I've Got Dreams to Remember

Ipod shuffle played this plaintive tune yesterday:

I've got dreams
Dreams to remember
I've got dreams
Dreams to remember
Honey I saw you there last night
Another man's arms holding you tight
Nobody knows what I feeled inside
All I know, I walked away and cried
I got dreams, dreams to remember
Listen to me

I'm listening, Otis -- I love listening to you and what you feeled.

When I first heard this song, I thought the dreams he was singing about were the dreams he had for this relationship, and maybe they are in part, but mostly I think he's talking about dreams where he sees a replay of watching his woman cheating on him. Ouch. But it's still not enough to make him leave:

Dreams to remember
I still want you to stay
I still love you anyway
I still don't want you to ever leave
Girl, you just satisfy me! [Ooh-Wee!]

But his subconscious won't let him rest in her arms the way he did before:

I've got dreams
Dreams, bad dreams
Dreams, rough dreams
To remember
Don't make me suffer
Dreams, bad dreams
Dreams, rough dreams
To remember

I started having very vivid dreams when I was in a painful spot a number of years ago, and for a long time, I didn't know what to do with them. But they didn't go away, and slowly, I started to be willing to listen to the message. These days, I have lots of dreams, and I feel more willing to pay attention to what they are telling me, but at the moment, I'm not getting any clear messages.

And so I just try to be where I am: a place where the dreams I remember most strongly are of a powerful, beautiful connection to a powerful, beautiful man...

Under the Bridge

This song has been on repeat on the internal ipod since my drive home from the airport on Thursday evening:

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, the city of angels
Lonely as I am, together we cry

Building on the theme of my last post, the lonely feeling followed me home from Philly, and in some ways has only amplified since I got back. On Friday morning I started a cleanse, which basically means that for a period of time, I do a little experiment to see what happens when I don't reach for the creature comforts of chocolate, refined flour or sugar, and booze to soothe any discomforts that arise.

And in general, I'm not particularly comfortable at the moment. I feel sadness and frustration surrounding my lovelife. I thought I had found a partner, and not just any partner, the partner. Sure, there are things that needed to be worked out, but I really had the sense that we could work them out together. And we did, to some degree, and then we realized that we were both, to too great an extent, fulfilling unconscious patterns rather than staying focused on the partnership we both had a desire to be a part of. Ok, I thought. So we recalibrate. We adjust. We communicate. We get some help.

But something different happened. We started to disappear into I need this and I need this and in the process, we lost our ability to make decisions about our future together. The question of what that future would look like became a question of whether we would be together at all.

I don't know where to go from here, and so, as Anthony Kiedis suggests:

I drive on her streets 'cause she's my companion
I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am
She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy
Well, I never worry, now that is a lie

In other words, I go about my life here in Madison, a place in which, for many years, I struggled to find peace. The only time I felt I had really chosen to live here was in college -- after that, it always seemed like a series of decisions based on something other than place that kept me in this quite lovely city that, despite its charm, doesn't particularly resonate for me in the way other places do.

What I learned, when I really dove into the feeling of wanting to leave this place, was that I just wasn't comfortable in my own skin. In this way, remaining in Madison has served for me like a cleanse -- rather than reaching for another place to fill me up, I've stayed put, and learned to fill myself up.

At least, mostly. The part of me that wants a partner, well, I'm not sure how long she's going to be able to hang out in this in between place she finds herself in right now:

Oh, no, no, no, yeah yeah
Love me, I say, yeah yeah

Streets of Philadelphia

You gotta love a city to which the Boss has paid such a beautiful tribute. That's right, for the past five days I found myself on the streets of Philadelphia:

I was bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt

I was unrecognizable to myself

I saw my reflection in a window, I didn't know my own face

Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away

On the Streets of Philadelphia

I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone,

I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone,

At night I could hear the blood in my veins,

Black and whispering as the rain,

On the Streets of Philadelphia

Ain't no angel gonna greet me.

It's just you and I my friend.

My clothes don't fit me no more,

I walked a thousand miles

Just to slip this skin

The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake,

I can feel myself fading away,

So receive me brother with your faithless kiss,

Or will we leave each other alone like this

On the Streets of Philadelphia

Thankfully, unlike the people about which this song is largely written, I am not suffering from HIV, and I mostly just got to enjoy walking around a great city, staying in a great hotel, working with some highly engaged and interesting people, seeing an old friend, eating at some great restaurants and discovering a fabulous yoga studio.

Even in the midst of all the excitement, one thing I realized out there is how lonely it can feel when you become accustomed to sharing intimate details with someone on a consistent basis and then stop or only do it sporadically.

Really, really lonely.

I want to share my life with my person. I know how much richer it feels to live that way and I don't like living in between having that and not having it. I don't have any answers about how to fix it, but that's how I'm feeling...

