Boyfriend and I were at the tender age of 21, I lost my dad and he his mother within a month of each other.  We were spending our weekends (and sometimes weeknights) driving between College Station where we lived and Dallas to visit our ailing parents.  

Thankfully, there were no smart phones to distract us so our only form of entertainment was music and each other.  We spoke for parts of the long drives back and forth, but often we sat in silence listening to the soul filled voice of Rhett Miller and contemplating the difficult circumstances we were going through. 

One especially tumultuous weekend, Boyfriend and I were driving home and we were in the middle of a huge fight.  The stress of losing our parents so close to each other, the constant driving, financial stress-it had all just gotten to us. I honestly wasn't sure how we were going to make it to the other side and remain a couple.

As I sat there crying, Your Nervous Heart came on and he reached over, grabbed my hand and sang to me, "Can I kiss your furrowed brow and calm your nervous heart." In that moment, I knew it wouldn't be an easy road-but we were going to make it.