if everything could ever feel this real forever

Had the band split been in the works for a while, or was it a shock?

[Brendon] It wasn't like a sudden thing. Through the course of a year or two--we all stayed really good friends, which was important--but the musical directions that we wanted to go kind of changed and everybody had different opinions about what the music should sound like. Then we just kind of agreed to disagree. And agreed on one thing: It's like, "Hey, we want to do this, and you guys want to do this," so that totally made sense and we all came to a mutual agreement. We kind of lucked out in that sense, I guess. [Laughs.] It totally worked out and no hard feelings.

[source]

And that's all I really needed from the get-go. I hate the fact that I'm crying over this, but it's happy tears. It still hurts, but it for some reason, hearing it from Brendon makes it better. Spencer can give it spin, and Ryan tends muddle over things, but Brendon can't be anything but earnest. ♥