Baby Don't You Break My Heart Slow

This song came back to me in a dream-like state, which is fitting, because I recall it from my days of watching Calista Flockhart and her imaginary dancing baby on Ally McBeal.

Taken as a whole, I think the song is a really lovely little discourse on long-term love relationships that eventually go awry. Hearing it, I can access both the positive feelings about my own 13-year relationship:

I like the way you wanted me

Every night for so long baby

I like the way you needed me

Every time things got rocky

And the feelings related to what I wish we'd done differently:

But I'd rather you be mean than love and lie

I'd rather hear the truth and have to say goodbye

I'd rather take a blow at least then I would know

But baby don't you break my heart slow

Because, although I'd put it a little differently than Vonda does, I think the meanest thing we can do to ourselves and to the other person in a love relationship is lie - to ourselves or to the other person -- even though it is so often the path of least resistance that we humans want so badly to be walking.

I don't really believe my now ex-husband and I could have done anything differently, because I think we all do the best we can all of the time with what we've got to work with, but hopefully I've learned some significant lessons that I can carry forward into the next relationship. And I think for me, the biggest lesson is one in being willing to see what's happening in the present, feel my feelings (even the ones I don't like), and then speak from my heart about them without trying to steer either of us toward a specific outcome. Even if that means having to say goodbye...