10. THIRTY-FIVE

2/14/2024

Hey Chadderbox,

Happy birthday. You would’ve been 35 today. Morgan and I did the balloon launch together, as we’ve done the past few years. I think you would’ve laughed. I can still hear your laugh.

I think about how much closer we’d be today. 5 years doesn’t seem like as much of a gap as it was when I was 17. That breaks my heart a bit more this year. It really, really hurts. I wish you were here.

I dreamt of calling you when the local music festival lineup dropped and telling you you’d better carve out that weekend. I imagined you, Morgan, and me dancing together in the crowd at LCD Soundsystem and Interpol. Getting to experience concerts with you would have been so fun. Every time I go to one, I wish you were there, or I wish I could call you after. That’s the kind of friendship we had, and I miss it. I loved it.

I made you a short playlist for your birthday. A doorstep album for you, if you will. I was doing a final listen through while doing the dishes a few hours ago and started crying as I imagined calling you and talking about each track.

Thank you for wanting to know what I thought, how I felt. I believed you. I know you meant it.

I’m going to link it here and embed it below in case anyone else stumbles across this and wants to listen to it.

I’m also going to talk to you about each track, the way we would if you were here. Some are older, some are new. The way a mix should be, really. I even contacted some of the bands who didn’t have their lyrics listed online, and they were nice enough to send them my way. I think you would’ve thought that was cool, too.

I have more updates I’ve written about, but I think I’m just going to focus on the doorstep album for today. The core of how we communicated.

If you were here, here’s what I’d say when we’d inevitably call to talk about it all.

Doorstep Album 35
Happy Birthday Chadderbox

1 God Loves a Trier - Samuel Nicholson

Are you close

Are you there

Are you now or are you then

Is it fair

Is all that I am

Well god loves

God loves

God loves

God loves a trier

Even when I’m broke

Even when I croak

God loves

God loves

God loves

God loves

God loves a trier

God loves

God loves

God loves

God loves

God loves a trier

Even when I’m broke

Even when I choke

Holy hands around my throat

Holding all my hopes

I got love

I got love for you

I got love

Got love

Got a love for you

I got love

I got love for you

I got love

Got love

So much love for you

I got love

I got love for you

I got love

Got love

Got a love for you

I got love

I got love for you

I got love

Got love

I know what to do

I’m gonna give it to you

.

The past year has been one of the most difficult years of my life, and I feel like I’ve failed at almost every turn. I’m broke, I choke, and I’ve found I literally hold my throat when I try to voice my feelings about things I know are important to me - almost as a way to protect and calm myself so my words come out less shaky. It’s something I’m working on, it’s something I will continue to try. The love I have, the thoughts I have, the feelings I have are worthy of being shared and heard. I know it’s possible.

(Also, Samuel was one of the gems who sent me these lyrics when I reached out to him)

2 Lift You Up - New Animal

You wanted out because

You never know what’s gonna get you down

Maybe I seem a little strange

But it’s how I am

I’d lift you up above the clouds

And then I’ll never let you go

Think of me when you’re dreaming

I’ll be there, you know

All you know, is slipping out of your control

.

This is an old song I’ve had on my iPod Nano forever, but I never fully knew the lyrics until I reached out to the band this past week. I always thought it was kind of hauntingly beautiful, but cementing the lyrics made it even more so. It gets stuck in my head often. I think you’ll love it, too.

(Another kind soul from New Animal sent me these lyrics after I asked them about them - it’s an older song, so I thought it was super cool they responded. Thanks Derek!)

3 Just in Time - Good Morning

Don't need to specify but each time I fall apart I fall within you

And it goes without saying that the limits of your life won't ever dim you

And you magnify every issue that arises, it'll end you

And you're thrown overboard, you're gonna sink or you're gonna float, we'll find out together

There's two truths to a lie

There's ten teeth in your smile sometimes

Between making deals and then throwing in the towel, well what's new for me?

'Cause I stopped trying to get older once I realized I was and that's habit forming

And I magnify every issue that arises, please ignore me

And we're thrown overboard, we're gonna float, we're gonna float, so keep swimming baby

There's two days in a night

There's only one reason to come inside

There's two truths to a lie

There's ten teeth in your smile sometimes

Yeah, but I saved my life

Just in time

.

Good Morning has been one of my favorite bands for a while now, and on every album they have a song that really hits for me. This is that song. Their lyrics are always so relatable in their vulnerability. I often find myself thinking, “Oh, yeah. That is true. It’s not just me!” Also, the line “‘Cause I stopped trying to get older once I realized I was and that’s habit forming” hits especially hard as I attempt to age without frustration. It’s going to happen regardless!

