Tuesday, May 4, 2010

My Secret

I meant to link this song to last night's post.
I laid in bed for a while and thought about it, replayed it in my mind.
To me, it is almost biblical in its power to heal.
I remember back in the early 1990s when I was hurting over a failed business venture with friends, and I ate a lot to drown my sorrows. I didn't drink but I swallowed miserableness and potato chips in large, equal measures. And I remember a friend of ours, Richard, who could be caustic but was always good to me. He said to me one day, "what has happened to you? You used to be the hottest person I knew and now look at you."
Look at me, overweight in spades, crumbs on my shirt, grease in my hair, sadness and terror etched on my round face.
His words cut me to the quick.
I banished him from my life.
Other people had hurt me worse, but for some reason I focussed my hate on him. It festered in me. It hurt my broken heart like peroxide bubbled in an open wound. Because I trusted him. It's always about trust. Every broken heart is borne of broken trust.
And then one day I sat in the rocking chair in the kitchen, rocking slowly, staring out the window, listening to the radio quiet and low.
And this song came on.
This perfect song.
And I cried like a baby, cried like the tears would never end, cried for Richard, cried for lost friends and ruined opportunities and abandoned fortunes.
And I forgave him.
I remember back five years ago when I discovered my ex was cheating on me and I hit him with a Dr. Seuss book and I bit a cop's thumb and I spent a night in jail and I lost my children, and I remember this song.
I remember driving back somewhere in the dark night, and it came on the radio, and I cried for lost love and lost children and a loss of life as I knew it.
And I forgave him.
This is the song.

13 comments:

  1. What a beautiful post. As Hemingway said, 'Life breaks everyone, but some get strong in the broken places'. I'm going to listen to the song in your honor.

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  2. Tears wash the grief away. Then we move on. We make a choice every day. Some days we make the wrong choices, but with the sun we have another chance.
    I am trying to learn to live in the present when dreams die, and new visions arise.
    Good work.

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  3. Good song!

    This one is killing me these days...not the part about cheating. That's one thing I'm pretty sure he didn't do. But the rest about pretending not to love him and telling myself that he never loved me...yeah. We could have been something beautiful...if he'd have let us. Maybe we were beautiful and that's the tragedy of it all?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksmsv4myOmg

    Hugs, Cathy.

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  4. Music will do that. I don't know how many times music has sliced into me, took me right back to a place...helped me see something I needed to see...

    Thanks for sharing.

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  5. I've always loved this song and now I'll never hear it quite the same way. 'That hatred will eat you up inside' - it's so true. I learned quickly that if I didn't forgive my father my hatred would burn me up like acid.

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  6. I love this song. Isn't it odd how someone else's words, in real life or in a song, have such an effect on us. The trick is knowing which to embrace, and which to let go.

    Hugs, girl.

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  7. Hi Cathy,
    Thank you for your beautiful post. I applaud your bravery to share. I'm still learning about forgiveness too:)

    Ellie

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  8. Oh yes... the eternal power of the song... I can relate to this marvelous post in so many ways, Cathy...

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  9. Now you've got me thinking of all those songs that spoke to me through the years and became catalysts for change. Strange how that works... Great thought-provoking piece here. Smooches again! (Now when I come over to visit, I'm going to have to plant a wet one on you, with all this smooch inducing behavior.)

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  10. The lyrics in this song truly seems to reach out to you in so many ways.

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  11. This post and yesterday's are so gut-wrenchingly honest and real and beautiful. Thank you.

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  12. Thanks for sharing from the heart. Great post...Great song...

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  13. Ahh. I hear the song and I understand the connection immediately.

    This is a beautiful piece. I'm such a writer that I can only view it as fiction and am dying to know about the happy ending. Because this much pain deserves a happy ending.

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