record

I found a voice recording of my New Year's resolutions for 2009. I didn't remember that it existed until I stumbled upon it by accident in an unused folder on my computer, the file sticking out from the series of half-recordings of myself at a piano I've made over the years. I have all these pointless little recordings of myself making a pianioic mess. I get started with my fingers on the keys, it's a good musical thought, and then mid-song (if you could call it a song) something grates, or I tire of the key, and I stop. I don't even finish the phrase. I'm done. I was letting these play in background yesterday while I sorted pants in my room. Fits, doesn't fit, gross, isn't gross. I've never actually listened to any of these half-recordings the whole way through--I half-listen to the half-recordings maybe once. I sound like a quitter. But anyway, in between these minute long clips of keyboard there was this six minute monologue I'd recorded more than a year ago. I don't speak. It's not how I communicate best and it's not easy for me to fill six minutes with my own spoken words. So it was surprising to hear myself, to hear my voice flow out like that for a long unbroken period. I'm not sure if I can describe the way it made me feel to hear what I'd said to myself about myself and about the twelve months ahead of me--the ones I have just finished living. In a way it was like listening to a stranger and in a way I know there's no one else who could hear that and understand. So many things hanging in the air there that I'd promised myself and promised others... and that I ended up letting fall away. But also, I did do... I did do a lot more than I expected. There are a lot of ways in which 2009 was the end of things and a lot of ways in which it was just the beginning. I surprised myself. I want to tell the voice on the recording that. I want to tell her I will be a surprise.