where have you been all my life

I've been thinking about that a lot lately, at least, so much as I've been walking around this state with all my friends for years and years and never knew them. I wonder sometimes, what my close friends were doing a couple of years ago, before we met, and sometimes maybe we were walking along the same sidewalk, seconds apart, and never knew each other.
In the same movie theatre and had no idea that in later years we would share stories and laughter and take espresso shots together so much earlier in the morning than 95% of Utah could possibly be awake. True love, and where were you when I was hurting earlier on? How did I live so long before I knew you and you saved me from the horrifying melancholy tones of twilight, beyond, and the penetrating light of the stars that burn your souls from mountain tops.
(The answer is Jesus, but it's still an interesting question)

I don't know all the stories yet (well I know a couple of them, and it is constantly a puzzle I feel inclined to put together in my day-dreaming moments on the train, or when my English teachers are going off on the finer points of Yeats) but for instance, the other night I discovered Luke, (my TRAX "friend") and I had been at the same show at Boom Va in Ogden a few years ago. Fear Before the March of Flames had opened for Norma Jean I think, (I have since referred faithfully to this particular date as "The Very Worst Night of My Life") and I'd been in the car trying to convince Ashley that it was okay to go in, (she was nervous to see and be around Billy, they've since married and have their happily-ever-after) and she breathing fire, "DO NOT tell me to settle down, I hate that." (we were such different girls back then; drinking iced tan mochas and smoking prime times in sugarhouse...and I don't drink tan mochas at all these days) And she met up with Billy and I'd lost track of her, I was sitting on an effing chair in front of the merch table hoping some Merch dude wouldn't come and make me go away. I hadn't slept in over 48 hours because I was working graveyards and I'd played with Normandy on campus during the day, taking a short nap at Joey's house and just kept going and going. I saw Matt Nanes drifting in and out and in and out. I was crying because I had a cold, and I was genuinely thinking whether it was worth it to off myself in the bathroom at Boom Va or call a cab back to Salt Lake. In the parking lot later (it was so so so cold, I think it was late November maybe) at 1 a.m. and Matt Nanes volunteered to take me home "early". He was my hero that night. I thought maybe we should get married when we stopped at a gas station in Clearfield.
Anyways, Luke was there at that concert the whole time, and we probably ran into each other and didn't know it.
But thinking through this story I miss being 18 years old and everything being such a big deal for no reason at all except that it was so new.

And now I've been to the hardcore shows and gotten over the fact that none of my hair is bleached and that I'm a typically joyful person. I leave early and go to dollar movies and don't feel much regret over it, and all my friends are getting married so I don't have to even go to the Scream-o shows much. I have my own ideals from growing up across America and listening to Bob Dylan and Jenny Lewis. I have my own knight in shining armor who doesn't play guitar but maybe grew up in Ohio or somewhere midwestern but who still happens to wear designer jeans and drinks coffee much too much.

And I guess I'm going back to California for a little bit, which makes my heart feel slightly weightless. My face is permanently smiling today.