If You Leave

This morning I woke up long before I actually got out of bed. It's such a peaceful time, that time in between wakefulness and sleep. I also recently learned from Jonah Lehrer's Imagine that it is the time of day most often filled with insight. He even suggests setting your alarm before you have to get up so you can lie in bed and give yourself space to think and get inspired.

I've been dealing once again with pain in my back, only this time, it's not the base of the spine, and it's not my neck -- it's the mid-low back. That, and an area of tightness right behind my heart that vacillates between merely annoying and somewhat debilitating. Yep, that's my body's not-so-subtle way of saying we're not done dealing with this heartbreak.

When this song came to me during insight time this morning, it felt like an old friend that finally came calling again after being away too long. But I also wondered why it hadn't come to me during the big leaving I experienced this summer?

If you leave, don't leave now
Please don't take my heart away
Promise me just one more night
Then we'll go our separate ways

We always had time on our side
But now it's fading fast
Every second, every moment
We've gotta, we've gotta make it last

I touch you once I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price
I need you now like I needed you then
You always said, "We'd still be friends someday"

If you leave I won't cry
I won't waste one single day
But if you leave, no don't look back
I'll be running the other way

Seven years went under the bridge
Like time was standing still
Heaven knows what happens now
You've gotta, you've gotta say you will

I touch you once, I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price
I need you now like I needed you then
You always said, "We'd still be friends someday, someday"

I touch you once, I touch you twice
I won't let go at any price
I need you now like I needed you then
You always said, "We'd still be friends someday"

Oh, if you leave
Oh, if you leave
Oh, if you leave
Oh, if you leave
Please don't leave

All I can think is that maybe it hit a little too close to home? Maybe I wasn't up for singing my pain quite like this when I was right in the middle of it? I'm not sure.

But it's here now, and listening to it, reading the lyrics, knowing that this is exactly what I've been through, makes me wonder how I survived it. How anyone survives devastating losses.

Resiliency. Grace. Faith. Friendship. Music. Thanks guys. Couldn't have done it without you...