My Music Journal 2025: August 14, 2025

 

Thursday, August 14, 2025

Time: 7:04 PM
Song: I Can’t Have You
Artist: The Gulls
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on shuffle after eating at Basil Tree in Dixon.

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/07aqD6zYskpBMTZNf0SJpK?si=679fbd9e7d27431d

It’s not often that we go out to eat during the week, but we did tonight for Jodi’s birthday, which is actually Friday.

Basil Tree is an Italian Ristorante in downtown Dixon, and it’s the usual pick for her birthday meal. We each had a tomato soup appetizer followed by pasta and then split a piece of tuxedo cake.

Near the end of the meal we talked about our niece leaving for college soon, relatively far from home.

Jodi had gone to a nearby community college the first two years after high school, and I went an hour away to Northern. She transferred to Northern her junior year.

So, we were never very far away.

“Could you have gone far away at that age?” she asked.

I thought about it.

“I think so.” Both my siblings had gone to school three hours away in Champaign. My older brother moved to Atlanta after graduating college. The idea of moving away wasn’t a foreign concept in my world.

Jodi’s brother had moved to Rockford after high school but was home often. So, her experience was a bit different.

The truth is that if I had a direction in life at that point, I might have moved away or pursued a school farther away. I wish I had more confidence in myself and my writing abilities at that age. It perhaps would have led to different professional opportunities. Jodi made a similar comment after having a career goal.

Later, Jodi said: “Oh well, we’re pretty happy with how things turned out.”

I agreed.