We both know I held on for too long.
We started so beautifully. I embraced the calling of the south. I dreamed of humid porch nights filled with the sounds of Dolly Parton and deafening crickets, sipping on sweet tea under a blanket of stars. Little did we know that the call was heard by hundreds of others who would flock to you, making our relationship confusing and hostile throughout our time together.
But for five years, I held on.
I think of that lovely day, looking at my apartment for the first time. It was January, but I wasn’t wearing a coat. I didn’t need one. You were so warm, right from the beginning. The train was speeding past and Matt was on his front porch playing guitar. Bob dug around for the dropped keys to the apartment and I yelled across the yard to Matt, trying to explain the situation. I didn’t know what he was saying, and I didn’t know then how important 907A would be to my 907B.
I documented that apartment many times. I spent hours turning that shitty house with the rippled floors and clogged water pipes into my home. My home. Our space. It never stayed the same, ever. It was continually growing with memories and photos that filled the tight walls. I hosted so many in that home. I remember that swampy evening when unintended visitors raided my home, drank my moonshine, and played 90s classics on guitars and banjos until the early hours of the morning. There was the Thanksgiving reunion with an old friend, sitting around my tiny table pretending we were much fancier than we were. There was the poorly read Norweigan poems to a crowd of sniggering Europeans. When I let a bunch of sweaty dudes from the North crash on the floor. I let my boss know they were there, in case I went missing during the night. She always questioned my behavior, but it’s only a rite of passage of a Nashvillian to let a blossoming band stay for the night. I loved that house. It was my home, my bubble, saving me from the outside world of heartbreak, frustration, sadness. It was my haven; something I created. And I held onto it for as long as I could.
I will say, you made a believer out of me. As an adamant anti-country music individual, you turned me around. You taught me the lessons in seeing and hearing differently. Music venues that were former churches with music that would make a disciple out of anyone. I re-lived that moment, sitting in that room. Once I was alone. Completely alone. The room was silent as the sun poured through those stained glass windows, flooding color throughout the pews. And for a short, glorious time, the place was mine. Just mine. Not a lot of people in Nashville have had that, but I have. There was the Station Inn, a musty room in the heart of a gentrified paradise. One summer evening the students came back to the city, yammering on during the Bluegrass jam. We left, defeated, only to discover a beautiful group of people out back, playing the most authentic music I've ever heard. A makeshift concert for those who couldn’t get into the main space because talkative Belmont students took up all the seats. We gathered around as more musicians slipped through the backdoor into the group, expanding the sound down the street. It was an incredible sight. I clung to those experiences, hoping you would provide more like it. I held on, waiting for the city to pull me back in again, just as it had before.
And let's not forget the times where alcohol had made me believe in the faux-happiness of my dwelling. I remember, faintly, in the backseat of someone else’s car, I felt the motion of a boy’s hand running down my shirt. I couldn’t be bothered with the boy, but I looked out across the city, mid-night as the lights sparkled in the distance. It was one of the times that I thought the city looked pretty. And Rudie’s. Rudie’s was the place. I detested their food and the faint smell of oysters made me sick to my stomach, but I loved being at Rudie’s. It helped that Tamara was a bartender and the discounted Tecates made me think and believe that I could be a part of the hip crowd of East Nashville. I never truly belonged, but the long chats with Tamara were always worth it. Those are what I held on to.
And then there were the moments which devour my pleasant memories. Driving along the Natchez Trace on my birthday, tears filling my eyes as I sobbed about a boy. The long days at a job that never appreciated me- nor anyone else, really- and how hard I worked to please those who will never be pleased. Neighborhood houses torn down for fancy tall skinnies, with new neighbors who capitalized on the hard work of the residents who were all forced out. The constant coming and going of friends; the ones who moved away and those who drifted apart. I loved the time we all spent together, but sad knowing it will never happen again. I took it out on you, I always did.
And then, over the course of some difficult and miserable months, the job was gone, as was the apartment. We stayed in limbo for a long time. I kept saying I would leave, and yet, I never did. I’d go for a week or two, off to some romantic location, always returning to you. I held on. Onto what, I’m not sure, but I stayed. Even when I left, removed my body to return to the barren North, I never honestly left. You were still a part of me, and as much as I hate to admit it, you always will be.
And now it’s been decided to return one last time. I’m coming home to pick up the last vestiges that I’ve left in the city. I know they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But I let them stay there for months; all my belongings rotting away in a sketchy storage facility. It was an excuse to come back, as it always has, but now it’ll be the last.
But I’m going to hold on to what I have left, for these remaining days,
just before I lose you,
for good.