We're Somewhere Between the Lines

Whenever my sister gets hurt, or feels badly, she always describes it to me in detail, and asks me if I've ever felt the same way. She is always relieved whenever I tell her I have. It's like she doesn't think of the possibility we're both sick.

She always asks me about physical ailments, but it counts for emotional or psychological aches too. In the song "Who Says" by Selena Gomez, she sings "Who says you're the only one that's hurting?"

I've heard so many times, You're not alone, and Others feel the same way. Sometimes, as in my sister's case, it's obvious why having someone else feel the way you do, or not feel the way you don't, makes you feel better. If someone else has had that certain pain in their stomach, it's no longer unusual, or a sign of something strange and unknown. It's something someone else knows.

But otherwise, I never understood why it's better for someone to have felt that pain. If you're feeling heartbroken, like you'll never get over it, and it'll always be there, preventing you from doing things you used to love to do, do you really want someone else to feel that? Why does "misery love company?" I've not really ever felt better because someone else feels the way I do. Just because I'm sad or hurt or disappointed, doesn't mean someone else should be. It's not nice.

But I sort of get it now. Almost.

I really love music; I listen to it pretty much all the time, if I'm not reading (for school, anyway) or watching a movie or doing something that generally can't be done while listening to music. I drive with music, shower with music, sleep with music. I didn't mean to get off on all that... What I mean is, I listen to music all the time. And while listening I hear songs that I can relate to, or at least parts of songs, because I've never heard a song that exactly described my situation, whatever it happened to be at the time. Because nothing has ever come of my "romantic relationships," no song matches them, because everyone else has had something come of theirs.

So these singers or bands "feeling as I do" has made me feel slightly better about things. But only because now I have words to put with it, words that everyone knows. Okay, maybe it is because someone else knows how I feel. They've been through it. I'm not alone in my aloneness.

Some of the songs I've "felt" lately are:

"Goodbye my almost [something],
Goodbye my hopeless dream.
I'm trying not to think about you.
Can't you just let me be?
So long my luckless romance,
My back is turned on you.
Should've known you'd bring me heartache.
Almost [something]s always do.

So you're gone and I'm haunted,
And I bet you are just fine.
Did I make it that easy to walk
right in and out of my life?"
"Almost Lover" by A Fine Frenzy

"And I, I hope that this will last a while.
We should make this last a while."
"Yeah 3x" by Chris Brown

"My memory is cruel.
I'm queen of attention to details,
Defending intentions if he fails.

Leave unsaid, unspoken;
Eyes wide shut, unopened.
You and me always between the lines,
Between the lines.

Too late, two choices, to stay or to leave.
Mine was so easy to uncover:
He'd already left with the other.
So I learned to listen through silence.

I tell myself all the words he surely meant to say.
I'll talk until the conversation doesn't stay on.
Wait for me, I'm almost ready when he meant let go."
"Between the Lines" by Sara Bareilles

"Do you know what it feels like loving someone
that's in a rush to throw you away?
Do you know what it feels like to be the last one
to know the lock on the door has changed?"
"Do You Know (The Ping Pong Song)" by Enrique Iglesias

So while I do not want someone to experience the strange sense of loss I'm feeling, the confusion at the end of something I thought could have been wonderful, it does feel nice that someone out there knows what I mean. Although not exactly. Because they all had "it" before they lost it and wrote these songs. And I never did.

I'm putting the whole video of this one because it seems to best describe what I mean. Again, she had the guy before she lost him, so it's not exactly the same, but it still counts. Or the lyrics do. Although I do feel a little like pulling my hair sometimes, when I most wish he is standing in front of me and I could ask him all the things I feel I need to ask him to feel some semblance of normal. Plus, this video is so good and funny. I love the ending, where they both kind of shrug and walk away. I throw myself around when I really get into the music, too.

 

 

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