A song and memory

I chose to let go, would you?

Flower petals on my palm.

The question asks “Write about a song and the memories or feelings it evokes in you.” For me it’s a song called Godspeed by Frank Ocean, and it takes me back to Monday, February 1st in 2021, when I met this friend. It was a special friendship, from the sparks to the blaze, and finally back to its ashes. At the end of it, I started to think of the ease and freedom we give to the people we love and the strong urge to want to claim them as our own at the same time. The song seems to understand that feeling.

I started to think of the ease and freedom we give to the people we love and the strong urge to want to claim them as our own at the same time.

It was a good interruption in the middle of a class in that hazy day of February when she first came in. I remember when I saw her eyes, small and dark behind the copper framed glasses, and something which I wasn’t sure if I could trust just yet, told me I had found a kindred spirit. She sat at a desk behind me on my left side, where I liked to steal some glances and see what she was up to. For the first few days, she was always observant on the rest of the people in the classroom. Her stare was sharp, her eyes set on people like arrows on a board of dart.

One of the best moments is when I started seeing past her seemingly serious looking face. There was a weird funny side of her that came along with a snort in her laugh. All this showed as soon as we became closer, and that was in about a week. Layers become thinner as we grow closer to people, and we learn more of their stories and their reasons for why they are holding onto what they are holding onto. If her hand was in a fist, then she was squeezing the starry stress ball. She finally shared about the loss of her father from a car accident just a few months ago, and I started looking at the stress ball with a different eye. Was it something old and sentimental or something new to help with coping? I never asked.

This was the best-friend I had been waiting for all high school. I had really missed having someone so close like that, to got up the stairs with holding hands, saving each other a seat on crowded movie nights on the weekends, and smiling at each other across a room because of a private joke only we shared. Once you find someone who fits so perfectly with what you dreamed of, it can make you feel like there are yours to keep and we don’t always know how to react when they start moving away or returning your love with some gentle detachments.

Suddenly some other friend starts saving her a seat, and her snort laugh now reverberates rows away to get to you. Where do you draw the line between trying to keep who you believe to be yours and giving them freedom to choose their own people to love?

Where do you draw the line between trying to keep who you believe to be yours and giving them freedom to choose their own people to love?

In this friendship, I chose to let go gently. I heard “Love is appreciative, not possessive” and that “People can belong with you, but they do not belong to you.” So I found peace in the midst of the hurt, as the bond kept on becoming loose. Playing that song over and over to celebrate our friendship that didn’t last. In another world maybe I won’t let go, but for now it’s just Frank Ocean’s words I’m breathing her way.

“I will always love you, how I do”

“Let go of my claim on you, it’s a free world.”

-Godspeed, Frank Ocean