Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

When I was about 20 years old, I remember walking aimlessly through life making movies in my head; this was the soundtrack for most of them. I was feeling lost and unable to connect with the world. I kept losing people. They would fall out of my life for various reasons. I was constantly choosing relationships that were doomed to fail from the beginning, and when they ended, I would walk through the streets with this song in my head. Eventually, I would face the pain of the loss and move on. In a way the song helped me to feel something when I was ready to not feel anything, and so helped me to keep going. I never gave up on finding someone who I could trust. When I hear the song now I feel those feelings of loss as necessary steps to who I am today. I cannot listen to it without empathy for myself in those hard times. It helps me to see my life as a journey, and that I must feel to move forward. Moving through pain is hard, but necessary: numbness is the death of the soul.