Mixed Emotions

My heart is heavy tonight. Today I made contact with my first true love via myspace. It was so, so, so long ago--we dated the summer before my junior year in high school. But he had such an impact on me. It was wonderful to chat with him, see a pic of his kids (his son looks just like him!), and I got that triumphant moment of glory every person hopes for sometime in life following a devastating break-up: he told me he regretted breaking up with me and how much he had enjoyed the time we spent together, though it was only a few months time over 20 years ago. But now, I am bummed. His marriage is falling apart, as is mine, and I feel sorry for us both. There is bittersweetness in thinking of what could have been, had we not been so young and immature. And of course, I wouldn't change a thing anyway because (as anyone who ever saw Peggy Sue Got Married knows) I wouldn't give up my children for the ability to make the past turn out (possibly/possibly not) happier in some way.

I suppose as my mind drifts back to a time so long ago, and I look at photos of myself from then and talk to someone who knew and cared about me at that time...well, I just feel so very far away from my heart. Bodeans wrote a painfully excellent song on this theme, Far, Far Away From My Heart:

Well the feeling's coming on again
Like a whisper that's knocking down a doorway
And everything it says I just believe
And I fear that I'm nothing and alone
So I pour another drink and take a hit
And I wonder where the smoke goes
And I'm feeling more and more like less and less
And it comes from so far down deep inside
But you can't get to it no matter what you try

And I'm far, far away from my heart
Far, far away from my heart

It's just a voice that's bent on telling me I'm too good
And there really is a shortcut
And I've been through this so many nights before
That you'd think it would be easier by now
So I let the chemical reaction cloud over
The pain that keeps on hurting
As I slowly, but too slowly drift away
To a place where I know I don't have to think
God I hate myself all over so more I drink

And I'm far, far away from my heart
Far, far away from my heart

And now I'm staring blankly at the TV
Holding this guitar for some comfort
But it's so hard to write a simple song
And try to turn this feeling into melody
So I put it down get on my knees
Close my eyes real tight now I'm praying
To anyone that maybe can hear me
Tell me everything will be ok
And I don't think I can make another day
And I'm far, far away from my heart
Far, far away from my heart


I just don't know how my life came to this dark place, this confusion, this morass that I can't seem to extricate myself from. There is no solution. Every option is not a choice I want to make, and yet I have to choose something different than where I am at now. Oh, to be that innocent 15 year old girl again, so confident in true love, so sure of what I wanted, so optimistic about the future. I want to go home, back to Phoenix, and begin to put my life together, put myself back in that place where joy and optimism dwell. They say you can never go home; is this what they mean??? And if I can never go home, can home come back to me, back to my heart? Can I find my way back to my heart?