So Take These Words, And Sing Out Loud...

Gina, the first girl I dated in college, and my first for a number of things (not in an explicit sense, folks), was the biggest Goo Goo Dolls fan I've ever known. She loved, lived and breathed their music the same way I take in music in general. Gina was the one who played Let Love In for me for the first time, and it was because of her that I grew to love it.

Like any number of things, it was good for awhile, really good for a time, and then after 7 months Gina and I split. It did more of a number on me than I've ever really admitted to anyone, but for the most part I got over it. Except for one thing, something that would be minute for anyone else except for me. Every Goo Goo Dolls song I had, especially those of Let Love In, were sidelined for months. Even after every part of me had gotten past it and even started new chapters in my romantic life (none were so much chapters such as paragraphs or sentences, but you get the idea), but I wouldn't bring myself to listen to the Goo Goo Dolls.

Fast forward about 6 or 7 months, when as I'm in the midst of writing a paper due in 24 hours, "Better Days" comes on. On the same impulse that's been guiding me for months, I close the Word tab to skip the song. But another impulse, one focused on getting work done, tells me its more important to finish this damned paper, and I go back to work and let the song play.

It seems only fitting that "Better Days" was the song that ended the Goo Goo Dolls drought. Memories of Gina still pop up when the Goo Goos come on, but at least now they actually come on...

==TJ==

PS: Gina and I are best friends now, and she knows all of the details from this story...I think she does anyway...