Open the past and present and the future too

Scattered is probably my all time favourite song. It came out when I was about 16, I really liked one of my best friends, but was far too shy to do anything about it.

Looking back now, I was pretty useless. Much to shy to do anything to try and achieve what I actually wanted, content to sit around and listen to music, almost revelling in my misery.

This girl and I shared the same bus home from school, and I would always try and get the same bus as her, waiting around town on the days she had sports practice to get the later bus, just for the chance to spend a little extra time together when it might be just us for a change. It must have been incredibly transparent what I was doing, but in my head I was playing it like a master.

Then my folks moved house, and I didn't get the bus anymore. We were still in the same social group, so saw each other most weekends, but that wasn't enough, so I continued to go see her at the bus stop.

Now, any fool could have told me that if she'd felt the same way, perhaps something would have happened by now, but I wasn't convinced. This was back in the day before text or email, so I did what all sensible boys of my age did and wrote it all in a letter, and asked her brother to give it to her.

Later that day, I hung around outside the school gates and waited for her, but she either didn't come out that way on that day, or I missed her. Anyway, later that evening I plucked up the courage to actually phone her. I can't remember how the call went now, probably something along the lines of "Hello. Did you get the letter? No? Oh well, thanks then bye." I remember it being brief and awkward. I remember locking myself in the bathroom in our house and listening to Scattered over and over again and crying.

It took a long time for our relationship to be restored to the level it once was, and once we both went to university and our social group met up less often as we made new friends and didn't bump into each other so often, we had less to talk about. We still speak occasionally when I go back home now, but she's married and has a kid now, and we don't have so much in common any more.

I know it wouldn't have worked out. She was very religious, and I was lazily religious, and now am completely not religious, so at least we didn't end up falling out and hating each other.

I still love the song. I remember going to see Green Day, it was only the second gig I'd ever been too, and they played Scattered, and I was over the moon. Then they played it on TFI Friday a few days after. I can't explain why I like the song so much - there's something so open in the hopelessness of the relationship and the fultily of what can be done to move it into reality.