4 Where to Begin - My Morning Jacket

Up and up and up I climbed

And when I came up I was so far behind

My head takes a lickin' but my heart keeps on tickin' just the same

Always startin' over but somehow I always know where to begin

Round and round and round I ran

And just when I looked I hadn't even began

To feel the effect, a cool, dark fever on the brain

That feelin' takin' over, like a holy roller coaster to the grave

How can I await the day

The last the night I'm here to see

How do I await the mother lode

It's the art of feelin' naked in your clothes

Again, again, again I tried

That's how I knew I would never be denied

That face in the mirror who could it be, it was my own

That cool, dark figure, that's when I knew I was alone

On and on and on I drive

When will I know I have finally arrived

So far I've gone, so far to go it never ends

Always startin' over but somehow I always know where to begin

Always startin' over but somehow I always know where to begin

Always startin' over but somehow I always know where to begin

.

This song has also been on my iPod Nano for forever, but I’ve been coming back to it more often lately. Always startin’ over, but somehow I always know where to begin. I’ve also spent more time with a friend recently who loves My Morning Jacket, and it has been nice to get to know more of their music. The way we talk about music together kind of reminds me of the way you and I talked about music. It’s simultaneously familiar and refreshing.

5 Waiting to Leave Home - Thomas Flynn

(I don’t know what the hell he’s saying for sure but it’s all fucking beautiful and feels so fluid)

6 Football - Youth Lagoon

Donnie dug a hole

His face as wearin' thin like an old shoe sole

Momma turned to dust

She was on the train tracks waitin' for the blood to rush

And you told me I was stayin' strong

When all I've done is play along

And they put it on, they put it on me

Don't put it on me

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football (Leave, don't leave)

Mary on the pole

Her faith was wearin' thin like an old shoe sole

Mary holdin' tough

She would fuck the preacher if he only paid enough

And his ring is off and his button down

And he tore it off and she tore around

Put a bullet in and pull it on three

Don't pull it on me

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football

Maybe you're not the person who caught the football (Leave, don't leave)

.

MAYBE YOU’RE NOT THE PERSON WHO CAUGHT THE FOOTBALL. This one is fun to sing along to in the car. Because fuck it, maybe you’re not the one who made the big play! Maybe that’s not what you’re meant to do! Catch or drop! YOU’RE STILL INHERENTLY WORTHY REGARDLESS.

7 Cake - Yune

You got lost

Party's over

Clean up

Get sober

Celebrate

Can't say no

Lost your ways ten weekends in a row

Burn the wall and dig a hole

Buy the house before it gets sold

There's not enough room in town

To fit in all the clowns

I'm calling you

Turn me on

Once you were numb

Now you're fun

You turn me on

Share it all with you

Split my heart

Turn me on

Out of jail, out of your mind

I'll pay you back if you pay mind (mind, mind)

When I say smile you say cheese

I'm hungry for you, I'm waiting for you

Spinning around 360 degrees

In prison, in decease

In the dark you're such a tease

I'm hungry for you, I'm waiting for you to

Burn the wall and dig a hole

Buy the house before it gets sold

There's not enough room in town

To fit in all the clowns

Share it all with you

Split my heart

Turn me on

Share it all with you

Split my heart

It's only you I want to feel

I'm calling you

Turn me on

Once you were numb

Now you're fun

You turn me on

Dance around like fish in a pond

Once you were numb

Now you're fun

Turn me on

.

I like the playful give and take of this one, and it sounds kind of Pinback-y to me, which I know you’d appreciate

8 Days of Lantana - Ben Howard

Ha, je sens mon coeur qui froidit

Mon ami

Agatha and I go

Down to the courtyard slinging

Last year's Sundays in the river of time

Agatha and I go

Down to the citadel Sunday

Red church bells and the moon on the rise

If you were to tell her

The days are numbered

I'd break the teeth in your fake ass smile

Maybe in a rare wind

Maybe in a month of Sundays

Maybe in a war I would still read the wrong signs

But I don't mind it

Being in the darkness baby

To be by your side

I would walk the Nile twice

Days of lantana

Each saint with a cross and a hammer

Radiation of the Cherenkov kind

So we go walking

Birds at the window talking

Jubilations in the faint June shine

Agatha and I go

Down to the citadel winning

Things that graciously came to mind

Gathering the day in

Some make arrangements

Some know the way and they just walk a straight line

Well, Curly's a baker's boy

Living for the harvest nights

Turns to me and says something like

"The world only turns twice

Once for the laughter

Once for the memories after

All the rest is just kicking through the weather and the fines"

So we go dancing

Twist turns and all things fancy

"I blame the baker boy", that's what I had on my mind

You in the here now

Me in the far bar

I'd wait forever if they gave me enough time

Outside walking

Birds at the window talking

Iterations of the faint June shine

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Mon ami z-il est à la guerre

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Mon ami z-il est à la guerre

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Ha, je sens mon coeur qui froidit

Emportez le aussi

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

Mon ami z-il est à la guerre

Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis

.

