The only proof she needed of the existence of God was music

And in that moment, we felt infinite....

OK, so I know you can't really feel 'infinite' and that Chobosky was merely grasping for a way to express the unabashed optimism and pure, unadulterated hope that suddenly ignites within you, but I get it. I've felt that way too. And every time I have, music was involved.

One of the things I remember most about West Palm is driving northbound on Jog late one night. Stars sprinkled like salt against a sapphire sky and Jimmy Eat World on the stereo. A Praise Chorus to be exact. Crimson and clover over and over and over and over. I don't know where I was going (based on geography, it must have been either downtown or to The Best Friend's place) and I have vague, hazy memories of my late teenage years in El Dub, but that one night is crystalline.

Flash forward a couple of years. I'm walking to my car after class. Past the fountain and past the construction trucks (We call it Under Construction Forever for a reason) when out of nowhere, the strains of My Girl by The Temptations fill the air. Clear and loud. Even though my love life at that time was lackluster to say the very least, I felt like I'd stumbled into some romantic comedy.

Cut to earlier this week. I'm driving to work, falling in love with blushing cherry blossoms and shocks of bright yellow and red tulips working their way out of the ground. Instead of listening to the inane morning DJ chatter, I pop in a CD I made for Dan (The Admiral Moneybags Mix -- a reference to Logan Echolls on Veronica Mars). A little Foo Fighters, a little Silverchair, a little Dashboard and then, this amazing twinkling piano punctuated by an urgent and persistent drone. The winding, one-lane backroads of suburban Philadelphia, Teenage Wristband by The Twilight Singers and the feeling that in that moment, I was infinite...