We're All in This Together

This has been one of my favorite songs since Scott put it on a playlist for me when we first started dating (ahh...good times...isn't the dating stage so magical?! It creates such a great base for the future together.). Anyway, the song is a bit melancholy and I love the banjo in it. I guess I am in a more contemplative mood as I finish up a paper about my perspective on relationships. Or maybe a better word is thankful. I have some powerful relationship systems in my life that have blessed me in many ways and my heart is full in reflecting on them.

Last quarter I had the most amazing class on the Family Life Cycle. Honestly every lecture just blew me away. I would leave overflowing with knowledge about therapy and couples and life changes. It was basically a deep study on each phase of a typical person's life (i.e. single adult, couplehood, couple with children, couple with adolescent, later life etc) and the transitions that exist in these stages. My very wise professor (I want to be like her when I grow up) said something that has since stuck with me. She stated, "there is something to be said for having someone know you throughout your life."

As I think about the people that have known me for the majority of my 28 years I can truly see what she means. I enjoy seeing people that knew me when I was a little girl. There is something vulnerable in seeing the "little me" in their eyes. You can't really fake being cool with them because they remember when you did stupid things (like threatening to leave their house when you couldn't be first player on Mario Brothers, for example). Adults that knew you when you were little have the added benefit of memory and there is something sacred about them remembering the "you" that you can't even remember.

Please view the "little me" in the red dress holding hands with my cousin Brynn in the blue dress who was the source of all good things related to imagination throughout my youth. Also note Lee without a mustache. I think this is the one year in all my 28 years that he had a hairless lip.

Community is so important in our lives. Maybe this song just reminds me of community in a weird way. Or possibly, what it means to be a good friend which is essentially community, right? Or maybe I have been writing a paper for much too long. Probably all of the above.

Well my friend, well I see your face so clearly
Little bit tired, little bit worn through the years
You sound nervous, you seem lonely
I hardly recognize your voice on the telephone

In between I remember
Just before we wound up broken down
Drive out to the edge of the highway
Follow that lonesome dead-end roadside sound

Chorus:
We’re all in this thing together
Walkin’ the line between faith and fear
This life don’t last forever
When you cry I taste the salt in your tears

Well my friend, let’s put this thing together
And walk the path that worn out feet have trod
If you wanted we can go home forever
Give up your jaded ways, spell your name to God

(Chorus)

All we are is a picture in a mirror
Fancy shoes to grace our feet
All that there is is a slow road to freedom
Heaven above and the devil beneath

(Chorus)