Desperado

My kids and I hit the open road yesterday for a little Midwestern road trip. Very little, as it turned out. Our destination was Dubuque, Iowa, and it only took us 1 1/2 hours to get there from Madison! Still, we heard some good tunes in transit (well I did, while they watched Charlie Brown), including this classic.

While on our bluff walk (see photo), we even saw an eagle, so I decided the signs were pointing at this song to mark our road trip. When we were leaving Iowa, I sent my boyfriend a text to see if he wanted to come over for dinner. I was excited for a reunion and to swap stories about our respective road trips (he'd traveled to Wausau on Sunday), but he said he had to work on getting settled in his new place instead.

I'm not gonna lie, I was disappointed. About not seeing him tonight, but I think more broadly I'm also disappointed that he's getting settled into another new place that isn't with me and my kids. I guess this is just one of those moments when I have to deal with the fact that he's not as ready to settle down as I am.

Yessir, I was the Desperado for a long time, but I'm not anymore:

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow

I've always loved this song, and for some reason it's these next two verses that always run through my head for days after I've heard it:

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get

Maybe it's because for so much of my life, I've needed that reminder, but I don't feel I need it any more. It certainly hasn't been a simple matter to carry on a love affair with someone from another part of the country and a world that didn't include kids, but I really believe one of the things that has gotten us this far is that his default gamble is indeed on love. It's helped me believe in it too, and for that I'm grateful.

Still, halfway through our probable lives, we both have a lot of the pain and the hunger of which the Eagles sing:

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

And our predicament is complicated by the fact that the home that mine drives me to is the one I've made with my beloved children, and the home his drives him to is his beloved mountains.

I don't have the answer to this dilemma, and I'm not in control. And when it comes right down to it, that's a big part of why this is difficult:

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

The other part is, as Harry so aptly puts it (check out this sweet scene!), when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!

Only Happy When it Rains

I've had a tough couple of days. I'm not sleeping that well, and when I wake up, I don't feel rested. Falling asleep is difficult, and when I wake during the night, I've been feeling afraid, which used to be common for me, but hasn't been for quite some time.

I'm not sure exactly what is responsible for these feelings, but this morning as I laid in bed listening to the first thunderstorm complete with soaking rain in weeks, this song came to me:

I'm only happy when it rains
I'm only happy when it's complicated
And though I know you can't appreciate it
I'm only happy when it rains
You know I love it when the news is bad
And why it feels so good to feel so sad
I'm only happy when it rains

I remember when this song came out. One of my friends really loved it, and it always sort of baffled me, since I felt the opposite. Fifteen years later, I can see a couple of things that I couldn't see then. One, that the lyrics are likely tongue-in-cheek, and two, that ideally, one wouldn't crave all sunshine or all darkness, because both would lead to disappointment much of the time.

This is a concept I'm working on with my kids. I feel like I spend a lot of time managing their negativity and impatience, and sometimes it feels something akin to what Shirley is singing about here:

Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me

And when they do that, it takes its toll on me. I really want to help teach them that for the most part, going through life that way is a choice, and it isn't a choice that leaves much room for joy. This morning I listened to the introduction to a meditation that said that gratitude naturally makes way for joy, and decided to put my focus there both for myself and in teaching them how to choose a lighter way of being.

Reading these lyrics, I'm also reminded of what my therapist suggested when I told her about this issue. She said to have a little fun with it, to try to show them how absurd the level of negativity can sound sometimes. I'm not sure that feels right to me as a parenting strategy, but this song sure nails it!

I'm only happy when it rains
I feel good when things are going wrong
I only listen to the sad sad songs
I'm only happy when it rains

I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didn't accidentally tell you that
I'm only happy when it rains
You'll get the message by the time I'm through
When I complain about me and you
I'm only happy when it rains

The Heart of the Matter

What I knew was likely to be a difficult morning was indeed difficult, and I decided to press the reset button tonight by going to a yoga class.

