Years ago, the bassist of some random band showed me a song. It was 3 a.m., the concert was over, and we were just sitting backstage on a couch.
I don't even remember his name anymore.
But every time I hear that song, "Seven Hills" by "While she sleeps", I can still picture him singing every word like it meant everything to him. Off key. Voice hoarse. Completely lost in it.
Every single time I think of all the people in the places I've been who I know I'll never find again.
It's strange how people can leave fingerprints on your life without ever staying in it.
It makes me think about everyone I've called a friend for a weekend.
The drunk Russian I grilled with at Rock im Park. The couple at Summer Breeze who gave me their spare flip flops after I lost a shoe in knee deep mud. The Americans who hated the noisy camp neighbours just as much as we did.
The people who lent me things, laughed with me until sunrise, recommended songs I'll never stop listening to, and then disappeared back into lives I'll never know.
Two completely different lives brushing against each other for a moment. You share a meal, a joke, a song, a story. You make memories together. Then you part, and that's the end of the chapter. Gone. Never to see each other again.
Somewhere between growing up and growing older, you realize life isn't just made up of the people who stay.
It's also made up of the people who were only ever passing through.
I think that's bittersweet. The friendships that were never quite made. The stories you'll never hear. The lives you'll never know how they turned out.
But maybe that's also proof that the world is kinder than we sometimes think. Good people are everywhere. Some of them you'll only meet once.
Sometimes I wonder if I exist like that in someone else's memory.
No name. Just "the guy with the green frog hat."
And I hope I do.
I still have those flip flops.
Every time I see them, I'm back under a half broken gazebo in the pouring rain. Everyone wrapped in trash bags because they'd long since given up on staying dry. Mud everywhere. Music in the distance. Complete strangers laughing like we'd known each other forever.
For one weekend, that was home.