Can't count to

All the Lover's I've burned through

God, music is so fucking great.

Yesterday, when J* came over for dinner, she brought me CD's (thank you J*), but asked that I not put on Sun Kil Moon. She'd been listening to it in the car, and it was a little sad. This, of course, is a sentiment I can understand. So, this evening, on the way to a dinner party, I've got it on in the car to have a listen myself. I haven't made it past track two, which currently loops on my stereo in the living room.

So why do I still burn for you?

Fuck. Here I am, and I'm supposed to walk into this dinner party, soy ice cream and limoncello in hand, and have a nice time, and make pretty with the friends, and smile and have a great time, and not, at any point, ball my fucking eyes out.

I can't say.

This is music that makes me want to drive around all night on repeat, then come to rest in an abandoned parking lot by the beach with my forehead on the steering wheel, my hands clutching it on either side. This is rip your heart out, speak of sorrow, howl your loneliness to the moon, stand outside your ex's door, walk into the ocean fully clothed, stalk the streets 'till your legs won't move music. So, I'll just go have a nice dinner then and not pretend that I'm aching, ACHING to get back out in the car and listen to it for just one more minute and I actually do this. I actually make an excuse to go out to the car, where I sit, just between the fish course and desert, and listen to the singer locked in his passion while I wonder, am I damned to wail my love for you into the night alone?

I'm a love junkie (have you been reading this? Are you paying attention?). I'm an addict for the highs and, inevitably, for the lows, because over time, you associate them with the highs and, come to recognize that they're tied inexorably together. It's not love of misery, for misery's sake, damn your pop psychology. It's about not wanting to let go of the belief that you will gladly suffer forever for want of her love, because, without that belief, there is no love worth suffering for. Yes, you can continue to tell yourself, time and time again that this one is not the right one, this one is not that perfect love, which you'll finally find and never have to feel this way again. You can drop it, over time, and move on and find the next, but if you keep doing this, sooner or later, you're going to have to stop deluding yourself and give up and tell yourself it's just not out there.

So this is why I drove home feeling a hot knot rising in my chest trying to work it's way out, and this is why I'm here on my floor with my computer tonight, when I should be sleeping, contemplating how much liquor I've got in the cabinet, and just how drunk am I comfortable getting at home alone? There's part of me that wants, for the countless, countless time, to drive around and find her, and find some sort of closure, but that's not what this is about. This is about another woman, someone I have only started to ache for (and, oh, it will get so much worse), and the familiar desire for closure with something past is just that-- passed. You can't go through something quite like that, whatever that may have been, without feeling like you need to give it some significance, but then you find someone else to love, or you find someone to hurt over, and it's gone.