"You said the union forever!"

Motherfuckers. You all were supposed to be around forever. Currently I'm holed up in my room, listening to each of your albums in the order in which they were released, mourning you as I would a sibling. The one-person candlelight vigil is later tonight. (I jest.) However, to my right, I see a framed photo I have of you all taken at the concert, my first real concert, mind you (as I don't consider boys who wear robot costumes and float over a largely pre-pubescent superdome while they gyrate their hips and croon about how sensitive they are to be real or music, let alone real music, at least anymore), which is right above its respective ticket stub. You all were my friends in middle school when I had braces and liked to memorize the capitals of South American countries in my free time. I had a lot of free time as I had few friends. And now that you are gone, I feel old. All I can wonder is how long it will be before I purchase my first Bryan Adams album and buy Tums in bulk from my local superstore.

Sequentially speaking, your self-titled album was what I listened to as I began my initial drift away from Nena and A.F.I., and I can't thank you enough for that, though I still know all of the words to "Girls Not Grey." I turned to you when Ms. Poynter, the witch who wore furry, cheetah-patterned platforms every day, wouldn't accept one of my assignments because I paper clipped the pages and didn't staple them. You also helped me muster the courage to take her stapler and throw it out the window while she wasn't looking. She never knew it was me. Sugar never tasted so good.

Next was "De Stijl." I didn't have braces anymore and, as it happened, was a pretty likeable person. A boy who saw your CD art as I pushed it into my walkman once asked me out while saying I was "pretty good looking for a girl." I could only watch the flakes on his lips tremble while I was drowning in the smarminess, and I turned him down. He kissed me anyway, and I didn't like that at all. I put this album away for a while and started listening to fast music written by raccoon-eyed girls with hard sounding names. But then I found myself sneaking back to "Little Bird" because I could only hear a girl yap about how guys don't "understand" for so long before I wished I lived in Victorian society. On my way home from my grandfather's funeral, the day I fucked up "Amazing Grace" on my violin, I repeated "Truth Doesn't Make A Noise" so much that I broke my CD player. But after it broke, I felt much better.

"White Blood Cells." This album was one I habitually turned to when I felt ill at ease with things. Anxious, unnerved. Once when I received a phone call from a boy who never noticed me in middle school overdosed on pain pills and the nurse in his rehabilitation center asked if I could come visit him. Because he wanted to talk to me. She said she thought it might help. I didn't go. The time I relapsed into bad behaviors again. Whenever I would say goodbye to my dad the two times a year I would see him. The time I cheated on my first test and thought I could have an MI at any moment. The times I would skip ballet class in favor of just sitting in a parking lot, listening to you, and thinking about things. Lots of times it involved the future, and lots of times I wished I could dive into the world I imagined when I listened to "The Same Boy You've Always Known." It wasn't happy, I didn't think, but it was different.

I played "Elephant" the first time in a classroom. It was for my Humanities class. I did an analysis of "Seven Nation Army," and it bored everyone to tears. Except for my teacher who said the bass line was like a mantra. The rear of her Honda was smeared with peace signs and Elizabeth Cady Stanton quotes and she corrected papers in purple so students wouldn't feel as inadequate for not knowing the difference between Greek and Roman columns. I cried when I saw "Ball and Biscuit" performed live, and also when the acid tripping man behind me threw his sweaty shirt toward you guys but instead smacked me in the back of the neck. When he leaned in to apologize to me I saw the small metallic ball in his tongue reflect my face. His muggy breath smelled like fermented yeast and cigarettes. I was terrified. But it was my first concert, and I later smiled as I considered him to be my first encounter with an "eccentric."

Next was your break-up album, "Get Behind Me Satan." Renee broke your heart. And following suit, I listened to you the most when mine was broken as well. Or at least so I thought at the time. Everything is so saturated in high school, anyway. Several years removed, it seems like a dream and very foolish one, at that. However, what I do remember is that angrier I was, the more I played "Red Rain." I dyed my hair dark this year and quit ballet. I made a girl cry on the stand while I interrogated her during a mock trial. My team won, so it made things seem OK. My mother and I got into a lot of fights this year. I had sex this year. My grades went down. (Funny how those go hand in hand.) I was an asshole, but it seems like you were, too, and maybe we all had to go through this phase. I liked knowing that I wasn't alone.

I had a release-party for your final album, "Icky Thump." It wasn't anything I expected, and I was glad. Don't know if I could have dealt with such an emotional album as the last, though there were traces of it on tracks like "You Don't Know What Love Is, You Just Do As You're Told," but it was played with confidence, not arrogance. You weren't sick anymore, and neither was I. Even though soon after I got mono and had a rash all over my body for approximately two months and had to put a salve on it so often that I was shinier than a disco ball. Was cheated on this year, probably on New Year's while I was at home, still red and sticky. But it ultimately ended up being OK, as he didn't need to be part of my future anyway. Speaking of, I listened to you all while I had a melodramatic meltdown about just that. "Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn" blared triumphantly in my car after I had made the impromptu decision not to go to a large school out of state but rather a small, Catholic one in my hometown. I was satisfied, at ease, and everything seemed OK even though I never knew all ten of the commandments. Knowing the lyrics to "Effect and Cause" seemed good enough.

So here we are, February 2, 2011. You all have parted, and I won't have any more stories like "Do you remember the one time at Bonnaroo when I lost my car keys while they played 'Black Math' and we thought we were going to be stranded in Tennessee until we died?," and I'd be lying if I said that part of me doesn't feel packed up and stored away, too. And yeah, it makes me sad. I feel older. But I guess that more than anything, you two have been part of great memories. You've made them, you've complemented them, and you've detracted from the more painful ones. And for every album and every song you've written, I just wanted to say thank you. I'm not going to delve into the chorus of a well-known ABBA song of the same theme (or for that matter an equally banal song of a similar name by Fall Out Boy), however the point remains. I am so thankful that your music, be it sweet, angry, angsty, sexy, absurd, somber, buoyant, or belligerent, has been such a constant part of my life in possibly one of the most confusing stages of it. I could tell several years ago that we were gonna be friends, and nothing is going to change that. Thank you, Jack and Meg, for creating and sharing something infinite with your finite fingers. I don't know if there's anything more special or powerful than that.