Missing
Just woke from a nap with my book splayed across my chest and glasses all wonky on the tip of my nose.
I woke to a song: I’ll Be Your Mirror. Not the Velvet Underground original, but the Clem Snide cover. Velvet Underground annoys me <shh…don’t tell> as well as others I’m obligated to adore, like Joni Mitchell for one. God save me from whiny lyricists. But I digress.
I’ll Be Your Mirror.
What the hell is this sappiness about?
The heart melting stuff I’ve been missing, but have shooed away with all my frenetic activity. I’ve shut out so much, avoided hope like the plague, kept my standards so low. Anyone who knows me well knows how I’ve kept the standards low when it comes to partnerships.
I’ve finally surrendered to the crap that I’ve been shoving under the bed. And that surrendering has become this little sore spot I keep rubbing against. Apparently its job is to constantly expose what I’m missing. Or more precisely, what I haven’t allowed.
Like boys who send me lyrics and mix tapes and make…stuff. And are moved by sappy shit like this. Fine. I surrender. Go ahead and make me cry.
And boys who take time to get to know me. Not because they wanna nail me tomorrow night, or want me to raise their kids, or want me to pack all-you-can-eat lunches, or want me to pick up their dry cleaning, or want me to fix their general life-long brokenness. But because they want to know me. Just that.
And boys who let me be me, with no demands to twist up into something that suits them better.
And boys who understand how I feel twisted and unkind, and like me anyway.
And boys who know enough to allow partnerships to grow organically and genuinely, not rushing to plug a dam.
But I haven’t let these boys in. They’ve knocked. But I booted them to the back of the queue so the disconnected, pretty, shallow ones could move on up to the front. They’re less scary. I know how to deal with them. Easy. But the self-aware, emotionally connected, kind, thoughtful, earnest ones? Yikes. They’re the ones who scare the crapoutta me.
But it’s time to get more familiar with them, and with myself. It’s getting late.
All this courtesy of I’ll Be Your Mirror. This is why I cannot do without music. It ushers me toward the sore spots ever so gently.
