This morning, while driving my kids to the youth center they go to before school, my daughter hands me a stack of CDs she pulled out of the cabinet. She tells me that she wants to start listening to music in the car again. It had not even occurred to me that we weren't listening to music. Where had I been? Didn't I even notice how silent the car was most mornings? If you had asked me, I would have thought we were talking the entire time, but I guess not enough for my daughter.
I don't think she actually looked at the CDs. They are definitely not anything she would have been listening to, and nothing you would hear on the local pop radio station. Yet here it was, 4 CDs of my music, waiting to be slid into a CD player in my car, and anything I was listening to would be fine by her, I was assured.
So I open the first jewel case, and pop it in, not even looking at the cover, and turn it up. I can go with the flow, loud music at 7 am is just what I was craving (not!). It turned out to be an old country CD. Hal Ketchum, 1992.
Now, the music is some of my favorite. Ask anyone about my taste in "celebrity" men, and it is either Pierce Brosnan or Hal Ketcham that I would run away with if he came begging at my door. I was not prepared for the impact this particular CD would have on me, at least not today I wasn't. It was the "Sure Love" album, given to me as part of a wedding gift from my first ex-husband. I had popped the CD in, hit shuffle, and listened as this sweet warbly ballad called "Softer than a Whisper" came out. I didn't stand a chance. The universe is out to get me. My daughter is a secret collaborator.
Before I could have hit next, or pulled over and throw the CD out the window, I was sobbing. Big fat tears pouring out of my eyes and leaving dark blood colored spots on my red shirt. I was happy the music was loud, and that right then, my children did not notice their mom blubbering. I could not have explained it to them, how a memory from 17 years ago just hit me up-side the head and knocked me down.
In the truest sense of the word, I am "over" my first ex-husband. We were married for 7 years, and the breakup was quick, involving infidelity, mental illness, and the impending birth of a child who was not mine. It had shocked me to find that I would not be with him forever, but having lived the last 12 years, and having talked with him about the choices and the pain it caused several times in the last decade, I know that we made the right decision. If we had not split, right at that time, we would have ended up hating each other, instead of being okay with each other, like we are now. I don't miss him.
So I tried to figure out why the song made me cry instead of smile today. I have heard it enough times, even in more recent years, that it was not a shocking event. I have played the CD all the way through several times, and even have it on my MP3 player. I know I have heard it on the radio, and even in a movie. So it wasn't the song, per se, and truth, it wasn't my ex-husband either.
What was it? It was hope, and desire, and possibilities. It was the future and the past and the longing. It was that things change and life moves on and you survive and thrive and fail. All of that, all at once, in one fell shot, taking no prisoners, and unwritten permission to feel it all right then and there.
I like that. No prisoners. Crying would be okay. Songs could devastate me for three and a half minutes, and I would make it out the other side. I was feeling something for myself, in my heart, and I could hold it and be in it, and allow it, without losing anything in the process, or being trapped by it in a personal sentencing to life devoid of emotion.
I will make it a point to listen to the song again on my drive home. Conjure for myself the happy image that love was there. I will wrap myself up in the memory and let it make me warm. It is just a part of allowing myself to get to keep the good stuff, own it, enjoy it, even when bad stuff happened after. That way, maybe I will remember that in the middle of feeling all the bad stuff, like right now, there will be good stuff left. I will accept love when it comes, and do my best to recognize it. This time, love found me in an old CD, and I am grateful for the memory.
And just for my own heart, here are the lyrics:
It was softer than a whisper
Quiet as the moon
But I could hear it loud as laughter
Across a crowded room
It was gentle as a baby's hand
But it held me like a chain
It was softer than a whisper
When love called out my name