“The world only turns twice, once for the laughter, once for the memories after. All the rest is just kicking through the weather and the fines” sends me flying. That’s really all that matters, huh. The most potent lyrics I’ve heard in a while. I feel like this would’ve been the first song we talked about.

9 Stride Right - Animal Collective

Here once again I lie beside you

Staring through your open heart

Explaining what I'm not

Let's invite all the songs

That we wrote so we'd know

And let them go

And she's lying sideways

Peering through the open blouse

Discovering her mother's dying heart

And feels safe in the arms

She'd grown old just to know

Then let them go

And this winter's sorrow's hard I know

But we've been through worse and back

All in time

Don't hide behind, this love is wide

Just take a stride, might even have to climb

Lost one to cancer, two to sorrow

Three by losing patience

With the people who we are

Let us tend what's not grown

Nothing's wrong, let it go

I know you know

Ride the rise and fall

Of love's repeating answer

To the quest of our extraordinary lives

Let us find what we'd know

In the fall of the old

Then let it go

Ah, this winter's sorrow's hard I know

But you've been through worse and back

All in time

Don't hide behind, this love is wide

Just take a stride, might even have to climb

Above the walls inside

Look to teachings you'll find everywhere

From your lover's eyes

To the loss that makes you cry

.

The boys hitting us with yet another set of lyrics to sing in our heads when things feel too heavy. It’s about grief, loss, love, and learning from it all. On my worst days, this one is on repeat. I wish I could’ve sent this to you.

10 Peace on the Rise - Chad VanGaalen

We can sit around this fire and let our spirits ride on out

Watching as the flame gets higher

I can see it in your eyes

Peace was on the rise

Slip into the same old dream every night

Welcome all the things that could have been

I can not avoid this lie with my lip

Interstellar space got broken in

Remember how it stood so still

The trees were singing love songs

Drowning in the maze of the summer

I can see it in your eyes and peace was on the rise

Slip into the same old dream every night

Welcome all the things that could have been

I can not avoid this lie with my lip

Interstellar space got broken in

We can sit around this fire and let our spirits ride on out

Watching as the flame gets higher

I can see it in your eyes

Peace was on the rise

Slip into the same old dream every night

Welcome all the things that could have been

I can not avoid this lie with my lip

Interstellar space got broken in

.

Slip into the same old dream every night, welcome all the things that could have been. I’ve been trying to stay more in the present this year, but man, even in my dreams I’m queen of the what if.

11 Columbia River - Lomelda

Everybody tries to make me dance but I just want to sit still

And stare right at you with my strongest gaze. It's an innocent youthful thrill

And hold your hand on my front porch swing when the summer night sends a chill

And dream of driving way up north though I know we'll never get our fill

Everybody tries to fall in love but I just keep making friends

When I sort through the stars at night I'm looking for some kind of sign of the end

If the sun won't rise when the morning comes I'll be ready 'cause I don't depend

On those things like philosophy and the sunrise, moon tides, pursuit of happiness

I find that I wish I was home

I find that I wish I was home

Singing songs that I [you] already know

Instead of always writing [singing] my own

And arranging the tones

In this city that reminds me I'm alone

I find that I wish I was yours

I find that I wish I was yours

And belonged to all the birds nesting on the porch

And all the trees along the river gorge

And every windswept metaphor --

All of yours until I am nothing more

.

Well, this song is the one that really broke me while I was doing the dishes today, thinking about a phone call with you that will never happen. Whenever we talked and caught up, we’d ask each other about our love interests, even though I was just a Mormon in high school with childish crushes at the time. As I get older, I’ve missed that part of talking to you a lot. You really were like an older brother to me in this area.

I imagine you making me laugh and calling out a lot of the bullshit I’ve dealt with when I’ve forgotten my worth. I imagine you reminding me of that worth. And imagining these conversations has actually helped me step away from people who didn’t deserve me in real life. Talking to you reminds me of my worth to this day. Even if you’re not really here anymore, I heard it from you when you were. And that’s important to me - I want to love others like that. I want to remind them of their worth. I want them to remember they have someone rooting for them, even when I’m gone.

______

That’s it for now. I love you, Chad. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. My mind is a steel trap when it comes to those I care about, and I’ll always remember the way you made me feel so loved. And when I’m old and can’t remember as well, I’ll come here to read all of the ways, and I’ll feel it again. I am so grateful I knew you. Love you like a brother.

-BreSoftware

9. so i’m not

9/17/23

Hey Chadderbox,

I’ve spent most of my energy this last year in ways that have drained me. I checked the boxes, but hated doing it. I don’t want to do that anymore, so I’m not. 

