Some lyrics aren’t just heard—they are felt. They pull, they push, they move through you, like shifting constellations overhead, like the years that change you before you even realize you’ve been remade. That Old Black Hole by Dr. Dog is one of those songs. A force. A rhythm that carried me through one of the most painfully defining stretches of my life.
The years 2009 through 2013 were a whirlwind of love and loss, of new beginnings, heartbreak, and transformation that left me breathless. The highs were brilliant, but the lows cut deep. My first years of marriage felt like an ocean—crashing waves of passion and uncertainty, learning how to stand in love while the ground beneath us constantly shifted. The love between my husband and I was tested greatly by grief and fear, by the kind of hurt and loss that carves itself into your soul. The ectopic pregnancy that nearly took me with it. A bleakness that wrapped itself around me, so heavy I wasn’t sure I’d ever move the same way again. a loss so profound it felt like the ground had been stolen from beneath me. The way grief lingers, the way it changes you.
I remember feeling that weight, like the need for armor. Life had cracked open, spilling sorrow and uncertainty into places I wasn’t prepared for. The sharp edges of a reality I hadn’t expected—doctors saying, maybe you won’t be able to have children. (Spoiler alert: I have three because you can’t tell God what to do, and the human body is an incredible force of its own.) But at the time, it felt like a storm rolling in too fast to outrun. I was numb and raw all at once, like I was tiptoeing across eggshells, afraid to take up too much space in my own skin.
I got my eyes on the prize, but it looks just like a mystery.
Isn’t that how life moves? We set our sights on something—stability, healing, answers—but the closer we get, the more it shifts, like constellations rearranging themselves just when you think you’ve memorized the sky. For years, I chased the illusion of certainty, believing that if I just kept moving, I’d eventually find solid ground. But certainty drifts like a celestial mirage —always close, never quite within reach. And just when you think you’ve arrived, you realize you’ve been running in circles all along.
There's a spirit in the air, and there ain't no way around it, I was not prepared to lose it on the moment that I found it
But maybe the prize isn’t just something waiting at the end of the road—maybe it’s the journey itself, the resilience to keep going even when the path vanishes beneath your feet.
This song became a place to feel everything all at once. A place to heal. I let it pull me through the darkness. It wasn’t just the pain that defined those years for me—it was survival. It was the fight for love. It was the way I kept dancing even when I thought I’d forgotten how. The frustration, the loss, the confusion, the desperate need to push forward when everything around me felt broken.
But this too passed, even if it left scars. And the music carried me through.
Now, when I hear this song, I don’t just remember the ache—I feel the movement. I feel the rush of survival. Even when the darkness stretches endless and the ground feels like it will never steady beneath you, the stars still burn, constant and quiet. The world keeps spinning, carrying you forward. And you—you are still here, still shining, still finding your way.
Because even when the rhythm is chaotic, even when it feels like you’re lost in the wreckage, the music doesn’t stop. And neither do you.
