When I came back to Europe, I could not listen to any one of our songs for months. When I tried I always ended up crying hard and falling back into another swing of depression where I pitied myself and my heart crushed and crumbled beneath the weight of my homesickness for the country that has hosted me for 3 1/2 years. Once I tortured myself by listening our radio appearance, and ended up a hysterically crying bundle on my desk in the friggin' office. The feeling of loss, the feeling of having given up on the only thing I ever was so passionate about, the feeling of having cheated myself out of the life I so desperately wanted to lead for reasons that then seemed so shady and more like excuses to me, was too much to bear.

It took about half a year for me to be able to listen to us, and not start crying. I would always feel this incredible sadness and I would always retrieve into melancholy afterwards, but at least I was able to keep myself together. I also intiated contact and talk with Roomie#R again and we got some things out in the open and out of our systems pertaining to the band, and I started to feel better after that. Hard feelings, however, are still present for Roomie#R and Mr. E haven't even found it within themselves to meet while Mr. E was out in LA for a vacation a couple of months back. Roomie#R, of course, feels cheated: I left to pursue my own life and whatever I felt I needed to do with it, and Mr. E and off to get married after he said there is potential for him to go back if things didn't work out for whatever reason. Roomie#R is upset and hurt. Understandably so. I guess the more passionate you are about something, and the more deeply you feel about something, the harder it becomes to reconcile later on if something happens like what happened to us and our dream of the life as musicians.

There was so much there between all of us, so much love and so much passion, such devotion for our music and our goals, I cannot put it in words properly at all. We truly were a family then, we had a very strong bond between all of us. It was us against the rest of the world, and we were set to conquer it, at whatever cost. We were professional in our dealings with the local music scene, and we were professionals dealing with each other - at least the second we picked up our instruments and played. No matter what may have happened privately: sometimes we were so entangled in fights and arguments and attitudes and ego problems that we wouldn't talk a single word to each other and all take separate cars to our shows... but the second we were on stage, for the duration of our show, it was as if nothing ever happened. The music was a pressure valve for our private lives, and we connected more deeply over it than I ever had the honor to experience before with anybody else.

So the hurt and the anger and the sadness and the melancholy and the constant thoughts of "what if" are quite understandable.

That said... once Mr. E and I were here in Europe, we avoided all talk of our band at all costs. When his car stereo started to play our CD on randomize he would immediately switch it off and put in something else. When I cautiously asked him what his plans were musically here in Europe, he always avoided answering me or was very ambiguous about it.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. The Fiancé has made acquaintance with the owner of a Mexican bar here in the city, whose best friend is an American born and raised in Los Angeles. He is also a guitarist with big plans of building a large and versatile house band for this Mexican bar, with musicians of all genres available for different nights. It is a project very different to ours in LA. The Fiancé has hooked the guitarist up with Mr. E, and through the way that Mr. E was talking about me, he managed to get the guitarist interested, and so I was invited as well. I guess Mr. E tried hard to keep me out of this without openly saying so, and his reasoning and his way of talking about me made the guitarist see how much emotion there must be involved between Mr. E and I, and how this can only be beneficial for the music. Plus: why break up an existing drums-bass combo if he has one right in his face?

So I went there last Sunday, my bass in tow. Apprehensive. Not sure what to expect. I had practiced some of the cover songs I was told to practice, but I wasn't prepared when soon the guitarist put our CD into the stereo. He has had a copy for a few weeks, but hadn't listened to it yet. I guess the time was right for it then, for Mr. E and I heard it... and without THINKING about it, we started to play along with our own CD.

It almost tore out my heart it was so intense. There we were again... after almost a year of not playing together and avoiding all talk of the band altogether... him on the drums, me on the bass. Flawlessly, as if no time had passed. I hadn't practiced any of our songs, and I watched my own fingers with astonishment as they found their places on the strings and frets automatically, almost magically, as if they wouldn't have been inactive for a year in the first place, as if Mr. E and I had just played together last week.

