I believe this song is about a young woman who is directionless and full of naive, shallow dreams of making it in show business, without realizing how those dreams have become a proxy for a real life. The "things lost" that "lighten up [her] load" are the very things that could have made her a person of substance; instead, she cuts loose anything that might tie her to friends, family, or humanity itself. When Joe sings "you can't find her, in the mirror everything's reversed", the implication is that the mere reflection of her own face has become the more 'real' substance that looks back and finds only a shallow, empty shell of a human being. As time (and her money) runs out and goes by, this person's dream of making it in a "show" slowly fade, and she find's excuses not to leave (i.e., "the stars said not to go right now"). The beginning of the song represents this woman with a classy car that is already past its prime (a Lexus with 200,000 miles); by the end of the song, it's implied that she's aging without maturing, trapped in a superficial mentality that she will never break free of.
I believe this song is about a young woman who is directionless and full of naive, shallow dreams of making it in show business, without realizing how those dreams have become a proxy for a real life. The "things lost" that "lighten up [her] load" are the very things that could have made her a person of substance; instead, she cuts loose anything that might tie her to friends, family, or humanity itself. When Joe sings "you can't find her, in the mirror everything's reversed", the implication is that the mere reflection of her own face has become the more 'real' substance that looks back and finds only a shallow, empty shell of a human being. As time (and her money) runs out and goes by, this person's dream of making it in a "show" slowly fade, and she find's excuses not to leave (i.e., "the stars said not to go right now"). The beginning of the song represents this woman with a classy car that is already past its prime (a Lexus with 200,000 miles); by the end of the song, it's implied that she's aging without maturing, trapped in a superficial mentality that she will never break free of.