leader of the landslide
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” — Charles Dickens
Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly the best of times, technically speaking. But I was blessed in ways that would be foolish to overlook. But despite the blessings, this year has brought me to my knees more times than I can count. You know the kind of year where your hand clutches your heart, tears stream down your face, and you wonder how you’re supposed to keep going.
The first half of 2025 was spent dealing, coping, and processing all the horrific things my (recovering) alcoholic sister did. The second half has been spent in and out of hospitals, watching my grandmother endure one surgery after another. These moments have marked this year in a way I’ll never be able to scrub from my memory. I pulled away from friends because it was too much to talk about, too much bad news, too much heaviness. Eventually, I just stopped talking, as if maybe the silence could stop the hurt. It was a darkness I’d never known before and wouldn’t wish on anyone.
But, one night, I stumbled across a live version of The Lumineers singing Leader of the Landslide / You Can’t Always Get What You Want. And for the first time in a long time, I felt understood.
Leader of the Landslide tells the story of a child with an alcoholic parent, and I related to it so heavily because of my sister. And You Can’t Always Get What You Want has always meant something deep to me. My parents used to tell my sisters and me that early into their relationship, they were driving down the highway, talking about all the things they wanted. The places they’d go, the dreams they had laid out on the horizon. Then this song came on by The Rolling Stones, and they both went quiet. They said goosebumps covered their skin, and then they broke out in laughter, because God shows up in the strangest ways, doesn’t He? Just when we least expect it, but when we need it most.
“You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, you just might find / You get what you need.” — The Rolling Stones
So when I found this version that blends those two songs, it made perfect sense. Sometimes I’d listen to it and feel suffocated by it. Other times, it was the only way I knew how to breathe. I’d scream it in my car, play it through my headphones late at night because in the end, I think all we ever really want is to be seen, to not feel so painfully alone in a world that so often makes us feel that way.
And maybe that’s what this year has taught me most. That being seen doesn’t always mean someone else understands. It’s realizing that love can exist beside anger, that gratitude can coexist with grief, that sometimes you don’t get what you want and it still has to be enough.