Waiting For a Girl Like You

This morning I was riding my bike and my inner jukebox started up this number:

So long
I've been looking too hard
I've been waiting too long
Sometimes I don't know what I will find
I only know it's a matter of time
When you love someone
When you love someone

It feels so right, so warm and true
I need to know if you feel it too

Maybe I'm wrong
Won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong
This heart of mine has been hurt before
This time I wanna be sure

I've been waiting for a girl like you
To come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you
A love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new
To make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you
To come into my life

You're so good
When we make love
It's understood
It's more than a touch or a word we say
Only in dreams could it be this way
When you love someone
Yeah, really love someone

Specifically, the first two lines of this verse was on repeat, and I belted it out as I rode:

Now I know it's right
From the moment I wake up 'til deep in the night

I also sobbbbbbbbbbbed.

Here's the thing though, I did know it was right. The fact that it is coming to an end does not mean that it wasn't right. It means it's not right anymore. That's hard, but somehow it is easier than feeling like what I thought I knew was true wasn't true, which is what I struggled with the last time we broke up.

This is another verse that gets played over and over in my head:

It feels so right, so warm and true
I need to know if you feel it too

I know he did/does.

And it's going to be really hard to give it up.

But I trust we are doing the right thing. I know that it is better to let go than hold on when something deep inside tells me that he's not the right forever partner for me:

This heart of mine has been hurt before
This time I wanna be sure...

Juke Box Hero

When I was setting off this afternoon on my run, I decided to go in a little different direction on Slacker -- 80's hits. When this song came on, I felt compelled to sing along:

Standing in the rain, with his head hung low
Couldn't get a ticket, it was a sold out show
Heard the roar of the crowd, he could picture the scene
Put his ear to the wall, then like a distant scream

He heard one guitar, just blew him away
He saw stars in his eyes, and the very next day
Bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store
Didn't know how to play it, but he knew for sure

That one guitar, felt good in his hands
Didn't take long, to understand
Just one guitar, slung way down low
Was one way ticket, only one way to go

So he started rockin'
Ain't never gonna stop
Gotta keep on rockin'
Someday he's gonna make it to the top

And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
He's a juke box hero
He took one guitar, juke box hero, stars in his eyes
Juke box hero, he'll come alive tonight

Running by a bunch of college kids, I couldn't help but think about the fact that none of them had even been born when this song came out in 1981. Which also means I'm closer to the age of their Mothers than I am to theirs. Which isn't really good or bad, it's just weird, because I so distinctly remember my days roaming the campus as an undergrad:

In a town without a name, in a heavy downpour
Thought he passed his own shadow, by the backstage door
Like a trip through the past, to that day in the rain
And that one guitar made his whole life change

Now he needs to keep rockin'
He just can't stop
Gotta keep on rockin'
That boy has got to stay on top

And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
He's a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
Yeah, juke box hero, got stars in his eyes
With that one guitar he'll come alive
Come alive tonight

Running the 7 miles from the Capitol to Picnic Point and back, I felt a lot of gratitude. To be able to run that far, even if I had to do it a little slowly and stiffly, to live in a place with such scenic runs right outside my home and work, to be able to return from a windy run to a shower and sauna at the gym...

Afterward, I met my babydaddy and my kids -- one of whom will be 11 tomorrow -- for a sushi birthday dinner. Again, I felt very grateful. For my daughter, her brother, the fact that we could all comfortably eat out together. There's no doubt that there are things about my life that are not as I would like them to be, but there's also so much for which I am profoundly grateful...

I Want to Know What Love Is

I'm still working my way through The Art of Presence on audio in the car, and today someone asked Eckhardt a question about love. (The link above has at least a portion of the book that you can listen to online. Fair warning: he's a weird looking dude and his laugh is even weirder, but for me at least, he's a powerful teacher.)

Anyway, I was heartened by his answer. It's the same one that I give, and that prompted me to start teaching a couple's yoga class (even though no one showed up for this past one): spaciousness. Love is meeting another person in the space beyond thought and recognizing and celebrating your oneness. As my most recent love would say: "Awww yeah."

Funny I should mention him, because no sooner had Eckhardt finished his sentence, and I finished that thought, when I found myself smack in the middle of one of those memories that can't help but be jarring in this stage of the healing process.

The very first weekend we spent together, when I flew out to New England, we had just returned from a road trip to Vermont, and had just finished our Stowe-farmer's-market dinner, when he said to me:

"I know this phrase gets overused, but I love you, and I have to say it because if this isn't love, I don't know what is."

I'm here (a little crumpled, but I'm here) to tell you that he does know what love is, that the quality of presence we brought to each other from the first night we met was the basis of our love, and, according to Eckhardt, is the basis of all love in the true sense of the word.

And as Foreigner fired this number up inside my head, I turned off Eckhardt's voice and sang along through my tears:

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

Now this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
I through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I'm gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I've got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me

Yep. He showed me alright.

Love finally found me alright.

And then he drove away.

Which leaves me with a kidless Sunday that doesn't at all resemble kidless Sundays with him. Sigh.

But it's still before noon, and I've run 9 miles, been to a yoga class, and mowed the lawn. Not bad, eh? Oh, and at the yoga class, which was decidedly not Ashtanga, I realized reason #4 that I'm into Ashtanga these days (this is a carryover from yesterday):

4) It's the same series of poses every time. It's predictable. Which is comforting, because where my (love)life goes next is not.

And on a lighter note, I did not realize Mariah covered this song, and it's a pretty beautiful rendition. You can check it out right here.

Feels Like the First Time

I'm not sure what it is -- maybe the concentration of time spent with a man who was just starting to rock when this song was big -- but this is the second time this month that the internal jukebox has landed on Foreigner.

We've had our moments since his move to the heartland when we've felt a little more distant than we did on our long weekends together during the year we were apart -- which I think is inevitable given the work/kids/house that gets added to the mix in real life/same city romance. But then something will happen and I'll feel just like I did that first weekend all over again:

Feels like the first time

And it feels like the very first time

And it feels like the first time

It feels like the very first time

This time those feelings were brought about when, lying in bed together, he asked me how I was feeling. A little sad, I answered. "Hmmmm," he replied. "Why don't you float around in it for a while and let me know if you come up with anything you want to share?" This, coming from a man who used to respond to my sadness with wanting it not to be there, wanting to make it better, wanting to change it, felt miraculous, generous, spacious. Lying by his side, I felt free to be where I was and loved in a way that I'm just beginning to get used to:

And it feels like the first time

Like it never did before

Feels like the first time

Like we've opened up the door

Feels like the first time...

Hot-Blooded

This one's been pumping through my head over the last few days, and it's no wonder -- my daughter has been a little heater -- yesterday her temp hit 103.7. This song is particularly apropos because she must've taken her temperature at least five times a day:

Well, I'm hot blooded, check it and see

I got a fever of a hundred and three

It takes a lot out of a mama to have a kid sick for multiple days, there's no doubt about it. But there's also something kinda nice about all the extra snuggle time.

And if you just can't get enough after viewing the Foreigner video above, check out this home video of some little kids in their pjs doing their own rendition, complete with air guitar:

Yeah I'm hot blooded, check it and see

Feel the fever burning inside of me

Come on baby, do you do more than dance?

I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded