More arguing with lyrics

I never thought I could have it so good.
You were the song that my soul understood.
But time is a river that flows through the woods
and it led us to places we both understood
would be gone before too long . . . 


When we were young we thought life was a game,
but then somebody leaves you and your never the same.
All of places and people belong
to the puzzle, but one of the pieces is gone
And it's you . . . 


These verses from Phish's Happy could get me dwelling on all the people who aren't in my life anymore, through death or more evitable circumstances.  I could find myself lamenting their absence, pining for them.  It'd be an easy and timely thought process to embrace.  I think it'd be an example of filtering, of only looking at the negative, and I don't think it's the right way to reflect on the gifts of love that I've been so fortunate as to have flood my life on so many occasions.

Because the other side of the story is that those wonderful pieces of the puzzle of my life will never be gone. Dear friends and family members who have since moved on, in one way and another, still fill the parts of my life that would only be empty had I not known and loved them in the first place.

And perhaps that is the point of coming back to the refrain:

We want you to be happy
Don't live inside the gloom
We want you to be happy
Come step outside your room


I don't know if it's what they meant, but we can get caught up in building a shrine to our memories, longing for the beloved ones of our past to fill a place for us in our present that really isn't vacant in the same way anymore.  In doing so, we fail to step out into today, and become the greatest obstacle to our own happiness. And maybe, as we instead choose to live out in the daylight, we find them in the very place they're meant to occupy for us now.

Oh, there's one other thing that I need to "argue" with in this set of lyrics, though the metaphor is a little hard to express.  My bride is the song that my soul is to learn to understand.  Harmonizing with her may seem a challenge sometimes, yet training my soul and my skill to do so ever more perfectly is the joy of my life!