It has been a minute since I’ve stepped into my creativity. But that is all I want to do. When I have energy, I want to create. Which fuels me further, and I create more, and it’s just a cycle of happiness for me. Even just being involved in others’ creative projects inspires me. I have always known that about myself, but it’s so easy to forget when you’re draining your energy to make ends meet.

I feel the most me when I’m making things, brainstorming ideas, acting, performing, and ultimately trying to make other people smile. Because what the hell is it all for if not to feel? 

Over the last year I’ve created a tension within myself by limiting the ways I express how I’ve really felt out of fear of rejection. I’m always on the verge of letting it fly, but the fear that it’ll result in less time spent with the ones I want to be closer to halts me. Isn’t it better to spend some time with them instead of none? I thought it was for a long time. But I don’t want to do that anymore, so I’m not.

I want to live fully from my thoughts to my actions. A full connection with no detour out of fear. And yeah, maybe I won’t be saying all of these thoughts out loud, but I will be actively trying to stay true to them in my actions. 

For a long time after leaving a church that preached “choosing the right,” I’ve been doing my best to establish my own standards of what’s right by what feels like it. Stopping myself from fully expressing myself does not feel right. The pang of rejection that might come from doing it is nothing compared to the long-term ache of stopping myself from trying. 

What’s the worst that could happen if I go for something? I fail? Groundbreaking!!1!1! I’m competitive. I know I can do it. I’ll try again.

I miss you Chad. I think about you all the fucking time. I wish I could call you. Thank you for inspiring me to create. Thank you for talking to me before you left.

Love you like a brother,

Bre Software

P.S.

Here’s an older song I’ve had on repeat lately. I scream the last part in my car with Fritz by my side on my way to visit Sami in Idaho recently, and it felt pretty pivotal. I love when songs trigger that feeling.

8. Known

February 14, 2023

Hey Chadderbox,

Happy birthday my friend. You would’ve been 34 today. Still young. I wish you were here.

I can’t sleep, and haven’t been able to consistently for a few weeks now. It’s 4:44 a.m., and I’m not one to gasp at angel numbers, in fact, I usually despise them, but I will admit it feels a little kismet. You wore number 4 in the pool.

I’ve been meaning to sit down and write you for a while now. I know writing you helps me work through things, and to avoid that, I deep cleaned my entire house the other day. Which made it clear how much this is needed right now.

I found an old video of you from 15 years ago that your best friend, Calvin, posted to your Facebook wall. You’re only in it for a few seconds, but you look so happy - looking out the window with a huge smile on your face on what seems to be a road trip to the beach with your best friends. Your name is called and you glance at the camera for a split second, then quickly turn toward your friend as he performs a particularly poignant backseat concert to My Friends Over You by New Found Glory - which makes me think it was the anthem of the trip.

It made me happy to see you smile like that again.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a new friend from California. She’s super friendly, inviting, and easy to talk to. We started talking about where she went to school, and I found out she went to the same school as Calvin. I asked if she knew him and described him from what I remembered. Turns out they knew each other, and I think even went on a date together once. When I heard that, I explained how he was your best friend, and got to talk about how thoughtful you were through your doorstep albums and kindness to me growing up.

It was so nice to talk to someone who knew someone you knew and loved. I feel like that definitely could’ve been weird (it definitely was, let’s be real), but she was kind enough to listen, ask questions, and let me talk about you. I’m grateful for that new friendship - one of many I’ve been able to make over the past few months.

Over the past year, I’ve gone through a lot of highs and lows. But the past few months have made me feel happy and hopeful. I’ve become closer to good friends. They’ve introduced me to genuinely good people. And I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much as I have in the last four months.

I feel inspired by them often.

The way they love their friends has opened my eyes to what friendship can, and should, be.

Inclusive. Encouraging. Protective in the most freeing ways.

It has shifted my focus from being worried about all the ways the world seems to be ending and how I’ll never afford to live comfortably to realizing all I really need to live happily is the ability to afford a drink or a bite to eat with my friends at the end of the day.

When working toward a house and a yard and a career and a family and a pension (still don’t really know what the hell that is, that’s good) and a [fill in the blank here] feels impossible and overwhelming, I realize I’m living right now by spending the most valuable currency I have - my time - investing in the friendships that help fulfill me. And that’s all I truly wanted all along. ~Cue Animal Collective’s My Girls~

Recognizing my worth has been something I’ve struggled with for a long time, Chadderbox. You know this well. I think I’ve been searching for friendships that make me feel both as cared about and known as you did since the day you left.

That’s a big one I’ve been working on lately - figuring out my values which make up my character and being confident enough to stand by that. To know I am good. To understand that although other people might have different values, it doesn’t make the ones I hold and the way I live ‘bad’ or ‘monstrous.’ It simply makes it different.

