Love Sucks: the Playlist

I've been reading a great book called Talking to Girls About Duran Duran:  One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut in which the author, Rob Sheffield, chronicles his life in relation to the music of his youth.  I have decided to therefore create a series of music-related blogs about my life's journey through love, loss and lust. 

Below is the first entry in that series.

  

Just a note about formatting:  With each song you may notice some notes in italics.  Generally just one or two words, these are my first impressions of the songs and a clue about what they mean to me.  Sometimes I go into greater detail.  Sometimes I don’t.  Blogger’s perogative.  Lol. 

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Love Stinks  (J. Geils Band)

The Title Song

Whenever I hear this song, I think of Adam Sandler singing this in The Wedding Singer after his breakup with his fiancé.  I love his friends’ reactions to his meltdown.  Of course, I prefer my friends’ reactions:  Upon learning that my marriage was dissolving, my friends invited me into their home and plied me with cider, rum and Rock Band.  Release the Kraken!

Incidentally, I also had an audition that following Monday.  It was the most real and raw audition I’ve ever had.  I don’t think I could replicate that performance if I tried. I think I scared the casting directors.  Lol.

Smack My Bitch Up  (The Prodigy)

Blindsided

Meant to be played at maximum volume…or what I call “Full Anger Levels”.

Tore My Heart   (Oona)    

The WTF?

Chronicling the dichotomy of a breakup, Oona sings of heartache, loss, revenge, anger, remorse and longing.  I first heard this song on So You Think You Can Dance, not knowing the song would later be so appropriate in my life.  The dance (choreographed by the brilliant Sonya Tayeh) was dark, heart wrenching, and again eerily appropriate. 

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)  (Nancy Sinatra)

The Assassination

You know that scene in Kill Bill (after bullets have hailed down on the wedding party) when we see a closeup of the Bride trying to reason with her would-be assassin before he puts a bullet in her brain?

Yeah, like that.

Helpless    (Oingo Boingo)

The Confusion

What descension into chaos would be complete without a song from Oingo Boingo?   So much confusion, so much loss…Pay special attention to my favorite line about the convicts.

      

A Pain That I'm Used To   (Depeche Mode)

The Denial

I used to relate this song to my old job as an Accessories Designer.  Dealing with the day-to-day grind, not sure if there were better jobs out there for someone with my relative inexperience, just feeling like no matter how hard I worked I would never get the appreciation I felt I was capable of getting…

Easy to see how those same feelings could relate to a broken relationship, isn’t it?  From the jarring first “noise”, this song still gets me.  I swear Dave Gahan lives in my brain sometimes.  Poor guy.

       

We Can Work It Out   (The Beatles)

The Hope

Although ultimately futile, there was still that glimmer of hope.  I wanted so much to do whatever it took to fix the failings of the relationship.  I should have known better when the marital counselor told me (on two separate occasions) to seek legal counsel. 

Hot N' Cold  (Katy Perry)

The Torment

What, did you think all songs about torment would be dreary? 

Ultimately, it was the quicksilver emotional back and forth that provided a reason for continued failings—and my impatience to deal with them.  Constantly held at arm’s length, but being encouraged to work harder on the relationship…I guess it was not unlike that old chestnut, “I love you, but I am not in love with you.”  Who can work with that?

Terrible Things   (April Smith and the Great Picture Show)

The Blame

I know of no one capable of living a “pristine” life.  I certainly haven’t.  Just don’t judge me for it.

Middle Distance Runner   (Sea Wolf)

The Failing

I once heard a radio program in which a therapist was talking about the steps to get (and maintain) love.  One of the steps was to love a “complete” person.  When we love someone with a passion (i.e. hobbies or goals) and a secure sense of self, we are able to complement that person more fully, not merely complete them.  Hmmmmmmm.

Heavy in Your Arms    (Florence & The Machine)

The Perception

Perception is a funny thing.

My mother said something to me during one of our many conversations about the divorce, “Well, what did you expect would come from being in the driver’s seat?”  I didn’t think I had been.  I certainly hadn’t tried to be. 

Interesting how being a source of strength can seem like a weight to the other person, isn’t it?

White Blank Page  (Mumford and Sons)

The Question

Sometimes we just do the best we can. 

Grenade  (Bruno Mars)

The Castoff

Give a little.  Get a little.  Give a lot…get taken for a ride?  Explain to me where that one is written. 

That's What I Get  (Nine Inch Nails)

The Bitter Pill of Realization

Sigh.  Oh it just gets better.  

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There.  Just a little teaser.  Stay tuned for the next installation of music, when our intrepid heroine explores the reasons/symptoms of her marriage's demise.  Some fun now.  Wheeeeeeeeee.  

LOL.

Feel free to add suggestions to my playlist.  I love finding new music to purchase. ;)  And, if I'm lucky, maybe I’ll even get to hear your stories about those songs.

Until next time....

