Every Song Will Sound Like a Break-Up Song

June 1997

My man of many col­ors and I have been dat­ing now for 2 months. I met his par­ents, albeit not totally on the great­est first impres­sion. I got lost on the way to his house for our sec­ond offi­cial date & was late. I think his Mom thought I wasn’t com­ing. But really I just got lost, I am not great with direc­tions, pay­ing close atten­tion to turn-offs, or appar­ently any­thing related to get­ting any­where on time. Then we ended up talk­ing & hang­ing out until the early hours of the morn­ing. Yea, that’s how I met his Dad for the first time in the early hours of the morn­ing. Need­less to say if I could have pushed redo on that I would have.

And we had the “dat­ing no one else talk.” We were a “cou­ple” & it felt overwhelming.

Here we were 18 & 19 and part of me was ter­ri­fied that this was “The One”, which is ridicu­lous because who meets “The One” when they are that young? And so I did what any nor­mal 18 year old does I con­sid­ered break­ing up with him.

Lit­tle did I know he was think­ing the same thing.

We went out to see a char­ity event, with his Mom & sis­ter. It was a beau­ti­ful day and after we went to din­ner. The restau­rant had some of the fan­ci­est piz­zas I had ever heard of in my entire life. But over din­ner he men­tioned need­ing “to talk” and that caused red flags to jump up around me, wav­ing & shout­ing “THIS IS NOT GOOD!! IT’S CODE! RUN NOW!” But I didn’t run instead we fin­ished din­ner & headed to a park to sit out­side, enjoy the weather & talk.

Yea, let’s just say the talk went from not great to OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU??? Very quickly.

Mr. Adorable decided to break up with me.

His rea­son “I am not ready to get mar­ried yet. I’m plan­ning on apply­ing to school in Chicago still and mov­ing. Maybe we can keep in con­tact and who knows what the future will hold.” He also pointed out the fact that I often joked when under pres­sure instead of let­ting him in, what­ever. (Ok, I admit it, he may have been totally right on that last part being open about my true feel­ings doesn’t come easy to me).

HUH?? Who said any­thing about mar­riage, who said any­thing about for­ever and wait aren’t I sup­posed to be break­ing up with him? I was stunned, hurt and really it felt like a sucker punch to the gut. I couldn’t believe that a) he was feel­ing over­whelmed like I was b) that I felt so awful con­sid­er­ing I thought about break­ing up with him c) OH MY GOD I LOVE HIM, WAS I CRAZY FOR THINKING ABOUT BREAKING UP.

After fin­ished “talk­ing” which con­sisted mostly of him talk­ing & me not know­ing what to say back, which I’m pretty sure is the first time (and maybe the only time) in my life I’ve been with­out words. We got back into the car & headed to my house.

That’s when the tears started. I couldn’t con­trol them. It was awful. I mean that type of cry­ing that when it hap­pens you want to look away but you can’t because it’s you. I was hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing and felt like my heart had been ripped out.

A song by Jewel came on the radio. She was singing “You were meant for me & was I was meant for you.” It was all about star-crossed love that was meant to be but failed.

Then he said what has to be stu­pid­est thing a per­son has ever said on the face of the Earth dur­ing a break-up moment.

“You know, for a while, every song on the radio is going to sound like a break up song.”

I felt like punch­ing him at that moment & instead hit the dash­board. As did I began to find my voice & oh did I find it. I let my guard down, the jokes stopped & I let him in. I am not sure he was ready for the tirade that came next. It went some­thing to the effect of:

“What? Are you insane? Every song doesn’t sound like a break up song. THIS IS A BREAK UP SONG! And for the record I am sup­posed to be break­ing up with you tonight. Don’t look so sur­prised with a “Huh” look on your face. That’s right I break up with you. You don’t break up with me. This is not the way this is sup­posed to hap­pen. And who said I wanted to get mar­ried? Did I say that? No you just assumed that I want to marry you. Well let me tell you I don’t want to marry you or any­one. I am not plan­ning on stay­ing here in Michi­gan. I am leav­ing. I am doing some­thing dif­fer­ent. So you can go to Chicago & remem­ber that I broke up with you. And did you think that this was going to be a quiet car ride back to drop me off, because really you had your say now you are going to lis­ten to me.”

He looked blind­sided, I think he thought I wasn’t going to say any­thing on the way home, & he was so quiet.

After 15 min­utes straight of me basi­cally lay­ing into him, he spoke and then I spoke. We ended up talk­ing for hours. I said if we remained friends, that was fine, but we’d only be friends (noth­ing else), that I loved him & if being friends was all there was then that was some­thing I was will­ing to accept. He said that if that’s what I wanted he was OK with that but really he wasn’t sure what he wanted any­more, because being apart wouldn’t make him hap­pier, he loved me & wanted to be with me. Being just friends wasn’t the same as see­ing if there was a future together in with me.

In the end we didn’t break up.

Instead we talked about our actual feel­ings, like adults, which was scary & beau­ti­ful at the same time.

And of course, every time that song came on the radio after I couldn’t help but lean over with a lit­tle smile and say “You know, for a while, every song on the radio is going to sound like a break up song.”

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]

Tagged as: how i met your father, husband, love, love at first sight, Marriage