I am consistently trying to make choices that support the values I hold - values I had to find after leaving a church which largely defined them for me before. I had to (and forever will) search for what was actually right, or what felt like it. And now I try to live by those hard-earned values. I’m not perfect. But I try my best.

I know who I am, and I know my character. And I think I feel more at home here because I have more friends who know me, now, too. Friends who stand by me. And that gives me peace.

Feeling known feels like being home.

Thank you for being one of my first true friends, Chadderbox. Happy birthday. I love you, I miss you, and I am glad to have known you.

-BreSoftware

7. I’ve been

Hey Chadderbox,

I miss you. I’m sorry it’s been a minute. 

I found a really good therapist who has taught me a lot about mindfulness and self-compassion. Both are things I knew existed but never intentionally practiced. Easy things to brush off, you know?

Being mindful has helped me get over things that used to feel too overwhelming to face. I’m spending more time in a more solid place emotionally rather than constantly slipping into a state where I feel like I’m flailing.

It seemed like I had been stuck and flailing for a long time, which made me feel sad and confused. I couldn’t figure out how to get back up on my feet. But I’m moving again, and I’m celebrating that win.

The farther I get from people I used to be close with, the more I recognize my worth.

At the end, it felt like I was asking a lot. Looking back, that makes me laugh.

I’m glad I ended things, even when I didn’t want to. I’m glad I recognized I deserved more and followed through. It was really fucking hard, Chad. But I am so proud of myself. 

I think that was the first act of self-compassion I had to do to get moving again. Well, it paused the flail, at least.

My world stopped for a bit, but Morganzo Bean helped pick me up. You’d love talking with him, Chad. The man is a genius and funny as hell. The most earnest human on the planet. 

He reminded me of my worth and wanted me to see it in myself again. He wanted me to be proud of myself.

And I feel like I am again.

Here’s a song I found last week and really like.

And a little note I wrote when I felt like I finally turned a corner.

I’ve Been 

I’ve been sleeping in the middle of my bed

a king worn on one side

where he used to hold me and lie

I stretch out now, then curl up.

I am comfortable. I am happy.

I’ve been reminded in real ways that I am amazing.

determined.

magnetic.

I am more than I’d hoped to be.

So now I will stretch my limbs and lay in the bed I’ve made.

Would it have meant as much if I had gotten it right the first time?

I am whole in my failures and successes,

A scoreboard on my skin,

A gentle ache in my muscles.

I’ve been living again.

That’s all for now, Chadderbox. I miss you every day. Love you like a brother.

-BreSoftware

6. Left Shoe

Hey Chadderbox,

I always put my left shoe on first. I typically always have, but on the day you died, I remember putting on my right shoe first. I haven’t done that since.

I know it’s so stupid to think that interruption in my routine had a butterfly effect so big, but my brain still reminds me every time I grab a pair to put on. “Last time you did this, someone died.”

So why chance it?

I’ve let that thinking bleed into other parts of my life over the years. “Last time you ____, _____ happened.” Which has saved me from a lot of tumultuous lessons I didn’t need to learn twice. No need to walk that path again.

But I know it has also inhibited me. I let what people from my past have done to me dictate how open I’ve chosen to be with people I meet now. I let their decisions and the way I reacted to them make me overly cautious with everyone. I use the past to try to predict the future, even though the boxes I’ve put people in are inadequate because they’re different people. It has been exhausting.

For so long I’ve tried to do extra emotional work in the background to mitigate anything bad from happening, and ultimately any chance of someone feeling like they might not want to keep going. In reality, those thoughts aren’t even on their minds. I feel like I constantly try to save people from the inevitable bumps in the road ahead. What if there’s an unexpected curve? What if traffic suddenly stops? What if, what if, what if

Well, there will.

There always will. And honestly, nothing I do will stop those bumps in the road from coming. I can support them when they do, but white-knuckling their steering wheel when the road is clear only causes me stress. It doesn’t help them at all.

I’m trying to be less superstitious. I’m trying to see each person I meet as the individual they are, and not sort them into boxes of similar people from my past. I’m trying to let things be, because they will be anyway.

Everything will just be.

My decision to put my left shoe on first isn’t going to stop someone from whatever they decide to do.

My decisions are mine alone, as are yours, as are everyone’s. I just want to make more thoughtful, present ones from now on.

Love,

Bre Software

P.S.

I finally made some playlists to share. I think you’d like ‘em. I call them TGIF 10, and I try to put out a new one every other Friday or so. Here are the first 3:

TGIF 10 - Vol. 1

TGIF 10 - Vol. 2

TGIF 10 - Vol. 3

I have lots of thoughts about each of these and wish I could hear what you’d have to say. I look forward to listening together one day.

