The man drug
A friend of mine had her 19th nervous breakdown about a man she loves. It’s chemical, I told her. She made me a few CDs of new songs and one of them is a Pity Party from start to finish and it reminded me of my own CDs I made not too long ago – and the songs I listened to ad nauseum – one even supplied by one of the men who broke my heart (Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole by Martha Wainwright – not on your pity crying song list? – get it).
As I drove along in the truck listening to these songs of heartbreak, I thought whew – glad that is over. And I am amazed to see how resilient the human heart can be, and also how like all grief or sorrow, you never rid yourself completely of the pain, but the hurt lessens and lessens over time.
Towards the end of the CD a song came on by Steve Earle – I Thought You Should Know – as it was playing, a car pulled out in front of me, and Earle was singing, “You might as well just pick up your little black dress and go,” right as I looked up to see a man in front of me, a man from my past (cuz I’m a – ahem – woman with a past).
I kept on down the street and as the next song started, I thought sweetly about the date I have tonight with my honey, and how by evening, all dolled up, I will sit across from someone I love, who loves me, and we get to talk about our future and our children (to come), unencumbered with joneses, lies, deception and rotting flesh, and oh, oh, oh, what a difference to me.
When I parked the truck, I called my friend and said, “See, it’s the man drug, in life you come across one or two who are like heroin to your emotional system – they make you feel like there has never been any high like this before all the while they are eating you alive from the inside out. Get off the drug.”