For the Longest Time

Heard this song on my run around the Arboretum yesterday:

Woah, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woah, oh, oh
For the longest
If you said goodbye to me tonight
There would still be music left to write
What else could I do
I'm so inspired by you
That hasn't happened for the longest time

And that last line, in particular really resonated.

It has been such a long time:

Once I thought my innocence was gone
Now I know that happiness goes on
That's where you found me
When you put your arms around me
I haven't been there for the longest time

Woah, oh, oh
For the longest time
Woah, oh, oh
For the longest
I'm that voice you're hearing in the hall
And the greatest miracle of all
Is how I need you
And how you needed me too
That hasn't happened for the longest time

No, it hasn't.

Time to press the reset button Universe, and let it happen again:

Maybe this won't last very long
But you feel so right
And I could be wrong
Maybe I've been hoping too hard
But I've gone this far
And it's more than I hoped for

Yes please.

Send me someone who feels so right, someone who is more than I hoped for:

Who knows how much further we'll go on
Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone
I'll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven't been there for the longest time
I had second thoughts at the start
I said to myself
Hold on to your heart
Now I know the woman that you are
You're wonderful so far
And it's more than I hoped for

I don't care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things
I want you so bad
I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for
The longest time

Yes I do, whoever you are!

Uptown Girl

This morning I started my day with a couple of yoga classes at Perennial and then headed out to CamRock to mountain bike. I hadn't been out there for a while -- I've been making do with laps at Quarry Ridge most of the summer -- and it felt good to ride some longer trails with some different challenges.

Afterward I took a bath and then a nap - my favorite post ride activities (at least now that I'm solo) -- and then roused myself to meet a friend at Sundance for a movie. We saw Trainwreck, the new Judd Apatow movie, and I thought it was awesome entertainment. I cried -- and I love a good cry -- both because I was moved and from laughing so hard.

Today's selection is from the soundtrack -- it's the song that the main character's somewhat dorky doctor boyfriend always plays in the operating room:

Uptown girl
She's been living in her uptown world
I bet she never had a backstreet guy
I bet her mama never told her why

I'm gonna try for an uptown girl
She's been living in her white bred world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now she's looking for a downtown man
That's what I am

And when she knows what
She wants from her time
And when she wakes up
And makes up her mind

She'll see I'm not so tough
Just because
I'm in love with an uptown girl

You know I've seen her in her uptown world
She's getting tired of her high class toys
And all her presents from her uptown boys
She's got a choice

Uptown girl
You know I can't afford to buy her pearls
But maybe someday when my ship comes in
She'll understand what kind of guy I've been
And then I'll win

And when she's walking
She's looking so fine
And when she's talking
She'll say that she's mine

And just like in Billy Joel's lyrics, the lovers in the movie end up together. I'm glad it works out in the movies, because it doesn't seem to work out that way very often in real life. The friend with whom I saw the movie is going through a break up -- one she instigated -- and struggling with her decision.

She said that she had never been in the situation before when you really love someone but love isn't enough. I warned her that what I was about to say was informed by my own experience with love, and then I told her that I thought that was crap. The problems she described were about her difficulties maintaining a sense of herself in the relationship -- and I get that that is a challenge -- god knows it was in my last relationship. But the answer, if you ask me, if her love is of the same mind, body, soul magnitude as mine for the New Englander, is not to break up. It's to work that shit out together.

I can't know what is right for her, but I can know that I do not believe in walking away from a great love. I can't control his choices, but I can know that I would not and will not make the same decision the next time I'm in his shoes, or my friend's shoes, or anyone else's who has found a great love and walked away because of not being able to deal with their own shit...

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....

Honesty

I've been more tired than usual since getting back from our vacation, so I haven't been doing as much in the evenings after work. But the one thing I haven't neglected is getting to Alanon meetings. I find them especially helpful after spending time with my extended family.

I went to a meeting tonight, and as usual people shared their pain and their experiences. But one particular person's sharing really stood out for me. It came from a man who shared that he'd recently undergone a bunch of testing, and had learned that he was cognitively disabled as well as depressed. This man went on to talk about how drugs and alcohol had affected his life -- how he was always numb, so he had never really come to terms with what he was dealing with in terms of his mental illness and disability. He said he now understood that using drugs and alcohol was like throwing fuel on the fire in terms of his depression, and that he now understood that he could make a different choice.

I was blown away. How is it that this man, suffering from cognitive disabilities, can understand what members of my own family, who do not have such problems, can't or won't understand? I sought him out after the meeting, and told him that he may be cognitively disabled, but he understands something that many, many people don't or won't: using drugs and alcohol to cope with depression is like saying you not only want to stay depressed, you want to go even further down.

This man also talked about how dishonest he was during the time that he was using, and how he'd lost his wife and had strained relationships with his children. It made me think about the fact that the most pervasive, and probably the most damaging, kind of dishonesty is lying to ourselves. And if we don't tell ourselves the truth, how can we expect to tell it to others?

As I was pondering this, Billy Joel started singing to me:

If you search for tenderness
It isn't hard to find
You can have the love you need to live
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

I can always find someone
To say they sympathize
If I wear my heart out on my sleeve
But I don't want some pretty face
To tell me pretty lies
All I want is someone to believe

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

I can find a lover
I can find a friend
I can have security
Until the bitter end
Anyone can comfort me
With promises again
I know, I know

When I'm deep inside of me
Don't be too concerned
I won't ask for nothin' while I'm gone
But when I want sincerity
Tell me where else can I turn
Cause you're the one that I depend upon

Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you

The honesty that people tend to exhibit around Alanon tables is one reason I get so much out of meetings when I go. Listening to other people talk, I almost always learn ways to be more honest with myself, and feel inspired to live my life from that place...

This is the Time

Yesterday I experienced two moments, with two different couples, where I marveled at their devotion to each other, to their family, and to the promise they either made or were about to make about living their lives together. My marriage didn't work out that way. In fact, I would go as far as to say it didn't even really start out that way, not to lay blame on anyone in particular, but just by way of noting that this is something I want in my next marriage, and I understand that to have it, I'll also have to bring it. And I feel capable of that now -- I didn't, for a number of reasons, the last time around.

On the car ride home from Milwaukee to Madison today, I heard this Billy Joel classic, which pretty much nails the sentiment I'm talking about here:

We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They're tearing it down now
But it's just as well
I haven't shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me baby
I've got plans for you

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we'll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
And now I need the rest of you

Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that I survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
I know we've got to move somehow
But I don't want to lose you now

I feel confident that I'm going to know when I have the kind of love, desire to prioritize family, and live life together this time around. And I'm not going to settle for anything less...