5. Wounds

Hey Chadderbox,

I’ve had the flu for a few days now, and there’s an urge I’ve found myself coming back to over and over again in my isolated state. There’s something about being sick that makes me want to tear into the people I’ve loved who ended up hurting me.

I sink into cyclical thoughts that make my brows furrow. The corner of my lip raises on its own, into an Elvis-like grimace of a micro-expression when I let loose. Why the hell weren’t they there for me? I loved them. I was there for them. I stood by them. Why didn’t they show up for me?

It wasn’t pleasant to sit in that anger, but it was easy. It was easier to stew in it.

So I did for a few days.

I left them better than I found them, right? Right?

Fuck them for leaving me wounded.
Fuck them for leaving.
Fuck them for leaving unscathed.

This line of thinking wasn’t making me feel better by any means. It made me feel more alone. I am writing now to figure out what the hell is really going on.

What is it about being sick that made me want to tear into the people I loved who ended up hurting my heart?

I can be honest with myself when I break it down to the base. Let’s work through it.

I am sick and I am alone.

When I am sick, I am weak. I find myself needing to rely on others more than I would like, which I’ve grown averse to out of a need for self preservation.

I think, “They weren’t there for me, I don’t want to need someone ever again. I won’t.”

But I do need someone, because I’m burning up, and I can’t breathe, and I don’t have medicine, and I didn’t get groceries yet because I didn’t plan for this, and I can’t afford to see a doctor, and, and, and

and I’m growing weaker because I’m fighting myself in a losing battle

where one side finally admits she wants someone and the other refuses to believe someone will ever really be there at all.

But I keep fighting, so healing never happens.

It’s hard to look in the mirror when you feel wounded and believe someone else could ever really help when you haven’t been able to heal yourself.

I don’t really know how to get past this yet, it’s something I’m going to have to wade through. But I will write down what I do know.

I don’t want to tear into the people who ended up not loving me after all, it does not bring any healing and I know they have their valid reasons for leaving.

I am not weak for being affected by that feeling of emptiness after their departure. I am brave for acknowledging it.

And I am not weak for eventually wanting someone to help me carry some of the weight when everything gets too heavy. For wanting someone to stick with me because they care, because they love me, and because I am worth it. I am brave for admitting I want that despite being wounded before.

Maybe that’s where the answer really lies - believing, like you did, that I’m worth it at all. I always find myself forgetting that, but it all comes together when I type it out. It’s right there.

Thank you for believing in my worth.

Wow. There we go.

Love you like a brother, Chadderbox. And I miss you like crazy. I’ll post a few songs I’ve been listening to later this week, but here’s one for now I’ve been loving.

Before I go, I just want you to know I’m going to be writing more often. Until then.

-BreSoftware

4. Revisiting

Hey Chadderbox,

I think about writing you here all of the time, but sitting down and reasoning through writing has been different since that whole losing my entire belief system thing. It was a lot easier to do mental gymnastics and land on the idea that everything would eventually be ok, because, God, and because that’s the answer I had been fed my entire life. So it had been my answer for a long time.

Now, while I crave that experience of working through reasoning and ending up on the other side satisfied, it’s never guaranteed. It’s just seemed like a lot of work I haven’t had the energy to dedicate. I’m ok, as long as I don’t think about it.

A pretty temporary solution. Today, my mom called me and asked me a few questions that made me think about what I’ve been avoiding. I teared up and let myself acknowledge I’ve got a lot to wade through.

She said it well when she talked about how I’ve got some long lasting trauma from different things being ripped away from me. The violence in those words - ripped away - encapsulates the feeling I’ve felt over and over again. I’m left with a void where I was previously holding tight. My religion. My sport. Some of my closest relationships and friendships.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t believe I’m one who tries to fill those voids. I think I feel them, grieve ‘em. I let them tear me apart pretty badly. I respect the roles the people and situations played in my life, and come out on the other side patched up. I feel stitched together like a well-loved doll. All these experiences have made me who I am, and a lot of them have really hurt me.

To think about going back and opening up those stitches to truly heal scares me, mostly because I’m not sure I’ll ever really be able to heal from some of them. I don’t see myself ever healing from the loss of you. I don’t think anyone could.

But revisiting will be insightful. The more I know about myself and my reactions to these hard experiences, the more comfortable I’ll feel navigating the future.

I was revisiting an album I found during my last breakup, Another Place to Need by A.O. Gerber. I remember when I was first listening to it on the bed in the room newly deemed mine versus ours. We had just moved everything that was his into the extra bedroom. He had left for a while, and I sobbed as I read along with the lyrics. She put into words what I could not express at the time. My favorite song on the album was Strangers.

