Dashboard

 

This past Thursday Hank and I went to see an old favorite of ours, Dashboard Confessional.  It was the Swiss Army Romance's 10-year Anniversary tour, and Chris played the entire album from beginning to end, along with other favorites. I saw this same show, ten years prior, upon the original record's release, and it was incredibly moving to think back to that time in my life, and then think of where I am now. I was 18; so wonderfully naive, so young, so unsure of what life had in store for me. I had just graduated high school and was about to embark on my college adventures, moving up to the dorms to start that chapter of my life. Back then I related to those emotional Dashboard songs on so many levels, and hearing them again live brought back so many memories, emotions, and things I had forgotten and tucked away over the years.  I met Hank seven years ago, and because we were in a long distance relationship for that first year, and he was on tour with his band so frequently, so many of DC's songs rang true yet again during that time period. I can still remember driving up to visit Hank for the very first time, getting butterflies in my stomach as Hands Down played on the stereo. Music and emotion are powerful things when combined, and throughout the entire show last week I found myself tearing up a bit.  How was I to know, on that long drive up the mountain, that I was going to visit my future husband? The song then, and the song now. Me then, and me now. Us then, us now. It made me feel so happy, my heart so full, to think about the then and now, and to be able to remember a time before all of this, to remember the very beginning. And as the music drifted across the Marquee Theater, I closed my eyes for just a second, and I was in my car again, driving straight into my future.