A Vulnerable Heart

One moment please. Before I get into what I did yesterday, I should tell you what I did the night before (not watching Sweeny Todd, Nathan...), which was talk to Allison till 2:30 in the morning. One of the conversations we somehow got into was about guys and their unwillingness to be the initiators. As you all may know, this makes me mad. She has a link on her blog (that's a link back there, BTW) to an article that just says everything I've been pathetically trying to say on that matter. Anyway, on to other things...

Yesterday morning, thought I didn't feel like doing anything, I figured I should do something, and I really felt like getting out there in my grandma's neighborhood again, listening to "Love Grows (Where my Rosemary Goes)" and breathing in the fresh morning air as the sun comes up on the horizon and the air gathers humidity. It's all so beautiful. Yesterday the first song on my iPod was "100 Years" by Five for Fighting. It was just really invigorating to run to that song. It's a song about life, about living in the moment, about striving to go on. I know I sound really sentimental, but it is really a great running song.

After my run yesterday I took a shower and ate breakfast. Wow, I know, really eventful morning there, eh? Yeah. After that, I typed a couple songs in my computer (I wrote a new one called Elijah, but I can't remember if I told you that or not). Elijah will one day hopefully not just be a beautiful song, but a message for guys and gals of all ages. See, it's about what goes through a woman's mind after a painful breakup. All breakups are painful, but this one is more like…you know, the guy has broken up with her and/or moved on to someone else. A woman's heart is so vulnerable at that time, and usually for a long time afterwards. Men don't realize, I don't think. I mean, guys get sensitive about that, too. But maybe it's just that their heart are not vulnerable or confused or anything. They probably don't automatically cling to the first girl to declare love for him after the breakup. In "Elijah", the girl is very hurt. She sees how he acts with his new girlfriend, and knows what happens even when she's not looking, because of what she and Elijah used to do together. In the chorus she says she'll always love him, now and when he comes back to her (which he won't, of course), and tells him how much she feels she needs him, and asks when he will realize that. In the bridge she finally questions her rationality in the area of the whole breakup ordeal. She seems to come to a realization--he's just a "player", moving from girl to girl to girl. The second part of the bridge, she then questions what she did wrong, and why he couldn't have just stayed with her. I was just going to leave it at the bridge, and not repeat the chorus, but I changed my mind, because it really ties the emotional-roller-coaster-spinning-around-in-circles thing that goes on inside a girl's head, and leaving her very confused. Because even though she realizes he seems to have played her, and then you know in the second part where she starts questioning her own "love worthiness", it ties it all together in a confused way--she still loves him, and would still have him if he ever came back for her.

It's sad, really. But the thing is that when I see this sort of thing happening over and over again within other girls, I start getting haughty and holier-than-thou and I believe I'm better than them. I would never let my emotions run away so much like that. I would never keep falling for such a terrible guy. I would never be so throw-myself-at-him kind of attached like that. And yet I know I just seem programmed to do that sort of thing. Girls are really sensitive, I guess. Girls long for closeness, for protection, for that special man to hold them when they are sad and afraid. Well, after breakups, girls are even more sad and afraid than normal (ha...I guess), and now they have no one to comfort them with kind words spoken in a soft, deep voice, and no big, warm arms to wrap around them and pull them in close. No long, coarse finger to reach up and dry tears, no one to sit, listen and nod affirmatively when they want to spill the whole terrible story. In essence, she is sad, and now he's not even there. And she wants him there, and she will do anything to get him back so she can feel close to him again. But he doesn't want her back, and she's just making it worse on any friendship they may have by being this way. Her heart becomes even more vulnerable, and soon it will simply throw itself at any guy; she'll wear her heart on her sleeve and search for someone, ANYONE, to get close to, and if she finds someone, it will move too fast. She will move it along too fast. Then that guy's gone, and soon the girl doesn't know who she is anymore. I am not talking from direct experience, but observation over my short seventeen and three quarter years.

So I feel this way, there's no denying. I don't right now, but I have to a degree, and I know as a woman I am perfectly capable of it. It's a very dangerous thing to feel. If a relationship is going to end, best to end it on very good and non-heartbreaking terms. However, if the guy's a jerk and that's impossible, I think every female needs to understand what worse things could happen if they don't keep a reign on their emotions. I don't want any sort of breakup to happen to me, but I need to learn now that if it does, I need to be aware of what I will inevitably be going through...

ELIJAH
A song from a vulnerable heart
By Jessica Claire Barker

I saw the way you
Danced with her
On that moonless night

I saw the way you
Held her hand
And told her it’s alright

Elijah, I love you
Always, till you come back
Elijah, I need you
When will you realize that?

I know the way you
Kiss her lips
Like you once kissed me

I know the way you
Sing to her
As you once sang to me

Is it all the same to you?
You live each of your romances through
Again and again
Or was I just not good enough?
Not worthy of all that love
You had to give…

-Jessica