Heart of the Matter

I'll never cease to wonder how music can move me. Last night was one of those not-so-often (but not rare either) times that a song made me cry, and cry real good. It was a dramatic sobbing-my-heart-out sort of crying where I thought I've run out of tears but more kept coming especially when the song came to the chorus:

I've been learning to live without you now

But I miss you sometimes

It's a break-up song. I'm not breaking up with you. I'm just feeling so lonely these past two weeks. These lines just so fit what this pattern of longing and being constantly let down is evolving into. I wanted to tell you 'please don't let me learn to live without you.'

The more I know, the less I understand

All the things I thought I knew I'm learning again

I'm one of those lovers who gets this urge to analyze every word, gesture, tone, touch. I want to know how much I am cherished. I have to understand how your love and mine is transforming my being. But love is tricky. And people who give love and receive them have little or no clue of the energy that passed between them and what power is being entrusted into these fragile hands: eager for the freedom to choose to be owned yet scared of the uncertainty of being held too loosely. When happy I understand so much about you; when hurt, I learned things I'd rather not. Because I have to constantly redefine myself when these shifts came so I could protect my heart.

I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter

But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter

There was that day I told God I'm ready to meet 'the one' and asked for assurance that it be a nice romantic story. But God in His wisdom had said 'your love is just half of the relationship. You cannot dictate the outcome. He has to love you with his own conviction or hurt you with his own weaknesses.' What's the heart of the matter? As I was still so giddy, all warm and thrilled with the crazy conspirator we've found in each other, I tried to ignore the tug in my heart telling me to ask for that word that would make or break us. But in the end I need you to say it. I need to know if you believe. Heads we hold on and wait; tails this ever-coward girl would turn her back and walk away. So you told me. And I wish I didn't ask. Because the mind says 'walk away,' but now I've chosen to be hurt with your weakness.

But I think it's about forgiveness, forgiveness

Even if, even if you don't love me anymore

I no longer trust myself so I asked you 'what now?' And you said 'I love you, I don't want to lose you.' You've just echoed my thoughts. So, no, we aren't breaking up. But I can relate to the song because I'm lonely. And because the heart of the matter is true for us too. It's about forgiveness. I have to love you for the most you can be. And I have to forgive you for what you are not.