I had to turn away for a while and compose myself, blink away the wetness that I felt collecting in my eyes as I played. When I closed them it wasn't the guitarist trying to play along with our songs from listening to them, but it was Roomie#R who was there with us. It wasn't his voice being played back from our recording, but it was him for real, and when I squeezed my eyes shut hard enough, and wished just hard enough, I could make it all come true... I would still be in LA, I would have never left, none of this would ever have happened. I would be able to open my eyes and see Roomie#R standing there opposite of me, he would wink at me, and together we would sing... la vida sigue nunca igual... and it would all be just as it was.

Of course... I had to open my eyes sooner or later and face reality. Roomie#R's absence was a huge gaping and oozing wound, but at least it was Mr. E sitting there on that drumset... and once or twice he even looked up at me and smiled that smile that back in the old days would make my heart leap with joy and love and excitement for and over the people around me, and the music we played together. Once or twice he also looked at me with no smile on his face, and I would look back, for a while, and I felt like those looks were just a reflection of my own feelings. The melancholy, the loss, the sadness, the hurt. Roomie#R's absence. Even The Fiancé, who watched from the sidelines, was leaning back, quietly, eyes closed for a while, and I could see that he too was imagining he was at another time, at another place.

The Guitarist went through most of our songs in such a manner, and Mr. E and I would play along for at least parts of each song. I could see the excitement rising in The Guitarist's face, who, up until now, had only thought of playing cover songs in the Mexican bar. Classic Rock. Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Doors. Now suddenly he was faced with a complete set of original Spanish Rock and the musicians to play it, and when he was done listening to us and our songs, he wanted to know if it would be okay with us to maybe play our set on stage, too. He liked it, he was sure the people would like it too. He would learn the guitar parts... and well, we'd just have to get another frontman.

I cringed at that. Who would replace Roomie#R? Who would be worthy of such a thing? To be the heart and soul of our stage performance, nobody could do a better job than him. Nobody would just barge in and take the spot that belongs to somebody else. Roomie#R and his talent to handle crowds was what made our shows, and the appeal of them. I didn't think Mr. E would agree, so I was all the more surprised when I heard him say that this would be cool. As long as we made no money off of it, wouldn't use our old name, and if we did any recordings or broadcastings we'd have to get Roomie#R's permission. My jaw just about dropped... and I thought about how hurt Roomie#R would be over this, but then I remembered how he once said to me that all he wants is for our music to be heard, no matter how. Now I find myself rather ambiguous towards the thought, I am not sure if I should be ecstatic that I will get to play with my brother-in-law on stage again, and play the music that created that bond with us in the first place, to relive memories, and to expose our music to a different audience, or if I should feel horrible about it. It is like cheating on Roomie#R, it is like trivializing his dream, lessening what our band was to us and what it meant to us. Dumping him, leaving him, crushing his dream, moving on without him. Of course it's not the same, it's not following the same goals, it's not even working under the same name. It's like covering ourselves, no more than that.

The mood on our way home from practice was solemn. We discussed this through, we talked about it. For the first time since we are here we actually talked about it, and it felt good. I felt again like I could relate to my brother-in-law on something personal, like again we could share something fun together, like we were overcoming some of the barriers that are now between us and finding ourselves starting over with a clean slate. It was like having him back the way it was before the move, before the anger, before the hurt, before the wedding, before becoming so submerged into life here that left almost no room for who and what I was before. It was like awakening from hibernation, like being finally able to shed those dusty layers of European life that I have allowed to put themselves all over me since I am back, and to regain some of what I was before.

Last night I told my best friend K that I feel like I managed to find the closest thing to what I loved so much about LA here in my hometown, when I never thought that it existed here at all. And it is true. This is not Los Angeles, not even close to it... but I am surrounded by some of the people I loved most over there, they are here with me, and we are picking up some of the shards and are putting them back together. Into a different shape, of course, but together nonetheless. And even though it does not diminish my incredible homesickness for California, at least it makes me feel alright being where I am.

It's not where you are... it's who you are with and what you can make of it together. These words have never rung truer before.