Ball and Chain

There's something about the music of one's youth that can really be a pick-me-up when it's most needed, and that's how I'm feeling about my boys from Social D on this (too) early morning:

Well it's been ten years and a thousand tears
And look at the mess I'm in
A broken nose and a broken heart,
An empty bottle of gin
Well I sit and I pray
In my broken down Chevrolet
While I'm singin' to myself
There's got to be another way

Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
Well I'm lonely and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain
Take away, take away
Never to return again
Take away, take away
Take away
Take away this ball and chain

It probably isn't nice to refer to my body as my broken down Chevrolet, but that's how it feels. I'm not sleeping well, my lower back is killing me, my feet are all torn up from mowing the lawn (because I wore some goofy slip-on shoes), and my legs are all scratched up from adventures at the cabin. And yet, my plan for today is to run to work (about 6 miles), after yesterday's exercise extravaganza that included going to TRX class at the gym, doing 4 miles of speed work with a friend in the blazing late afternoon sun, and biking to and from work.

I agree: There's got to be another way. But I don't know what it is. When I let myself get still and quiet, I hurt in ways that make the physical maladies feel like welcome diversions. And that's no good.

This song is in my head after someone yesterday used the phrase running away to describe my love's decision to leave, and Social D has something to say about that:

Well I've searched and I've searched
To find the perfect life
A brand new car and a brand new suit
I even got me a little wife
But wherever I have gone
I was sure to find myself there
You can run all your life
But not go anywhere

I think they're absolutely right. But my adventurer isn't really susceptible to the all-too-common American "if I just have all the right things I'll be ok" and that's one of the qualities I really appreciated about him. It was a good balance for my tendency toward acquisitiveness, and when you feel as full as I felt when things were going right for us, it's easy to see that things don't really matter. But I guess I don't understand finding that kind of love and then choosing to be alone?

Before he left, we were listening to Slacker when this song came on, and I made some comment, no doubt from a place of insecurity stirred up by having someone you love dearly who dearly loves you decide to leave you, about him not having to worry about the ball and chain anymore:

Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
Well I'm sick and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain
Take away, take away
Never to return again
Take away, take away
Take away
Take away this ball and chain

As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn't true. I knew I'd never been a ball and chain for him and I never would be, which is one of the reasons I accepted his departure in the first place. Later, I said something to him about Wisconsin being his ball and chain, not me, and he said "No. You're more like wings."

Which is super sweet, even if a not insignificant part of me wondered if I maybe did a little too good of a job on his wings, the same part that wanted to clip them so he couldn't fly away for another, oh, eight years or so when I'll be free to spread my wings and fly because my kids will have done the same.

But nah. That's not what you do when you love someone, remember? I thought it was Richard Bach, of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame, who said it, but it turns out it was someone named Jess Lair. Anyway, it's a version of this:

If you want something very, very badly, let it go free.  If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever.  If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with.

(Really? The real quote includes a dangling participle? That's a little disappointing, but so says Quote Investigator.)

Anyway, the trick is for me not to hope for that to happen. Last night before I fell asleep, I was listening to Pema Chodron (a Western Buddhist Nun) talk about abandoning hope as a path to freedom. She said hope is based on the feeling that things aren't ok as they are, and the trick is to accept every moment as full and complete and lacking nothing.

Which really makes me wonder... did the Buddha ever know the pleasure of waking up next to his love? Cause if he didn't, it'd sure be a lot easier, when one finds oneself in the wee hours without said lover, not to hope one day he'll come back...