I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)

Scenic Point, East Glacier, Montana - my favorite!

What a fantastic road trip across a gorgeous country!

I am so grateful to have had this time on the road with my kids and the New Englander, as we prepare to close the chapter where our lives are closely intertwined.

There were so, so many things I loved about it, among them:

1) Seeing my kids reunited after my son had been away for three months;

Reunited and it feels so good!

2) The absolutely stunning topography of Montana;
3) Revisiting places I went as a child - The Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands - this time with my kids;
4) Time together on the road, and the tunes that accompanied us.

Wall Drug just ain't what I thought it was when I was a kid

Number four on that list was often supplied by my daughter, and I especially loved when a song would play that she had independently chosen to put on her phone that just happens to have an important place in my pre-kid history.

This song is a great example of that - it was one of my faves to dance to on my many all-night out occasions in '93-'94 when I lived in Australia:

When I wake up, well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
When I go out, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
If I get drunk, well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you
And if I haver, yeah, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's haverin' to you

But I would walk five hundred miles

Mount Rushmore, from a distance

And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

When I'm workin', yes, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's workin' hard for you
And when the money comes in for the work I do
I'll pass almost every penny on to you
When I come home (when I come home), oh, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home to you
And if I grow old, well, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's growin' old with you

But I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

Ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta
Ta-da-da-dan-te-la-dan-te-la-dan-te-le-la-da-da
Ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta
Ta-da-da-dan-te-la-dan-te-la-dan-te-le-la-da-da

When I'm lonely, well, I know I'm gonna be

Mmmmmmmmmontana

I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you
And when I'm dreamin', well, I know I'm gonna dream
I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you
When I go out (when I go out), well, I know I'm gonna be

The fab four do the Badlands, kinda briefly

I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
And when I come home (when I come home), yes, I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you
I'm gonna be the man who's comin' home with you

But I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door

What a classic! This song, like this road trip, will always be a treasured memory...

When You Were Young

Mmmmmmmmmmontana  

When we were young, my man and I, we did not get the love we needed or wanted. We both entered adulthood with what I would call gaping wounds from the developmental trauma we endured. We have varying degrees of awareness about that trauma, and we've sought help with recovering from it to varying degrees as well.

All this adds up to, for us as a couple, a potentially volatile situation where one of our triggers winds up triggering the other one and before we know it there's a full scale battle on our hands and we are on opposite sides.

It's exhausting, and it's happened countless times over the past two years and change since we've been living together. It happened again yesterday, on the road, on the way to pick up my son in Seattle.

When it was over, when we both stopped yelling, switched drivers, and entered a kind of stunned silence, I felt something shift inside me.

"No more" I thought. "I can't do this anymore." Over the next 18 hours or so, this feeling crystallized for me. I wanted to be able to treat my man with love and respect at all times, and I wanted the same from him. I knew we'd proven, with this latest blowout, that this isn't possible for us - even after both individual and couple's therapy. Even with the crazy amount that we dig each other. It just doesn't work.

And so we began the process of deciding how to go about uncoupling. Neither of us had done it this way before - still in love - and we didn't really know how.

Lucky for us, we had another 9 days in the car and a soundtrack that included this choice song to help us figure it out:

You sit there in your heartache
Waitin' on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways
You play forgiveness, watch it now, here he comes

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus
But he, talks like a gentleman
Like you imagined when you were young

Can we climb this mountain? I don't know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let's take it easy, easy now, watch it go

We're burnin' down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane, that started turnin'
When you were young
When you were young

And sometimes you close your eyes
And see the place where you used to live
When you were young

I know that when we are apart, in September, we will sometimes close our eyes and see the place we used to live together. We aren't particularly young - definitely middle-aged by normal standards, but I sometimes think we are figuratively younger because of how we entered adulthood...

Rocketman

Oh Elton. I had no idea your life was so painful. I'm so sorry.

It's crazy to me how many artists have families who are horribly unsupportive. It was hard to watch: the nasty parents, the drug and alcohol abuse, and I could tell it was hard for my man to watch too.

It was also beautiful. Kinda like life in general.

Here's just one of the beautiful songs from this beautiful movie about this beautiful man:

She packed my bags last night, pre-flight
Zero hour: 9:00 a.m
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the Earth so much, I miss my life
It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touchdown brings me 'round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no, no, no
I'm a rocket man
Rocket man
Burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact, it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man
A rocket man

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touchdown brings me 'round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no, no, no
I'm a rocket man
Rocket man
Burning out his fuse up here alone

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touchdown brings me 'round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no, no, no
I'm a rocket man
Rocket man
Burning out his fuse up here alone

And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time

It was a long, long time, according to the movie, until Elton was truly loved, but he got there, and the rest of us can too...