Paul Simon
I get on these random kicks. Once The Weakerthans, The Shins, I was briefly onto Matchbox 20 until I just kicked that bad habit, resting tonight on The Decembrists, and when that didn't satisfy my craving, back to Paul Simon, as I tend to do, and I Am A Rock is bringing me home. I remember the first time this song was quoted at me, and so many time's I have come back to it, that one line that he pulled out to chastise my emotion. "If I never loved I never would have cried." Indeed, seems that is one sentiment I have yet to master.
So we are afraid of getting hurt? We hide from feeling, from the chance of falling for someone, who hides better than men? He acts like a jerk to stop you from getting close, he was cheated on, jerked around, messed up, she left him broke and bound to his insecurities by invisible threads with the strength of steel. This never once happened to me. Instead I was tricked into falling hard, insecure, and knowing deep down that jerks would hurt me, so that when they did I could think "yeah, that's no surprise" and roll through one learning experience to the next.
Last week we watched Closer. I love that movie, because its true. We are all so fucked up, so haunted, so wasted by old relationships that we can't step clean into the next without dragging through bullshit - lucky if it is only ankle-deep. And I have my share, of course I do, its why my friends (especially male friends) ask me "why are you right all the time" and all I can do is laugh... somehow I've seen more than my 22-year-old share of relationship bullshit. But this is a tangent, where was I... ah, yes. Closer.
And so we settled in, and I raised the fact that everyone was fucked, without realizing as I said it that he, this innocent who shares my years and not my experience, is not. Has never been. Wow. This came as more of a shock than the physical inequality, than the number of past 'what-have-you's' that we have each seen. He's a clean slate. And that is why he's sweet, is why he treats me honestly and kindly and as a friend. It is how this works. And as I loathe inexperience, it is, apparently, the only way to find someone who can (as Krista would say) cut the bullshit, is to find someone who has never been hurt. They are uncomplicated, no anger, no residual, no ghosts of relationships past. Nothing dragging on their heels into the next one.
"Don't let yourself get hurt, don't let this ever fuck you up."
"I don't think I need to worry about that."
And suddenly I'm mildly insulted... wouldn't you be?
"Why do you say that?"
"Because its too even, here."
I thought about it slowly, turning the idea over in my head. He's right you know, it is, if anything he has it all wrong, and I am the one to get hurt. That's usually how it goes. I've never been good at keeping my feelings from overwhelming rationality, and as I've pointed out so many times before in so many forums: I wouldn't have it any other way.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Paul and I have a solo-dance-party to attend to.
So we are afraid of getting hurt? We hide from feeling, from the chance of falling for someone, who hides better than men? He acts like a jerk to stop you from getting close, he was cheated on, jerked around, messed up, she left him broke and bound to his insecurities by invisible threads with the strength of steel. This never once happened to me. Instead I was tricked into falling hard, insecure, and knowing deep down that jerks would hurt me, so that when they did I could think "yeah, that's no surprise" and roll through one learning experience to the next.
Last week we watched Closer. I love that movie, because its true. We are all so fucked up, so haunted, so wasted by old relationships that we can't step clean into the next without dragging through bullshit - lucky if it is only ankle-deep. And I have my share, of course I do, its why my friends (especially male friends) ask me "why are you right all the time" and all I can do is laugh... somehow I've seen more than my 22-year-old share of relationship bullshit. But this is a tangent, where was I... ah, yes. Closer.
And so we settled in, and I raised the fact that everyone was fucked, without realizing as I said it that he, this innocent who shares my years and not my experience, is not. Has never been. Wow. This came as more of a shock than the physical inequality, than the number of past 'what-have-you's' that we have each seen. He's a clean slate. And that is why he's sweet, is why he treats me honestly and kindly and as a friend. It is how this works. And as I loathe inexperience, it is, apparently, the only way to find someone who can (as Krista would say) cut the bullshit, is to find someone who has never been hurt. They are uncomplicated, no anger, no residual, no ghosts of relationships past. Nothing dragging on their heels into the next one.
"Don't let yourself get hurt, don't let this ever fuck you up."
"I don't think I need to worry about that."
And suddenly I'm mildly insulted... wouldn't you be?
"Why do you say that?"
"Because its too even, here."
I thought about it slowly, turning the idea over in my head. He's right you know, it is, if anything he has it all wrong, and I am the one to get hurt. That's usually how it goes. I've never been good at keeping my feelings from overwhelming rationality, and as I've pointed out so many times before in so many forums: I wouldn't have it any other way.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Paul and I have a solo-dance-party to attend to.
posted by Care | 9:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home