Giving up is hard to do

I’m so heartbroken, but I should have known the relationship would end this way, that it was bound to end. Once upon a time it was a great relationship and it seemed - to me at least - that it would last forever… forever! Oh, the power of love, whether it be blind or not…

You see, I once believed everything I was told. Even my parents approved. No, it was more than that - they even encouraged the relationship, they left it to me like it was an inheritance. They were, in fact, nearly penniless, yet they worshipped this thing that had given them a reason for living. All their lives they had known what was good, better, perfect, and right. There was no questioning anything as far as they were concerned. They believed that my own future could be a good one if I followed their path, and I trusted them, believed them. After all, they were good, kind people. That I knew. Good people cannot be wrong.

That was years ago, and my parents are long gone, but for many years I never rolled my eyes or protested, never swore at them or even tried to disagree, because as far as I could see, there was no reason to do that. It’s hard to rebel against goodness and ethics. Thus you could say my love was predetermined and I thought mine was not to question why, mine was but to do or die. (There may be a military concept in this, but I’m not inclined to check the source, not any more.) Here are some more details about my sentimental situation, the one passed down to me, but please don’t judge me too harshly if in explaining things I use both he and she, because my feeling is that when you get along well (even intimately?) with somebody, you don’t stop to think about gender identity, not your own or that of the object of your affection. It’s more about what you both have in common, what makes you feel comfortable together.

She was beautiful, big, wealthy, perfect. She was admired by all or almost all. She deserved that: she knew how to stand up for herself and her (unquestionable) values. Apparently she was very fair and law-abiding even.

I loved holding his hand, although usually I was the one reaching out for physical contact. He made me feel safe, unchallenged, and maybe worthy of at least basking in his sunlight. He had everything I need and more. I was so fortunate.

She was my home, my port in a storm, my reason for being. Believe me, she was my everything and I devoured every kiss, caress, look of affection, metaphorical or not. I apologize for getting emotional, but we were together for decades. I never expected that what happened between us would happen, but it did. Maybe it was a kind of decay that started from within.

He began to reduce our contact. His hugs and kisses gradually became sparser but also more aggressive. He wanted things his way. I began to feel he was forcing himself on me, but always on his terms, never on mine. I tried to comply, but late one lonely night I realized that he no longer loved me. Maybe I’d begun to feel the same way; it still hurt, after all I’d given him, after all my willingness to accept and admire him and to play by his (meaaan?) rules.

Finally I had to accept the truth. She was abusing me, she would slap me around occasionally, but then the stealing started. She thought I was being greedy and selfish, that I was demanding too much from her, yet I was the one who was starting to lose everything. She demanded more and more of me, including my savings. (Not that I had much in the bank, but she wanted it.) She wanted constant gifts, coddling, and high praise. She needed me yet looked down on me. My feelings were hurt, and I suspected I was fast becoming superfluous. It was time, I knew, to end our affair, although it was so hard, so excruciatingly painful, to believe it was over. I would have to split up with her or him if I hoped to survive. Suffice it to say I became desperate, was withering on the vine, so to speak.

This is why I started to sing what I feared would become my theme song, or the tune that would accompany me at my funeral: Neil Sedaka’s ear worm-y song from 1970, “Breaking up is hard to do.” The lyrics were running through my mind so much that they created ruts. Yes, you heard that right. I gave up. How long had I believed/hoped the relationship would continue, that I should suck it up as my fate, believe what s/he told me, live on the inheritance left by my parents? Too long, frankly, especially toward the end, when the abuse was ramped up. But I was so tired from trying to find the good parts, the things we shared, my inherited love and I. Needless to say, I shed many tears. My back was scarred by numerous disappointments, my fingers as twisted as if plagued by arthritis. My heart was as shattered as my bank account, so depleted by the one I had loved for so long.

Don't take your love away from me

Don't you leave my heart in misery

If you go, then I'll be blue

'Cause breaking up is hard to do

Remember when you held me tight

And you kissed me all through the night

Think of all that we've been through

And breaking up is hard to do

They say that breaking up is hard to do

Now I know, I know that it's true

Don't say that this is the end

Instead of breaking up I wish that we were making up again

~ Neil Sedaka

I was devastated. I was depleted. There was no reason to go on. Thus, I began to plan my demise, my exit from the world that no longer cared for imperfect, ungrateful, worthless individuals like me. Persons who had no money in the bank, no value of any sort. I wasn’t sure if I sought self-erasure through starvation, a bullet, or a deep hole in the far side of the ocean. In any event, I hoped Neil Sedaka would accompany me, it would be such a comfort to have him share my final moments, my pain.

It was while I was preparing myself to sacrifice body, mind, and spirit to a lost love in the image of a childhood inheritance, that something happened. It flew in the face of everything my dear parents had willed to me in their infinite poverty and ethics, I thought. It was artificial and not linked to anything humans pass on. It was nothing but a song birthed by the mind of a computer. It was music I’ve never liked with an image I’ve never loved: some macho redneck sitting and contemplating his farm in the Midwest, acting like the Lord of All. I’ve lived in that area and am polite enough not to say what I think of it. I’ll also refrain from telling you what I feel about country music because of its ideas about how the world works and how men and women get along, their inequality, stuff like that.

Sometimes one finds the north (norte means right path, guiding star in Spanish) is in the south. Sometimes it’s in the midwestern region. I met myself in an AI song that broke my heart at the same time as it forced me to put aside the plan to end it all out of desperation at the betrayal by my former love. Here is what saved me, suturing an early world, repairing tendons and scars, demanding that I not betray a dead world without first giving it a chance to regenerate. Demanding that I drink the blood of the deep-veined prejudice and bright generosity that once made sense, even if there is but a thread of all that still remaining. When I hear this fake song, I can only sob and hope, fighting impotence and begging for hope, red-necked or any color it chooses to be:

I'm sitting on this porch,

Sun sinking low,

Radio playing a song I know,

But my heart's far away,

Across the deep blue sea.

In a land where kids can't run free

There standing in line for a loaf of bread

While the night sky rains fire overhead

And I'm here with my boots on this on open land,

Praying they know we understand.

Chorus

From the red dirt roads,

To the olive trees,

Your pain my friend cuts deep in me, Palestine, you ain't alone tonight,

We'll shine your truth in the cold moonlight,

No walls too high,

No lie too strong,

Justice rides with us all night long.

They call it peace,

But the gun's still talking

Freedom's chained on a midnight walk,

But the truth's like a river,

It's gonna break through,

No matter what the liars do,

Mama's crying because her boy's not home,

And the world keeps scrolling on their phones,

But a country heart don't turn away,

We stand with the brave who fight each day.

Chorus

…

We know the truth,

It can't be denied,

No matter how many try to hide,

From Texas Plains to Jerusalem's stone,

Freedom's fight is in our bones.

Chorus

From the red dirt roads,

To the olive trees,

Your pain my friend lives here in me,

Palestine, your light will always burn,

Til the day the free returns,

No walls too high,

No lie too strong,

Justice rides with us all night

“A country heart don’t turn away.” That’s the key and it’s only thing I can cling to in this last effort to stay afloat. Will it be enough?