Beast of Burden

Heard this song yesterday morning in the car - such a great tune:

I'll never be your beast of burden
My back is broad but it's a hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me

I'll never be your beast of burden
I've walked for miles my feet are hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me

And I found myself thinking how much simpler it would be if that's all I wanted. And it was, for a time, but it was a time when I was denying major parts of myself. Now that I am feeling more fully integrated, I want the person making love to me to be the very same person that helps me continue to understand how to really love someone with your whole heart without becoming their beast of burden:

I'll never be your beast of burden
I'll never be your beast of burden
Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be

I think sometimes this is what we are afraid of -- especially when we've had an experience where we've abandoned ourself for another or in the name of something that felt larger than we were -- and this fear can keep us from fully investing in a love. It may feel like it is the relationship or the other person we can't fully trust, and there is some truth to that. We can't control what other people do.

Luckily, we don't have to control what other people say or do. All we need is to be able to trust ourselves to stay tuned into what we are feeling and remain committed to speaking our truth and having it heard by the ones we love. Even when it hurts them to hear it. Because it's the people who love us most who can help our truths evolve into something more fully realized and more beautiful than anything we can conjure up on our own.

I should know. Over the last 22 months I've seen my understanding of love blossom (and myself along with it) in ways I never imagined possible.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

This happy track was one of 41 songs performed on the trombone by my son in celebration of my birthday -- what a tribute! 

And tonight, it's my daughter's birthday we're celebrating, but it still seems a fitting tune to mark the day. Sitting at the ice cream shoppe with not one ex but two, I'm not where I thought I'd be when she turned 9, but:

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah!...

Lala how the life goes on...

Yes it does. And as time marches on, I'm sooooo grateful I get to watch my children grow up into such amazing people.

Forgive Me

It had to hit me eventually. The immense grief that comes from letting go of a love. Sure, I've done it before, but never like this. Never when it still feels so right and still has so much promise, at least the way I've worked it out in my own mind. But my love says no, he cannot see himself in that same vision, and I am forced to let it go.

I started the week off fairly zen, but now I seem to be trading sadness for anger, anger for sadness. Tonight when I was reading to my son, he said that he wished my love was still here, and I started to cry. Sometimes I feel up to putting on a brave face, saying our lives have been and will continue to be enriched by his presence, but tonight my face is anything but brave.

This morning, feeling heavily laden with these same feelings, I stumbled on this song, which helps express the anger and the sadness I have about the distance between what he said and where we are now:

You read about love in a book somewhere
Then you read it out loud what you found in there
And you had me for days and you had me for months
And I hope you've enjoyed your time of fun
Oh, forgive me
For running down your door
I thought all those fancy words were yours
I'm treated with cold, cold kisses
And I'm treasured like a piece of junk
I call you up to say I love you
You only call me when you're drunk
And still you keep me hanging around
Like I was some old sofa you found in a second-hand store
Oh, forgive me
For running down your door
I thought all those fancy words were yours
I promise I won't do that anymore
I promise I won't do that anymore

That's All

I woke up today with this song playing inside my head, and indeed these lyrics are singing my pain this morning:

Just as I thought it was going alright
I find out I'm wrong, when I thought I was right
it's always the same, it's just a shame, that's all...

I ran into a friend at my daughter's school yesterday when I dropped her off, and he said, as only close friends can get away with: "You look exhausted. Are things not going your way?"

I told him that my boyfriend and I had broken up. "Really? Oh, that's too bad. That seemed like such a good thing for a while there." I nodded in tearful agreement. Yeah, it sure did.

Last night was the first night we tried to hang out with the kids as friends rather than lovers. We told the kids what was happening, and answered their questions to the best of our ability. Overall I think it went well, and I think we all appreciate working through this to get to a place where we can remain in each other's lives.

It ain't easy, though:

I could leave but I won't go
well it'd be easier I know
I can't feel a thing from my head down to my toes
why does it always seem to be
me looking at you, you looking at me
it's always the same, it's just a shame, that's all

I went to therapy yesterday, and she was very supportive of this decision and of my many tears, reminding me that this is a loss and I am grieving. I'll say.

 I think I'm grieving two different things: one is that he didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, as Phil and the boys sing in the last line of the next verse, say we'll be together to the end:

Truth is I love you
more than I wanted to
there's no point in trying to pretend
there's been no one who
makes me feel like you do
say we'll be together till the end

 Giving up the dream of the life I'd pictured together -- that's one piece. The other...

But I love you
more than I wanted to
there's no point in trying to pretend
there's been no one who
makes me feel like you do...

...is the incredible physical connection we shared. I mean it's still there, and we get to access part of it by continuing to enjoy those amazing hugs. But the sex we had together was really amazing, in a way that hugs just can't be, and I'm hard pressed to tell myself (or my body) that it somehow wasn't right. It was. And that's just really hard to understand in light of, as the friend I mentioned earlier said, "the Venn diagram of the two of you shows your circles sharing less and less space." This is true, and yet, so is the rightness of the love and the sex. It just doesn't add up.

