Tuesday, March 31, 2009

what a girl's gotta do

There's a whole subgenre of mostly country songs about girls who end up betrayed, abandoned, cheated on. The girls are sad, maybe even heartbroken, but they're also brave and clear-eyed and resilient and they speed off in a little red car or head out on the town in a little red dress. They'll fall in love again, next time with someone better, someone who loves them the way they deserve to be loved.

I like those songs and, if one comes on the radio while I'm in the car, I sometimes sing along. But they're not about me. It's hard for me to fall in love, but it's just about impossible for me to fall out of it.

Without much effort, I can remember all of Steve's faults and catalogue the things I hated about him. But if I wouldn't take him back, I also can't stop thinking fondly about him. Back when we were dating, I used to smile whenever I thought about him and now I smile to remember how blissfully naive and happy I was.

I know that the girls in those songs have the right idea. While they're moving on and getting over it, I'm stuck in place, wheels spinning pointlessly in my head. I can see the road ahead of me, marked with impossible-to-miss signs. I have a map and I know exactly where I'm supposed to end up. But I'm not going anywhere at all.


What about you? Is there someone you just can't get over?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sing it, sister.

Furrow said...

Used to be, and he still occasionally crops up in dreams, but I'm now able to see him simply as a symbol. There is no conscious longing, but that doesn't keep me from acting like a blithering idiot when I run into him. My subconscious still remembers how I used to feel. It was pretty overwhelming. I don't want that ever again.

Marin said...

He's married with a kid. I haven't seen him in two years, and four years before that, but yeah, he pops up in my head once in a while. I don't like it.

Antigone said...

His name was George. He kept getting me into trouble, pulling me into conflicts unnecessarily, and such. I kept him around for 8 long years. *sigh*

Antigone said...

(Forgive me. I had too much sugar.)

Aurelia said...

Yes, guys I still think about here and there and have crushes on occasionally. I did love them way back then, but not anymore. But I still wonder how life would be different if I had stayed with them, you know?

charmedgirl said...

there was only one, and i'm married to him.

we dated for a few months as teenagers, then saw each other occasionally as we have the same circle of friends (it was crazy, the tension, at every meeting). he was even at my first wedding (those pictures are pretty funny now). years and marriages and degrees later, we were back together.

there are still days now, when i'm in one of those marital phases, when i hate his guts, that i think, "at least we have this history. he's [so-and-so]!" because i have to remind myself...

i also think sometimes, when i hear one of those songs about lost loves, or THE ONE, that i'm thankful i don't have any of those lingering around in my brain. i'm so glad i don't have to find him on facebook and see how many kids he's got with someone else. it would have been him. it is him, and in that, i'm lucky.

Anonymous said...

thank god I'm finally over him. He was bad bad news. Sometimes I look at my husband and I'm so very very thankful it's him there instead of the one that I couldn't get over but did.
Allypally

EmmaL said...

Yes, I do have someone I can't get over. But it's been 7 weeks since I last talked to him - a record - so I am making progress!

Elizabeth said...

I'm with Furrow.

Anonymous said...

There is one who keeps popping up in my dreams. I have a feeling he will haunt me forever.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely. The difference is that if he came back, I would be glad to have him. I have missed him for ten long years now.

Maggie said...

I think that, at least for me, unable to get over isn't the right phrase. I think that for me it's more of an "unable to forget". Not all of my memories are fond, but even the bad memories aren't quite enough to erase a few of the good ones.

Monica H said...

A couple of someone's. One I dated and broke up with for someone else. I still regret that and wonder where he is.

And another that was just a crush. A crush I had a steamy dream about the other night :-)

Trish said...

There was someone that I couldn't get over, so I finally just married him :)

Tash said...

I'm with Furrow: he turns up in the subconscious at funny, sometimes inopportune times, and I often wonder. Not enough to google though, or spend much time because it's not longing -- it's usually a pretty obvious regression tactic, and he's just the foil.

Angel Mom said...

Yes. We never dated but were very close friends. I found out a few years later that he had been trying to get the courage to ask me out for our first date but I had already started dating the man I ended up marrying. I love my husband dearly and think the world of him. He is a wonderful man and I am totally in love with him. But there are days that I can't help but think about what might have been.

Motel Manager said...

All I will say is: yes.

Anonymous said...

yep; and i hurt him even though i didn't want to. now he's happily married with a beautiful daughter, still insanely smart, hysterical and successful, hotter than i remembered and we're still friends. me? barren and getting a divorce.

painted maypole said...

well, it's been years, but I do remember that feeling...

Anonymous said...

I am marrying, without a doubt, the exact right person for me. I would have been absolutely miserable with this other person in my life in a relationship capacity rather than the close friend he is now. I am very lucky and blessed to be where I am now, and wouldn't want it any other way. Oddly enough, I do regret not kissing this other friend at least once, just to see. Now I'll never know, but I've made peace with that. It might have made things weird and made us unable to be frineds; who knows?

Anonymous said...

Yes, and like so many others' experiences, he still unexpectedly shows up in my dreams. It's odd, because he is very wrong for me, and my husband is perfectly right. However, I think the wound that my heart experienced when he rejected me cut so deep that the scar still gets pricked every now and then, and the pain returns. It doesn't make logical sense--particularly since I really believe that if I met him for the first time today, I wouldn't feel anything. I'd just see a kind, slightly overweight, slightly pompous man with thinning hair, with a smiling wife and beautiful baby girl. But because of what happened before, he still seems to retain an unfortunate power over me. It's been almost ten years since we last spoke to each other, but the dreams haven't stopped.

Anonymous said...

uh.. i have a list;) even though I am very happily married. I seem to fall partially in love with all sorts of people, don't act much on it physically, but damn they never leave my mind.

Sometimes I wonder though if I had and it had worked, I'd be married and a step mom to some beautiful kids. But I'm happy enough without kids and love my husband dearly.

Cibele said...

I wish i could be one of these girls that can just move forward... I am stuck. My husband of 8 years left 3 months ago... after 3 years of infertility, I end up being a single mother. it is hard to get over...I wish I call fall out of love as fast as he did. I am sacred taht i will never loved or be loved again!

Anonymous said...

I just deleted a long, long response. Yes, there is someone. My husband knows all about him and our long complicated history. Actually, my husband may have been threatened by him once...

Deshaine said...

had the pleasure of photographing the most beautiful soul I ever had the extreme pleasure of meeting. I miss him terribly but know we can never be... although, I would never give up what is current.