Sad Songs

One of my favorite bloggers is getting divorced. I don't know why this had such a profound effect on me -- I don't know this person, I've never met her or talked to her -- but I found myself being extremely sad about it on the way home from work last night and crying. Maybe because I've been there, and maybe because there was something so eerily familiar about her post -- it felt like I wrote it, like someone was sitting inside my head. This just pierced me

I wanted my life neatly contained and packaged again because that was what brought me comfort - the notion of the neat and pretty and tidy seemed to heal me.

The very, very sad songs on both The Last Kiss and Grey's Anatomy soundtracks didn't exactly lift my spirits, and I found myself holding back more tears on my usual walk up to Harvard, down to the water, and back down Mass Ave. Things never turn out quite the way you expect. YOU never turn out to be quite who you thought you were. sometimes that's a bad thing, and other times it's a good thing that I'm not half as horrible as my messed up head tells me I am.

I am okay. Everyone's okay. We're all getting better, and I have much to be thankful for. When I reread my recaps of vacation and look at all my pics, I'm so greatful. I've been emailing with an old friend from college, and he wrote something about his wife that also struck me as a wonderful, excellent description of how I feel about YG --- or the "mysterious YG" since some of you are curious about his real identity.

"She is so patient and understanding, puts up with my crap and still thinks I'm the greastest thing ever. As long as she never figures out that she is a better person than I am we should be together for a long time.... ha ha ha! No seriously, it's not a low self esteem thing, she just appreicates me even when I'm not at
my best."

I'm still trying to figure out what my best is. I kind of lost who I was in the marriage, and I'm carrying around the baggage and battle scars to prove it. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I probably judge myself way harsher than anyone else does -- that YG and my friends and my family don't have some checklist that they're holding up and grading me against. There was a burglary in my building this week, and I've been ever more OCD about triple checking locks and windows before I go out -- when I do that, I imagine that YG is silently checking off my boxes on my cons/crazy list, and that the next "bad" thing I do will be the thing that sways JM from "pro" to "con." SERIOUSLY, FOLKS, DO YOU GET HOW INSANE THIS SOUNDS?

It was a rough evening. I continued to listen to sad music, and then watched Grey's Anatomy and cried (lost love, choices) and then ER (sick babies, dead husbands) and then went to bed where I had a dream that I was at a wake and everyone in my family died because I left them and moved away. WTF?

Today's a better day. Today is always a better day. And even if it isn't, it's just today.