“we were strangers for all of those years
now we’re strangers of a different kind my dear
so did you love me
or just the idea?

now i’m living one footstep away
i feel further and further each day
so did you need me
to want it that way?

do you think that i could stop reliving it?
it’s so strange to think that i
still have to live with it
i have to live with it

if i’d really seen you, would it have come as a surprise
that you’d never value me over your pride?
so did i know you
or was it some other guy?

so here’s to thinking it all meant more than it did
and starting over with some other person
here’s to making the same mistakes again
and again
and again

do you think that i could stop reliving it?
it’s so strange to think that i
still have to live with it
i have to live with it”

I bought the vinyl that same week, but due to the pandemic it didn’t ship until I was completely settled in my own apartment months later. In those months, I had grieved, I had stitched, I had changed. How could I not? A well-loved, self-loved doll. I recognized myself again.

Revisiting the album after so much time had passed was nice. The songs carried a familiar weight, but they weren’t as heavy. I remembered where I was when I found it and took a look around at where I was now. I was kind to myself. I celebrated myself.

And I decided I need to do that more often.

I’m going to be revisiting. I want to see and understand the ways I’ve evolved and I want to celebrate them. I want to be proud of myself and believe in myself the way I do with others, without a second thought, always cheering them on. I want to honestly believe I deserve that same support. I want to be there for me endlessly.

I am sorry this has taken me so long to start writing again. Talking to you always helps.

Love you like a brother.

-BreSoftware

3. Happy Birthday

Feb 14, 2021

Hey Chadderbox,

Happy birthday! You would’ve been 32 today. 32! I wish you were here.

Morgan and I are going to get together in a bit to release some balloons for you. Every year since you left, your mom has coordinated a balloon release in your honor for your birthday. We all release balloons into the seemingly always overcast sky (your favorite) and share a memory of you from wherever we are.

I usually tie the final two balloons together before I send them off. Skip-Hop and Slide-Hop, together, on their way to see you. It’s something I think of often.

Chadderbox, I love you a lot. As I wrote about before, I’m realizing that that love doesn’t go anywhere. Doesn’t find a new person, doesn’t fall by the wayside. Sometimes it aches to hold without being able to express it. A lot of us are just holding on to this monumental love for someone who loved each of us in different, thoughtful ways.

But there are moments when the people who love you have come together to make it less heavy.

Like when I FaceTimed my mom to tell her about this project the other day, and her bright blue eyes got even lighter as she went silent for a second. She cried as she remembered the way you called her Mrs. and how much you mean to her. She knows how much you mean to her kids.

Or when I first went away to college and got to see my first concert, and I called Morgan and put it on speakerphone when the band played the song you showed us so we could listen together. It felt like you were on the call, too.

It’s the night I stopped apologizing for crying about losing you, and the person I was with stopped apologizing for crying about losing him, and we gave ourselves permission to stop concealing how much both losses hurt. We held the love and allowed ourselves to navigate every corner of that aching together. Grieving in front of someone else can be terrifying. It wasn’t that night.

It’s the day I called Dani in tears when I was having relationship problems right after high school because I finally saw and understood her in ways I never did before. And it’s her, promising she’d be there for me and that she loved me despite the way I treated her when I didn’t understand her actions. It’s her continually loving me through my naivety, and pushing aside how hard all of it is for her in order to comfort others.

It’s the time my mom told me how Sami feels to this day for having to miss your funeral. And how badly I want to hug her and tell her I know how much she loves and misses you, too.

When there’s growth, when there’s empathy, when there’s forgiveness, and when there’s understanding. It’s when the people who love you connect that I feel like you’re the closest.

Every year I release the balloons, wish you a happy birthday, and write about what you mean to me. This year, I want to share a collection of the music you shared with me. This playlist contains the songs from two of the Doorstep Albums you gave me as well as the song recommendations you sent over Facebook messenger from 2009 to 2011. Not every song you shared was available on Spotify, but I got most of them. I hope this helps someone else who loves you hold on to that love today. I hope this helps someone remember you even a little bit better.

I’m making you a Doorstep Album of my own, Chadderbox. But like all of our mixes, you know it has to be carefully curated. Can’t wait to show you some gems from the last 10 years I think you’d like. Let’s listen together, yeah?

Happy birthday, Chadderbox.

Love you like a brother,

—BreSoftware

2. Lessons Learned

Feb 12, 2021

Hey Chadderbox,

I went through a break up a few months ago, which was hard, but it’s been harder than usual because we still live together. I can hear your laugh in my head right now. I know, I know.

It’s a rare experience to grieve the loss of a relationship when you’re mere feet away from each other the entire time.

