The Best of My Love

Most of the time I'm psyched when my inner jukebox starts to play from somewhere in my subconscious mind, revealing what's brewing inside me.

This morning, at 4:30 am, maybe not so much. Especially when I woke up hearing this song, succeeded in going back to sleep, and then was woken up with the same song all over again half an hour later:

Every night I'm lyin' in bed
Holdin' you close in my dreams
Thinkin' about all the things that we said
And comin' apart at the seams
We try to talk it over
But the words come out too rough
I know you were tryin'
to give me the best of your love

That I do, New Englander, that I do. And every night, when I'm lyin' in bed now, I kiss myself good night, say I love you to myself, curl up with my heat sources, and go to sleep. Most of the time, I feel pretty content to go to sleep on my own, but sometimes I can't help but miss the best sleeping (and not sleeping) partner I've ever had:

Beautiful faces and loud, empty places
Look at the way that we live
Wastin' our time on cheap talk and wine
Left us so little to give
That same old crowd
Was like a cold dark cloud
That we could never rise above
But here in my heart I give you the best of my love
Oh sweet darlin' you get the best of my love, oh
Sweet darlin', you get the best of my love

That you did, New Englander, that you did...

I'm goin' back in time
And it's a sweet dream
It was a quiet night
And I would be all right
If i could go on sleepin'
But every mornin'
I wake up and worry
What's gonna happen today
You see it your way
And I see it mine
But we both see it slippin' away

I think it's safe to use the past tense here, sports fans: Slipped away.

You know we always had each other baby
I guess that wasn't enough

Nope, it wasn't. Hard as that is to understand, at least at that juncture in our respective lives, it wasn't. I talked to a woman a few weeks ago who helped me realize that, as she put it, I co-created our breakup:

"There was a part of you who would have been content to stay with him forever, yes?"
"Yes."
"But there was another part of you with the wisdom to know you weren't getting what you wanted/needed from him, yes?"
"Yes, but he also, he left me."
"Yes," she said, "But you co-created that breakup."

Which makes a ton of sense to me now that I no longer need that whole abandonment story to be mine. I did need it though, when he left, in order to grieve my old childhood abandonment wounds, because there was a lot of abandonment in my childhood: my parents, my sister, myself. I understand now that we were all doing the best we could under the circumstances, including me. I had to abandon myself to survive, but now I've returned, and now that I'm an adult, I'm never going to abandon myself again.

I wonder if this song is here (and refusing to go away) this morning to remind me that I need to give me the best of my love right now, so I can continue to feel more whole, and come to love from that place:

Oh, but here in my heart
I give you the best of my love
Oh, sweet darlin'
You get the best of my love
Oh, sweet darlin'
You get the best of my love
Every night and day,
You get the best of my love
Oh, sweet darlin' you get the best of my love
Oh, sweet darlin' you get the best of my love..