Nobody Does It Better

Love the first trip to picnic point of the "Spring"!

As I prepared for my run today, I decided to take my phone so I could listen to music. I've been either running without it or running with a friend lately, but when I turned on Slacker I got super excited when the song that was cued up was one of my all time faves, Total Eclipse of the Heart. I belted out the lyrics as I ran down the street - I'm sure the neighbors thought I'd lost it.

I just assumed I'd already blogged about that song, but it seems I haven't. Still, I'm going to save it for another time, because the song that came on after it made me realize that I was listening to some sort of love songs countdown, which maybe wasn't really the thing for the first 55 degree run to picnic point and back of the season, which, while muddy, was at least not ice-covered or inaccessible.

But as the love songs continued to play, one after the other, I decided to rewrite them, starting with this one from Carly Simon:

Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, you're the best

Someone must do it better, I reasoned, because I'm not with the person that did it twice as good as anyone else I've ever known, so that just has to mean that someone who does it even better is out there:

And nobody does it better
Though sometimes I wish someone could
Nobody does it quite the way you do
Why'd you have to be so good?

I gotta admit, the question that makes up the last line of that last verse is a question I've asked myself. After all, being with the New Englander absolutely ruined casual sex for me, which means it has been 19 months since I've had a shag.

But long dry spell notwithstanding, I know why he had to be so good: To teach me how good it can be.

And now that I know, and I'm ready to stop grieving and start living, I'll recognize the magic when I feel it again:

The way that you hold me whenever you hold me
There's some kind of magic inside you
That keeps me from runnin', but just keep it comin'
How'd you learn to do the things you do?

Except this time, it'll be with someone who wants to be my partner just as much as I want to be his. Someone who isn't afraid to be vulnerable. Someone who really, truly, is the best for me, not just what I thought at the time had to be right because it felt so damn good:

And nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, baby, darling, you're the best

Sorry Carly, but I beg to differ -- someone must do it better -- and I can't wait to meet him!

Anticipation

Selfie in a snow-covered birch tree

Heard this Carly Simon number on the long drive back to Madison, and it felt somehow apt for starting the new year:

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day

Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting

I've spent a lot of time in my life anticipating something or someone, and although a little anticipation is healthy, to focus on what might happen rather than what is happening is mostly a recipe for not getting to fully enjoy the life that's right in front of me:

Anticipation, Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting

Yes it is, Carly. And I resolve to do less anticipating and more being in 2015...

That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be

But Arch is already in Madison -- see the legs?

The weather has been really weird. Foggy. Wet. Kinda warm, but not super warm. After I dropped off the kids at their Dad's this afternoon, I went for a run in the Arboretum. As I had done in DC, I decided to run on trails, even though they were pretty messy.

It felt good to be in the woods. It always does. I was listening to a weird station on Slacker -- I'm not even sure what it was -- but songs that I'd never heard kept coming on, like this one:

But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me -
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be:
You want to marry me, we'll marry.

I wasn't sure who was singing it, but I'm not surprised it's Carly Simon. And it got me thinking. Thinking about how for some of us, it just doesn't go the way we've always heard it should. Some of us don't enter adulthood with enough of ourselves intact to have our first marital selection be a great fit -- someone we can love deeply, someone we can continue to grow with over the years.

And although I've had a lot of trouble accepting it, it seems that sometimes, when those of us in this category do meet and fall in love with someone we want to move in with, raise a family with, sometimes we don't even get to have it that time around.

It doesn't make any sense to me, none at all, to find a love like the one the New Englander and I found, and then choose something other than to partner on these trips around the Sun that we've got left -- but today as I ran I realized that there are lots of things about this world that I find senseless. People who want to have babies being unable to conceive and children dying being a couple of examples, but the fact that I find them senseless doesn't stop them from happening. Same thing is true of my situation. It's happening. Might as well accept it.

And although I'm sad, I'm also grateful. I'm grateful that I'm not living a life like the one Carly sings about here:

My friends from college they're all married now;
They have their houses and their lawns.
They have their silent noons,
Tearful nights, angry dawns.
Their children hate them for the things they're not;
They hate themselves for what they are-
And yet they drink, they laugh,
Close the wound, hide the scar.

