I keep my jealousy close,
‘Cause it’s all mine.
And if you say this makes you happy,
Then I’m not the only one lying.
Keep quiet,
nothing comes as easy as you.
Can I lay in your bed all day?
I’ll be your best keep secret
And your biggest mistake.
The hand behind this pen relives a failure every day.
So wear me like a locket around your throat.
I’ll weigh you down.
I’ll watch you choke.
You look so good in blue.
Playing shuffle with an entire iTunes library can be an emotional game of risk. I haven’t listened to Fall Out Boy or anything remotely close for six years; since the last time I walked through the Foothill Subway and realized his longing for me to reconsider had turned into ice-cold stares. The only thing he was longing for was to feel heartless and boy did he try. He still fed me that day, for free - maybe for old times sake and maybe because he still cared. Either way he served up a passive aggressive lashing with every step down the line. He knew exactly what I wanted, not just my order, but what I wanted out of life. He knew what was good for me too. I wish I had known it at the time, but even if I had, I probably would have figured out that sooner than later I would outgrow this very situation. I stood with the sudden fear and captured feeling of a car wreck when out of nowhere he started quoting that song to me, “So wear me like a locket around your throat, I’ll weigh you down and watch you choke, You look so good in blue…” It only took me a few minutes before I came back to the beginning of the song and answered him, “Nothing comes as easy as you… I’ll be your biggest mistake.”
Two years later I sat in his apartment – two years away from San Francisco, two years away from knowing he had picked the wrong wedding ring, two years away from him complaining that he “could have bought a laptop instead,” and two years away from him giving the ring he chose for me to the evil midget version of myself. He was divorcing now and I was still there, but not like we use to be or maybe just the same. We were always friends.
I remember how he categorized the first 10 minutes of my coming back into his life, after my being in Texas and after his so-called marriage. He pointed out that in that somewhat short amount of time that I had graduated with my undergrad, was picking him up in my Benz, living on my own, and had spent virtually that entire time in the same relationship. He was floored even more when I offered to pay for the rented movie and bought the variety of snack foods that we were digging on for the night. He looked at me as if to say, “Where did you come from?” I had always known who I was and where I was going despite the dog pound state he had found me in, but he had only one perspective of me. It would have been the biggest mistake…
Yet all these years later, I still think about him. I think about him in a different respect. Relative. He’s happy and I am so glad. I still know and speak to his entire family. We are all as we should be. But I think about where I am now. I think about what I know about myself in comparison to where I have been. By no means am I done growing or learning, but I can say that I am done needing and I do not put myself in situations of deserving better. So relatively speaking, when I meet someone, if I fall fast it is complimenting and fewer and farther between then people may think as I have the opportunity to fall for many that I do not fall for. But when things do not “happen” per se, I wonder if or how someone can perceive themselves as outgrowing me. When someone chooses to get out of it, to move on, to take a bypass thinking that they can come back after a scenic route, or to choose someone else – I wonder how they perceive themselves as experiencing or intellectually growing beyond someone like me? I feel as though I’ve been so many places and down so many roads yet I’ve done so well with my life just the same that I should be deserving of that time and opportunity to do those things that require that sense of “together.”
Filed under: Daily Life, Relationships, She's So Beautiful When She Burns (2005-2006)
