Just The Way You Are

I'm reading an article in The New Yorker about Billy Joel. It's pretty interesting, talking about how he can still sell out Madison Square Garden for weeks at a time, and how he mostly plays the old favorites, including this song that gets the whole place weeping:

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I take you just the way you are

And after he plays it, he says to the audience: "I wrote this for my first wife. And then we got divorced!" I don't know much about their marriage, but it does seem tough to swallow. I also know that in my first marriage, I didn't love myself enough to believe that someone else could love me just the way I am. I enjoyed the feeling of being loved enough to want to be around it, but I couldn't really accept it it, and I couldn't return it, either.

I definitely tried to change him:

​Don't go trying some new fashion
​Don't change the color of your hair
​You always have my unspoken passion
​Though I might not seem to care

I also don't think we were a good match. We didn't have unspoken or spoken passion, not really, and now that I've experienced that for reals, I would say that it's essential to really loving someone. Not to mention just plain awesome. One of the things that is hard for me about my situation now is I just really can't fathom choosing not to be in the midst of that passion on a daily basis. I often hear the New Englander's voice in my head (nope, it's not just music, I hear voices too), saying, as he sometimes did: "Why wouldn't ya?"

Which is an important question, but it isn't mine to answer. And if there is one thing I've learned about loving someone just the way they are, it's that doing so sometimes, inconveniently, means not getting what you want from them. But it's such a gift to love that way. I've known this for years because of my children, and I'm so grateful that I now know it is possible in other areas of life too.

Possible, but not easy. Because when the heart feels like this about someone:
​
​I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are

I think it's natural to want to seal the deal:

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Ah, what will it take till you believe in me?
The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you and that's forever
And this I promise from the heart
But I couldn't love you any better
I love you just the way you are

Of course, sometimes, as Billy pointed out in his own example, sealing the deal doesn't ultimately mean spending your life together anyway.

So I guess all we can do, or at least, all I can do, is choose to love this way, and accept what happens as part of my path...

​Oh... Yeah....