Nope. I'm not hiding the scars. I'm allowing my heart to break open into new life, and I'm trusting that all the work I've done to liberate myself means there'll be no drowning in love's debris for me:

You say we can keep our love alive
Babe - all I know is what I see -
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love's debris.
You say we'll soar like two birds through the clouds,
But soon you'll cage me on your shelf -
I'll never learn to be just me first
By myself.

And I know that I will never cage the man (men) I love on my shelf -- even if it means losing him (them) for good...

Coming Around Again

I really dislike cleaning, but I could avoid it no longer with my parent's imminent arrival, so I used a trick I sometimes use to get myself to do it; I fired up a movie on Netflix. This time my selection was Heartburn, with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, from 1986. I don't think I'd ever heard of it, but it was a very satisfying clean-while-you-watch.

The main premise is that Meryl's character marries Jack's knowing he's a philanderer and then guess what? He cheats on her. Repeatedly. Even though they have two kids together. Even though he promised her he wouldn't. Even though she's absolutely lovely.

As Carly Simon's voice started singing this song in the background:

Baby sneezes
Mummy pleases
Daddy breezes in
So good on paper
So romantic
But so bewildering

I had a pretty interesting thought, which is that maybe the problem is the expectation of happily ever after, the expectation that there's someone out there who will value us above all others, who will always be thinking about what's right for the family, who couldn't possibly do the one thing you most feared he'd do:

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again
So don't mind if I fall apart
There's more room in a broken heart

I love that the last line of that verse is similar to what my acupuncturist said about an empty heart being a beautiful place. There is a lot of room in a broken heart. It's big, sometimes even giant, and often it feels all-encompassing. To view that as possibly being a good thing is oddly comforting.

There may also be another misconception about heartbreak, which is that we think that certain things shouldn't happen to us. We try to assign "if I do this, this should happen" -- but our lives aren't a science experiment or a math problem. We choose to have relationships with other human beings, and we bring our own stuff to the table, but in entering the relationship, we're signing up to deal with the other person's too. And sometimes the other person's stuff might just cause them to break our hearts. Like Jack's character did. And like my last love did, too.

The thing about falling in love is, you can play it safe, but why would ya?

And I believe in love
But what else can I do
I'm so in love with you

I'd rather be with crazy, sexy, cool Jack Nicholson for a few good years before it all goes wrong than stay with a safe guy my whole life, and maybe that's not so different from what just played out in my own life? Maybe it happened just the way it was supposed to happen? The point is, I don't know, and I don't get to decide. I just have to be able to accept what is. I'm working on that, and for the time being, I'm comforted by Carly's assurance that it'll be coming around again, because you know I'm willing to play the game:

I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It will be coming around again.

At the end of the movie, Meryl's character talks about when a dream breaks into a million little pieces, saying that when that happens you have two choices. You either continue to try to hold onto that dream, as unbearable and implausible as it is, or you dream a new dream. She decides to dream a new dream, and that's the choice I'm making too...

You're So Vain

Tonight I got to enjoy the company of two of my favorite women, one of whom was celebrating her birthday. It was lovely to see them both and introduce them to my man. After dinner, we walked to their car so that one could show us the hilarious birthday card that the other had given her:

"Leo: You consider yourself a born leader. Other people think you are pushy. Most Leos are bullies. You are vain and you cannot tolerate honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leos are thieving bastards who like to kiss mirrors a lot."

Love it! And it was even funnier because the birthday girl is anything but pushy, vain, or arrogant, and it caused me to break into some Carly Simon singing:

You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you

You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you

Don't you? Don't You?

Viewing the lyrics, I noted that this song is apropos for this birthday girl for more than just the silly astrological birthday card reason. This past year started out pretty rough for her when her man dumped her, later admitting that he did it to avoid having her leave him. As screwed up as that sounds, I totally get it, and have perpetrated such break-ups myself. So I can say with a fair amount of certainty that he, like me, just wasn't ready to give of himself in the way she wanted or needed him to:

You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive

Well you said that we made such a pretty pair

And that you would never leave

But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me...

It sure hurts when we have to let go of people we love, but time helps heal those wounds. Here's to the lovely Leo getting the love she deserves in the coming year!