Do you remember how I ugly cried every time I watched Simon Birch walk out on that dock after he accidentally kills his best friend’s mom (pure art, I will stand by Simon Birch forever). Well, yeah. I ugly cried to that extent often around him as I worked through it all. He gently let me know the sound of the shower and my go-to breakup song on repeat does not drown out the sound of my crying. WhOoPs.

It took a few months, but I finally turned a corner and I’m doing better. I’m at the point now where I can look back fondly at a few things I’ve learned.

1. I don’t need to give up my independence to prove to someone I’m in. If they’re uncomfortable with that, they’re likely not a good match. When I tell you I’m committed, I’m committed.

2. Actions speak for themselves, and I am getting better at listening.

3. It’s ok to get mad. I justified certain things for too long because I didn’t want to come across a certain way. If I were honest with myself sooner, it wouldn’t have been so hard.

4. YOU MUST WATCH ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND THE NIGHT AFTER YOU BREAK UP TO GET THE GRIEVING PROCESS ROLLIN’ FULL SPEED AHEAD, FOLKS.

5. Learning to love someone as a friend after you’ve loved them romantically is hard at first, then beautiful.

6. Someone can tell you they’re all in. They can promise you after that concert, they can sign the lease during a pandemic. But they’re also free to change their mind.

7. When you have more time all of a sudden, you have more time to find new music and to make a particularly hard hitting break up playlist.

8. You can love someone and not be with them.

Thank you for letting me think it all through with you. God, I’m so glad I remember your laugh. Thank you for being there for me.

Love you like a brother.

—BreSoftware

1. Grief & Love

Feb 3, 2021
(TW: Self Harm)

Hey Chadderbox,

I decided I needed to create a space where I could talk to you again.

The idea came after a rough night when I was grieving multiple things I had bottled up for weeks. The initial reasoning for bottling everything was that if I could contain the emotions, I wouldn’t have to come to terms with how sad I had become, and I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I’d have to navigate said sadness alone. Simple, yeah?

It turns out it’s really hard to hold so much on your own. I dropped the bottles and wouldn’t have the extra hand I had grown accustomed to to help me pick up the pieces. That was made abundantly clear.

I don’t remember ever feeling that alone, or letting it get that bad. When my emotions are so high but I’m not feeling seen or heard, I begin to disassociate. Am I here? Why won’t anyone see or hear me? I hold a handful of ice cubes and rub them up and down my arms in an effort to reconnect, but it’s not working. I grab my keys and start praying for the first time in years as I drive across town to the church parking lot I claimed as my spot last year. Why can I feel everything but me? I take the set of spare scissors I keep in my middle console for emergencies and carve a small set of stairs into my arm in an effort to link my emotional and physical states.

I wince, I bleed.
It hurts.
Good. Here I am.

I set down the scissors as Banshee Beat played in the background. I turned it up and put it on repeat.

“But I don’t wish that I was dead
Now a very old friend of mine once said
That either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits, but feeling is good
Confusions not a kidney stone in my brain
But if we’re miscommunicating, do we feel the same?
Then either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits, but feeling is good

So I duck out and go down to find the swimming pool
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the
Swimming pool”

Hurting myself like that was stupid, I know it was, and I don’t want to let another moment like that happen again. But holding ice cubes in my hands isn’t doing shit for me. I was searching for a way to bring myself back, to feel like I still mattered, like I’m still being heard even when I’m completely alone. Most importantly, I needed to find a way to love myself again. So I decided to write you.

You loved me like I was your little sister. You listened to me, you put your energy into ensuring we maintained our friendship, you thought I was the shit and you rooted for me. God, I’ve never had someone root for me like you did. It made me feel like I could do anything. When you died, I figured that feeling disappeared, too.

In the finale of a show I think you would’ve liked called The Midnight Gospel, the main character, Duncan, interviews his mom, a therapist, who had an aggressive form of cancer for years. They talk and walk through birth, life, death (specifically her body’s eventual death to cancer), and grief. Near the end, he says, “Well, I love you very much, obviously.” And his mother responds with something that resonated with me.

She said, “I love you, too. And Duncan, that kind of love isn’t going anywhere. And that’s another thing you find - that I may leave this plane of existence, sooner rather than later, but the love isn’t going anywhere. I’m as certain of that as I am of anything.”

I think she’s right. Your love hasn’t gone anywhere. I always felt it when I listened to your old mixes or remembered a story from the house on Decatur - those were the easy things to recall. But your love was more than that. It built me up and rooted for me enough to help me realize I was worthy of it. For so long I thought that died with you, and I almost let myself forget. It took 10 years to realize what you really instilled in me by doing all the little things you did. You were showing me I was worth it.

Thank you. I’m going to work on seeing the worth you saw in me. I’m grateful I can feel your love and influence to this day. Avey Tare was right, I have my fits, but feeling is good. Will you help me keep going?

Love you like a brother,

-BreSoftware