Ever since my two transformative yoga classes in Philly, I've been shopping around to find a local studio that can deliver something similar. Tonight I went to an Anusara class at Main Street Yoga Center.

Anusara is a form of yoga focused, in part, on heart-opening, so it doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to write my blog using this song tonight, even though it started playing internally a couple of weeks ago on a run around the lake while on a family trip to my parent's cabin (once again, it has taken me a while to get around to posting):

There are people in your life who've come and gone,
They let you down,
You know they hurt your pride,
You'd better put it all behind you, baby, 'cause life goes on,
You keep carryin' that anger,
It'll eat you up inside, baby

The song came to me because I had an incident with my mother the first evening we were both at the cabin, and I had a really hard time letting go of it. There is no question about it, my parents, and specifically my mother, let me down. I'm sure that's true of everyone to some degree, but apparently I haven't finished forgiving my mother for it because when she does something that my nine-year old thinks I should be able to shake off (even telling me she'd assured my mom that I was forgiving, which I do try to be), I find it really, really hard to shake it off.

But I don't want to keep carryin' that anger, because I know it'll eat me up inside, and thankfully, tonight I was finally able to feel the really tough feelings of sadness and regret about my family of origin and with any luck, now I really will be able to forgive and move on:

I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter,
But my will gets weak,
And my thoughts seem to scatter,
But I think it's about forgiveness,
Forgiveness,
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore.

The thing is, I know she loves me, and I also know that to some degree, my relationship with her is probably always going to be kind of difficult, as was her relationship with her mother.

I don't think the same will be true for my daughter and I, though, and for that I am profoundly grateful...

(Everything I do) I do it for you

Yesterday during my exercise class at the gym we were working out to 80s music and the instructor asked us to suggest an artist for our cooldown song. "Bryan Adams!" came out of my mouth without hesitation.

This is the song that came on, and I know it's cheesy, but I kinda like it, and so do 64 million other people (that's how many times the video has been viewed).

I think one of the reasons I've been reluctant to blog lately is I've been waiting for a song that helps me explain or at least put into words what happened in my relationship and how I got to where we are today, which is officially back together.

I don't think this is the perfect song by any means, but I'm tired of feeling cut off from one of my favorite creative outlets, so I'm just going to let it rip: I feel a little bit silly, a little bit embarassed -- I've never been before and have never seen myself as someone who would break up and get back together with the same person multiple times. No, I'm far too in control for that. Or thought I was. Yep, that last sentence is far more accurate than the one preceding it, and slowly, painfully, I am beginning to acknowledge that truth.

So what happened? For my part, anyway, it's pretty simple. I got scared. Multiple times. And when I got scared, I lost the ability (temporarily, thankfully) to trust my heart and my body, neither of which have ever had any confusion about their adoration for my young-at-heart New Englander.

Instead of trusting, I receded, hoping to protect myself from future heartbreak. Never mind that what I was actually doing was closer to causing myself and my beloved unneeded heartbreak, but it takes a while to learn these things. I'm so grateful for all the tools that help me stay open, or at least return to open when I've "gone away" as my therapist described the behavior when it happened in my marriage.

It's true, I had good reason to form this means of self-protection, but I don't need it anymore, and I don't want it. I'm ready to do it differently. To let myself be vulnerable. To have what is true in the present moment be enough.

And over and over again, in the present moment, including this one, I am finding this to be true with my love:

Look into my eyes, you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart, search your soul
And when you find me there
You'll search no more...

Postscript from the bike ride to and experience at yoga this morning: On my way to class, I kept hearing the same lyrics over and over again...

Don't tell me it's not worth fighting for
I can't help it
There's nothing I want more

And then I got to yoga, one of my tools for staying open, and the teacher kept talking about how when we're grounded, we're more able to listen to our instincts. And how when we feel some stability, we're more likely to take risks and trust our heart.

This independence day, I'm celebrating the stability I've gained over the last few years. It hasn't been easy, but the rewards that come with being grounded in who I am and what I know to be true are huge.