Death on 501

I woke up semi-early this morning, got myself together, and hit the road to finally take a drug test that I've been trying to take for days now. I was driving down 501 with my Ipod on random and it was finding all the songs I could possibly want to sing along to. I rolled down my window letting the wind kiss my unshaven face and the sun tanned my freshly shaven head.

I saw the Waccamaw Medical Park coming up on the left signifying my supposed stop, but I kept going. For some reason I couldn't handle the apathetic traffic of four hostpitals and two dozen specialty buildings. (Plus the energy drink and two glasses of water I drank, weren't beating on my bladders door yet) I kept driving for another thirty minutes. Eventually I was driving down a two lane road in a small town, untouched by today. The dirty rolled back prizes of Wal Mart hadn't put Tom's RCA TV and Home Pawn Shop out of business. A Mr. Waffle sat at the crossroads instead of a Wafflehouse or IHOP.

I circled a small lake and started heading back toward my test. Dave Matthews "Grave Digger" came on. I've never been a huge fan of Dave Matthews. He's had a couple songs I've liked, but nothing ever made me go out and buy a full record. The group of people I hung out with in highschool always made fun of this song. I never really listened to it until today. It's a melancholy look at how much Dave loves life, but hasn't ignored the inevitable death. Dave Matthews reads several tombstones and assigns a story to each personality. He then pleads with the gravedigger to dig his grave shallow so he can feel the rain. I started wondering if my friends made fun of this song because they were afraid to acknowledge the grave. The isn't a bad song. I would actually say it tetters on a the line of being a good song.

I guess this song, seven years after its release, has finally affected me because today I was enjoying life, but I wasn't denying my death someday. For one of the first times in my life, I didn't feel like I was pushing the inevitable to the back of my mind. It felt as much a part of me as my videogames, or books, or writings, or albums, or...