My Someone

I wrote this last night, not planning on posting it. I didn't feel like I was ready to do that. But I guess now, I do. I had planned on posting it in a few months. But for whatever reason, I feel like it's time now. I wrote it after watching The Music Man with my parents last night.

I remember the first (and only other) time I watched The Music Man. It was the same version as this, and I watched it on YouTube while sitting in my apartment while a student at Ouachita Baptist University. It must have been around 2007 or 2008. I hadn't been allowed to watch it as a kid, even though my mother loved it. I think it was something about the con man stuff and "The Sadder, But Wiser Girl." I remember being struck by hearing Kristin Chenoweth sing "Goodnight, My Someone," and how beautiful and perfect it was. I had never heard the song before, and it absolutely mesmerized me. I may or may not have played it on repeat a scandalous number of times for a while. But the words, as well as the melody captivated me, as a perpetually single mid-twenty-something who still dreamed of someone, someday:

Goodnight, my someone,
Goodnight, my love,
Sleep tight, my someone, 
Sleep tight, my love,
Our star is shining it's brightest light
For goodnight, my love, for goodnight.
Sweet dreams be yours, dear,
If dreams there be
Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.
I wish they may and I wish they might
Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight
True love can be whispered from heart to heart
When lovers are parted they say
But I must depend on a wish and a star
As long as my heart doesn't know who you are.
Sweet dreams be yours dear,
If dreams there be
Sweet dreams to carry you close to me.
I wish they may and I wish they might
Now goodnight, my someone, goodnight.

I thought the song would bring me more pain than it did, because after waiting for so long, I had thought I finally found my Someone. And it was certainly not by my own choice that he decided not to be. I'm still struggling with it. Part of it, I think, is that when I said I was sure, that he was it for me, that I wanted no one else, and never would, that it was him- and him alone- forever, I meant it. I didn't mean until I changed my mind. I didn't mean until things got hard. I meant forever. And I knew that wasn't going to change for me. And I trusted him when he said he wasn't going to change his mind either. Even after nearly six months and a lot of gut wrenching revelations about how things went down at the end, and after being truly in "the depths of despair," and quite literally in "the valley of the shadow of death," I have a hard time knowing how to change that. It's not that I think he's perfect. But I do know how great we were together. And I do know that nearly everyone saw it. He was good for me in a lot of ways, and I was good for him. In all honesty, I couldn't have been more committed to him if we had been married. I guess I don't know how to undo that. I don't know how to just move on. I don't know how to just let go of a love and commitment I held so strongly. I think it might be easier for me to let go of that if a guy came along who gave me the hope of experiencing that again with someone, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to just undo that. Take it back, and not put it anywhere else. It's hard for me to imagine a someone else (possibly partly because it took 31 years for this one to come along). And yet, tonight I surprisingly found myself open to the possibility of another Someone, someday. Though ironically, thinking and writing about it right now makes me sob my eyes out, while trying to stay silent so as not to wake my parents before they fly out in the morning. 

The movie went on, to "My White Knight," where Marian is talking to her mother about her ideal man. Unlike a lot of songs in musicals about a person's ideal love interest, this one is actually really spot on and pretty realistic:

My white knight, not a Lancelot, nor an angel with wings

Just someone to love me, who is not ashamed of a few nice things. 

My white knight who knew what my heart would say if it only knew how. 

Please, dear Venus, show me now. 

All I want is a plain man 

All I want is a modest man 

A quiet man, a gentle man 

A straightforward and honest man 

To sit with me in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa. 

And I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself. 

And more interested in us than in me. 

And if occasionally he'd ponder

what make Shakespeare and Beethoven great, 

Him I could love till I die. Him I could love till I die. 

My white knight, not a Lancelot, nor an angel with wings. 

Just someone to love me, who is not ashamed of a few nice things. 

My white knight, let me walk with him where others ride by 

Walk and love him till I die, till I die. 

The thing is...this was him, exactly. Minus the Iowa thing. But he turned out not to be. Well, almost. Obviously, it didn't turn out that way. I guess in the end he wound up a bit more freaked out by the "us" than had been anticipated. Still, listening to this, I felt less sadness than I had expected. More hope. Or maybe "hope" is too strong a word. I guess at least the idea that maybe there is someone out there for me who embodies this perfectly (again, minus the Iowa part). It's not a song with unrealistic expectations by any means. Just maybe, he's out there. 

Of course, no big musical like this would be complete without some big love song between the two main characters. In this case, it's "Till There Was You." As I was listening to the lyrics, I was expecting it to be painful, but again, it wasn't so bad. 

There were bells on a hill

But I never heard them ringing

No, I never heard them at all

Till there was you

There were birds in the sky

But I never saw them winging

No, I never saw them at all

Till there was you

Then there was music and wonderful roses

They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows

Of dawn and dew

There was love all around

But I never heard it singing

No, I never heard it at all

Till there was you

Then there was music and wonderful roses

They tell me in sweet fragrant meadows

Of dawn and dew

There was love all around

But I never heard it singing

No, I never heard it at all

Till there was you

Till there was you

Yeah, I definitely understood the song. While of course it's somewhat hyperbolized, there were a lot of things about life that just weren't as great until he came along. And then things were so. much. better. But instead of feeling overwhelming sadness, I guess I was mostly just hoping I would feel that again. Yeah, as I write this, my feelings are definitely more mixed, and I feel that familiar mix of heart-wrenching pain, loss, and anger. But the fact that I could even get through a movie like that without losing it, and in fact, feeling the slightest twinges of hope, speaks volumes. I'm nowhere near far enough along to be ready to post this yet. I'm just not...there yet. I'm not even sure where "there" is, but I know it's not where I am. Yeah, I make so much sense. I know. It's a gift. But I'm writing this anyway, because I know at some point, I'll be ready to post it. And it's good to get small victories like this down on paper (stop it, you KNOW WHAT I MEAN) before they fade into oblivion. That way, I can come back and remember. Kind of like the ancient Israelites and their ebeneezers. They built them to remember what God had done. So they couldn't look back with the revisionist glasses we as human beings are so prone to wear and say God hadn't ever done anything for them. Well this is my "ebeneezer," of sorts. It's my draft, to go back and post later, and see...oh, maybe there was a little, tiny glimmer of light back there in the darkness. 

Obviously, I'm posting this before I thought I would, but my points still stand. Maybe it was the writing it that helped, maybe it was something else. I don't know. But here I am, and here it is. Raw, open, honest. I just hope I can continue on in this. I don't feel great, but I do feel better.