MKC

Disappointment and the Divorcee

I vaguely remember a critic once chastised Alanis Morrissette’s song “Ironic" for being not about various ironies, but instead about a series of “bummers”.  This makes me contemplate on whether life, like the song, is also just a series of disappointments?

Ever the optimist, I try not to see life that way.  Sometimes, though, I find myself in situations (or surrounded by them) that make it more and more difficult to find the “sunny side of the street”.  I call that difficulty “adding to my shit pile”. 

Over the past year, I have definitely added to my shit pile in ways I’d never thought possible.  One of the few comforts is that I find that I am not alone (Yay for group disappointment!  Lol.).  So many of my friends are going through similar situations that, as a result, I’ve adopted a very “It is what it is” mentality.  Sometimes it is so impossible to control the events in one’s life that one has to learn to succumb to them, to go with the flow…and perhaps to even accept that things are happening for a reason (even if we can’t yet determine what those reasons are). 

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the most devastating disappointments are the ones that are typically emotional in nature.  Sure, there are the “daily” ones (not getting a job/promotion one deserves, getting poor service/food at a favorite restaurant, discovering that one’s favorite jeans are too tight…), but the ones we feel the most, well, disappointed by are the ones that grab us by the heart and squeeze without mercy.

Here are just a few of my “favorite” emotional disappointments.  While I cannot take credit for living through all of these, they are appropriate nonetheless: 

• Putting oneself out there and never getting the “morning after” call/email/text.
• Discovering an intriguing connection fraught with possibility only to have that person move away.
• Meeting someone only to find out that he’s a fraud…or worse, a chickenshit.
• Engaging in a night of (casual) passion with an amazing guy and getting a “souvenir” for the effort.
• Realizing that upon committing to someone, he has a small…heart.  Or mind.
• Marrying the seemingly perfect man and discovering he has another life (i.e. a girlfriend).
• Deciding to get a divorce.

And so we finally come to the entire point of this blog entry…

By and large, the most extreme disappointment I have felt this year comes with the decision to get a divorce.  Not only because my 11 year marriage is ending, but because I cannot wait for it to be over.  

How did I get to this point?  How is it that someone whom I have known for over half of my life could suddenly become a stranger to me?  How could I have loved him so much (I thought) when now all I want to do is punch him in the throat?  Lies have been told, perceptions have been warped, betrayals have been discovered…there is no fixing this one, folks.  No amount of therapy or wishing can change that.

And yet, it is what it is.  

While not completely blameless in the dissolution of my marriage, there were clearly forces at work that were beyond my control.  Blindsided, tossed aside, powerless to change the past, unsure how to change the future…there were so many days I wanted to withdraw, to stay in bed all day, to shut down…anything to avoid the tirade of suck that my life had seemingly become.

But I am not that person.  I am a survivor, a doer, the one who keeps her head when all rest of the world is losing theirs.  Damn it.

So I pulled myself out of bed everyday, forcing myself to keep moving, keep focusing, keep working to just hold my shit together.  I have tried to keep my personal life protected from all but the select few, choosing not to blast it all over the internet, community, local television stations.... 

That is not to say life has been perfect.  Of course there have been cracks in the veneer through which my stress became increasingly apparent:  Missed deadlines, lack of interest, mood swings, difficulty with impulse control…yup, classic cases of depression and anxiety.

And yet, surprisingly, I am finding that people still like me.  Heck, maybe they even like me better.  Lol.  I have learned who my friends are…and truthfully, were it not for them (and oh, OK, the occasional night filled with copious amounts of alcohol), I could never have gotten this far so quickly.  I certainly don’t think I could have even written about this phase of my life without dissolving into a quivering mass on the floor, wailing and sobbing like a crazy person.  Thank you, my friends, for helping to renew my faith in love, life and myself.

So what now?  Well, I guess just to continue to get back to the person I’ve always been, to experience life fully and to teach my daughter to do the same, to heal, to hope, to laugh…to date…

Oh, god, now that sounds like another adventure about which to be blogged. 

So until next time…

Thanks for reading!

Why the Bleep Would I Read Your Blog???

So you've read blogs before.  Many probably.  What will make you want to read mine?  Is it not just another self-serving attempt to hear myself chatter?  Perhaps.  But perhaps you will be intrigued.  Maybe even amused.  Or touched.  Or learn something new.  Or....

It is my hope that you will read my blog because I am putting myself out there into cyberspace in order to say what I need to say.  Some of it may actually strike a chord with you.  Some of it may be something you want to share with your friends.  Or some of it may be total crap.

Whatever you feel about it, just know that I am writing it for me.  I find myself at a crossroads in my life...many changes coming, all of which are filled with new beginnings...and new fodder for a blog.  While I hope to find an audience, some of this stuff is just something I have to get out of my brain--hopefully in a manner that is well written, interesting and accessible.

Thanks so much for joining me on my journey.

MKC

PS  Please note:  I have tagged this blog as containing adult content.  While you will NOT find any nude photos,  I like to speak frankly and occasionally have a foul mouth.  This may not be appropriate for the faint of heart and young of mind.  Just sayin'.