I guess I don't have to understand it right now. That's not my job. My job is to feel it, and I've got enough on my plate just focusing on that task. Feel it.

That's all.

The Gift

When I was a little girl, getting gifts confused me. So much expectation -- I think I hoped those brightly colored boxes would hold what I knew intuitively was missing -- though I didn't understand at the time that what was missing doesn't come in a box.

As a result, I couldn't wait to open them, and often I didn't wait. My sister reminded me this weekend that I used to find the Christmas presents my mom had wrapped and hidden, unwrap them, look at them, and wrap them back up. Inevitably, after I opened presents, whether at the appointed time or before then in secret, I felt let down. Even when what was in the box was exactly what I'd wanted, I would feel the emptiness return after I opened it.

I feel so fortunate to be in a stage of my life where gifts have both taken on less importance and seem to match better with what I am feeling and experiencing inside. Case in point: my (then) boyfriend got me a present this year that was too big to wrap, so when he brought it over, he put it in the basement. I could easily have snuck downstairs to see it, but I didn't peek, and it wasn't even that hard for me to resist. I was hoping it was a road bike, but I also thought it might not be, so I just reminded myself not to get my hopes up. That wasn't hard either -- I already have so much more of what I want than I did when I was a kid.

Turns out, it was a road bike, a wonderfully fast bicycle complete with a seat selected especially for my comfort. Climbing on that bike, I felt a perfect symmetry between the birthday gift I'd been given and the way I (and my ass) were generally revered (nearly) every day of our relationship. Far from the familiar feeling of let down I'd experienced in my youth so many times, this felt reinforcing, affirming, comfortable, GOOD.

I'm not gonna lie, it's a little tough that the day after my birthday, my bicycle bequester was no longer my boyfriend. But it isn't because he doesn't love me. Nope. And I'm going to be reminded of that every time I jump on that saddle.

The perfect gift indeed -- check out Annie as herself and as the Diva with her take on the mixed emotions that follow us out of childhood and into relationships and sometimes ultimately drive us out of them, regardless of our desires or intentions:

Darling don't you understand, I feel so ill at ease
The room is full of silence and it's getting hard to breathe
Take this gilded cage of pain and set me free
Take this overcoat of shame, it never did belong to me

It never did belong to me...

I need to go outside, I need to leave the smoke
'Cause I can't go on living in this same sick joke
It seems our lives have taken on a different kind of twist
Now that you have given me the perfect gift

You have given me the gift...

And we have fallen from our shelves
To face the truth about ourselves
And we have tumbled from our trees
Tumbled from our trees...

And I can almost...
I can almost hear the rain falling
Don't you know it feels so good
It feels so good...
So let's go out into the rain again
Just like we said we always would

The Scientist

Settle in, gentle readers, this is gonna take a while, and it may require kleenex.

I've got a lot of processing to do, and the chorus of this song is on repeat in the background:

Nobody said it was easy

It's such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh, take me back to the start...

Ah yes, the start. A friend said to me the other day that she still remembered how I glowed when I came back from the first weekend with the young-at-heart New Englander (that's what I called him in an essay I wrote about our love). 

I often think about the comment one of my friends made about that essay: "Hold on tight and there's no telling where it will take you." I love that notion, and having rediscovered that place inside myself that feels free to trust my heart and my body to provide what I need, I feel ready for that ride. 

But I can't do it, I won't do it, with someone who is afraid that holding on tight will cost too much. I lived in that space for many years, and I still visit sometimes when fear takes over temporarily, but mostly I am ready to take an open-hearted plunge into union. And in this post-marital world, that union, with whoever that lucky man is, comes with my two incredible kids, and the desire to build a home together and be a family. It'll still involve adventure -- I'm not going to let that go again -- but, it turns out, it'll be less adventure than the young-at-heart New Englander needs:

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start...

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part...

I'll say. But I have so much gratitude for the time we spent as lovers. I know, in no small part thanks to him, just how lovely I am. And I've found him and told him over and over again how I need him and how I've set him apart, but it isn't enough. Sigh.

And so, I am letting go, not out of fear, as I did the last time we broke up, but out of love and respect for the people we are and the choices we both have made and will make about our respective futures:

I was just guessing at numbers and figures

Pulling the puzzles apart

Questions of science, science and progress

Do not speak as loud as my heart

Keep speaking, heart. I'm still listening. I'm hurting, yeah. But I still trust you, and you're bigger and bolder and more beautiful than you were before you fell in love this last time...

I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here

When I woke up yesterday morning on my birthday, this is the song that was playing inside my head.

I know, weird, right? A song from the musical Annie? And not even one of my favorites? Hmmm...

No, I haven't moved into a mansion with Daddy Warbucks. But I reckon this song is a harbinger of the good times coming my way.

Yep, I think I'm gonna like it here, in my 41st year...