Goodbye To All That

Goodbye to longer summer nights, cricket serenatas and long conversations in the dark. To tiki lamps and being the last people at a party, talking to the girl you'll never meet again.

Goodbye to the memories of the 1990s, when we lived in a brighter age. When Pearl Jam was still new, when sci-fi television wasn't pretentious garbage, to hearing Mark Snow's music on Friday night.

Goodbye to that weird, suburban alpenglow during afternoon trips to playgrounds. To laying in the grass with beautiful red haired girls in blue-and-white sundresses. That transition between high school and whatever path brought us here, now beaten to a thin cloud of passing dust.

Goodbye to cool morning sheets, the windows open, the maple leaves touching the screen window as they fall. To weekend morning breakfasts with pancakes and bacon. To long Sundays that dragged on until the dread of Monday crept up right before midnight.

Goodbye to falling in love heedlessly. To that girl who knew that way to look at you and smiled shyly as she put a lock of her hair behind her ear and the warm smell of youth as she put her chin on your shoulder. To not knowing any better and not caring. To being broken hearted and still have the time or the willpower to pull yourself together.

Goodbye to Sousa marching bands at gazebos and comic books for a dollar twenty-five. Goodbye to that sick-sweet smell of hiking trails and tree lines now long gone. To sawdust, asphalt and gravel; grass, tall weeds and blackberry bushes. Classic car shows. Baseball cards. The cat or dog you grew up with. Old suburban legends. Friends you've never seen again.

Goodbye to all that. We were right when we were 16. And nothing here is important anymore.