age and stuff
12 January 2009 14:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juldeaToday is a weird day. I am, all in all, in a pretty damn good mood. I feel I got enough sleep, I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as the saying goes), I have new purpley plaid socks, I have a grip on my schedule for the next week - all should be well, yes?
But as I was sitting alone in the company owner's office installing the new print server on his computer (yay, we have a new printer that was made in the last decade!) I suddenly was hit with the I'm old and fat and ugly and no one loves me and no one wants to join me for the amazing traveling roadshow wedding and have fat smart blue-eyed babies with me and grow old and grey by my side and WAHHHH blues. Harumph.
This ties into some other introspection I was doing lately: I was washing dishes with the radio on, which is about the only time I listen to broadcast radio anymore, and a new pop song came on that sampled "Sweet Home Alabama" pretty heavily in a way that was integral to the song itself. (lyrics) The song is about one's heady, heavy high school andor youth loves and looking back on them, and when listening to this song while doing dishes, it descended upon me in a way that nothing has in a while that that time is past. I am out of the running for love like that. I'm too old, too jaded, too world-weary and heartbroken. Sure, I'll fall in love again, but it won't be like that.
Then of course I reminisce about the ones that were like that. Going out to the Ridge with Lewie and dancing outside his car to whatever that damn Romeo & Juliet song was I've never been able to find since. Lying to my parents about having early band section rehearsal so that I could sneak over to Nick's house between 6:30 and 7:00am before school to fool around. Gary doing one of the most romantic things a boyfriend has ever done for me - after a day we went to the mall and fooled around and I tried on a dress that looked absolutely gorgeous but I had no business buying and nowhere to wear it, being presented with it on Valentine's Day along with tickets to the opera so I'd have someplace to wear it. (Fucking fuckass dry cleaners that later ruined the dress.) Sitting in Boston Common with Jason on a bench, foreheads pressed together in young love strong enough that a passer-by with a camera stopped and asked us if he could take our picture for a photobook of Boston he was creating.
And I think that was it. Something about every relationship after Jason is... less idealistic. Older, more grounded, more aware that True Love doesn't solve every problem, and that relationships involve pain and work and sacrifice. And really, all I can say to this is a line stolen from Into the Woods: "Isn't it nice to know a lot? And a little bit... not."
But as I was sitting alone in the company owner's office installing the new print server on his computer (yay, we have a new printer that was made in the last decade!) I suddenly was hit with the I'm old and fat and ugly and no one loves me and no one wants to join me for the amazing traveling roadshow wedding and have fat smart blue-eyed babies with me and grow old and grey by my side and WAHHHH blues. Harumph.
This ties into some other introspection I was doing lately: I was washing dishes with the radio on, which is about the only time I listen to broadcast radio anymore, and a new pop song came on that sampled "Sweet Home Alabama" pretty heavily in a way that was integral to the song itself. (lyrics) The song is about one's heady, heavy high school andor youth loves and looking back on them, and when listening to this song while doing dishes, it descended upon me in a way that nothing has in a while that that time is past. I am out of the running for love like that. I'm too old, too jaded, too world-weary and heartbroken. Sure, I'll fall in love again, but it won't be like that.
Then of course I reminisce about the ones that were like that. Going out to the Ridge with Lewie and dancing outside his car to whatever that damn Romeo & Juliet song was I've never been able to find since. Lying to my parents about having early band section rehearsal so that I could sneak over to Nick's house between 6:30 and 7:00am before school to fool around. Gary doing one of the most romantic things a boyfriend has ever done for me - after a day we went to the mall and fooled around and I tried on a dress that looked absolutely gorgeous but I had no business buying and nowhere to wear it, being presented with it on Valentine's Day along with tickets to the opera so I'd have someplace to wear it. (Fucking fuckass dry cleaners that later ruined the dress.) Sitting in Boston Common with Jason on a bench, foreheads pressed together in young love strong enough that a passer-by with a camera stopped and asked us if he could take our picture for a photobook of Boston he was creating.
And I think that was it. Something about every relationship after Jason is... less idealistic. Older, more grounded, more aware that True Love doesn't solve every problem, and that relationships involve pain and work and sacrifice. And really, all I can say to this is a line stolen from Into the Woods: "Isn't it nice to know a lot? And a little bit... not."
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no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 20:15 (UTC)Or how we thought those days would never end
Sometimes I'll hear that song and I'll start to sing along
And think man I'd love to see that girl again.
I get similar feelings sometime, although it's gotten better over time, as I and my ex-gfs have gotten married, had kids, etc, etc. Still, I have painful flashes of this kind from time to time as well.
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on 12 Jan 2009 20:16 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 20:36 (UTC)no subject
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on 12 Jan 2009 20:40 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 20:46 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 20:47 (UTC)I think, though, that that kind of rash, impulsive, life-or-death passion leads to as many mistakes as fun, although we tend to remember the latter more clearly.
But then again, that's the way a boring adult would think. xD
I think that having relationships that are more balanced are healthier for us and more fulfilling, but the teeter-totter of a crazy lack of balance is what makes relationships so exciting.
Also, maybe a good chunk of it is that with more experience, less things are new, and thus less epic.
But I'm just rambling.
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on 12 Jan 2009 20:48 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 21:28 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 21:34 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 21:38 (UTC)NOT TRUE. None of those adjectives describe you.
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on 12 Jan 2009 21:39 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 22:21 (UTC)no subject
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on 12 Jan 2009 22:37 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 23:53 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 23:57 (UTC)no subject
on 12 Jan 2009 23:57 (UTC)Lives have ups AND downs.
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on 12 Jan 2009 23:58 (UTC)Oh, yes. *wistful sigh*
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on 13 Jan 2009 01:39 (UTC)True.
If you're *very* lucky, it'll be way better. Doesn't happen to everyone, but it happened to me, and to some others I know.
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on 13 Jan 2009 02:30 (UTC)no subject
on 13 Jan 2009 02:34 (UTC)no subject
on 13 Jan 2009 05:10 (UTC)Things suck now, but they will get better. I'm sure you know deep down that you aren't any of those bad things, and that someday this will all be in the past. Hang in there. :)
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on 13 Jan 2009 14:00 (UTC)no subject
on 13 Jan 2009 17:33 (UTC)(For that matter, it's not necessarily a good idea to aspire to 'story-like' love. Stories require drama, and love doesn't. The two are often found together, but it's far from universal. As Bilbo says: "We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!")
As to practical advice? I have a bit, if necessarily vague. Live. Do things you enjoy, in contexts where you will meet like-minded souls. Be always open to opportunity, but without *expectation* at any given moment (this one is hard, but both halves are important).
And, tongue-in-cheek-but-serious: Make a list of all the qualities that a potential mate must have in order to be acceptable. When you decide that you like someone so much that you have to go for them *despite* that list, then you'll have found the right person :-) (This has much to do with how Kes and I got together.)
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on 13 Jan 2009 18:09 (UTC)I can hear Yoda's voice in my head right now, telling me, "This is why you fail."
The last paragraph would be more amusing if it hadn't been so prominently the case with
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on 13 Jan 2009 19:39 (UTC)no subject
on 13 Jan 2009 19:44 (UTC)no subject
on 14 Jan 2009 05:51 (UTC)