“You sit there in your heartache/Waiting on some beautiful boy to/To save you from your old ways/You play forgiveness/Watch it now, here he comes/He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus/But he talks like a gentlemen/Like you imagined when you were young,” When You Were Young (The Killers).
Have you ever heard a song or seen something that brought you back to a place in time? Not only that, but that period in your life when you first remember listening or seeing it. On my long commute back from the Northern suburbs of Chicago back to the ‘crossroads of America’ aka Indiana, this song touched my soul in a way I didn’t think was possible. It wasn’t the first time I heard it. I mean who hasn’t? It is The Killers for fucks sake. I remember I bought this CD back in the early 2000’s when I was in high school with my ‘own $$’ that I earned from being the dish bitch at a local diner. I played the crap out of it. I wanted to be a rock-star, they were popular, It was a good album. The standards for what constitutes as good music for me have of course changed along with my life. The lyrics mean different things now. What could I have possibly understood about the meaning of this song at 16? I was boy crazy, leaving my ugly-duckling phase, and growing into my looks. I wanted a boyfriend, but who didn’t? I just wanted someone to like me, that for me was what love was. I envy how naive I was, how innocently I viewed the world. I crave that again. That is exactly what I wanted out of a boy at that age. Somebody beautiful to save me from my broken dysfunctional family and treat me with kindness. As I near 30 years old (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) I wish those were the only requirements of what I would like in a partner. Things have gotten so complicated. Now its like I have to go through a check list:
Of course, the longer this streak of single life extends, those requirements become less important and more flexible unfortunately. It is hard to not allow the desperate longing for love take over my train of thought, but that is difficult to put into perspective on those lonely nights of watching my Netflix Friends marathon in my underwear while eating ice cream out of a the container. I am pretty sure I am 5 seconds away to opening my front door and finding a box of cats. Dating, or finding somebody to even consider dating, is like having a second full-time job. Online, Offline, it doesn’t matter. They both equally fucking suck. I must have the other woman tattooed on my fucking head, because anyone I meet thinks apparently that’s the only position I qualify for. Not only that, but it happens so frequently that I find myself getting offended if the first question they ask me isn’t about sucking their dick, I find myself sadly entertaining the fact that maybe I really am not that beautiful. I can’t even contemplate sometimes that this is the society I live in. That along with Trump running for president, did I actually OD off drugs 10 years ago, because I must be in purgatory. My life right now is a mix between Courtney Love and Bridget Jones. All I can do now is be smart enough to realize what is not good for me and allow myself to be patient enough to figure out what is good for me.
