My 90s Anthem or How Not To Stay
I love Lisa Loeb, completely and unabashedly. Okay, I love the one song from her I know. Her song "Stay" is, without a doubt, the anthem of the 1990s. Recorded for the movie Reality Bites, that song was my jam (yeah... I was 10... what of it?) To this day, the whole world pauses for me when it comes on. I hear the opening chords and I freeze. And then, I sing (loudly and badly). But there has always been one part that drove me crazy:
"I thought that I was strong
I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave"
Oh but now I know that I was wrong
'Cause I missed you."
See, the implication is that if you miss someone--if it's hard to walk away--then you're weak. You were wrong to leave. You'll never get away.
Lisa. Come on.
Because the truth is, if it's easy to walk away, if it doesn't hurt or make you sad, then it doesn't require any strength. You don't have to be strong to walk away from someone you don't care about, and you don't have to be strong to say goodbye to something you won't miss. But to leave something you know isn't good for you? To leave something that you love and care about and are invested in? That takes strength.
See sometimes I run into people who I just can't handle. I run into people who make me feel uncertain. Insecure. People whose love, for whatever reason, I can't read. They're few and far between, but they're out there. And those people, no matter how much I love them, are crazy-making for me. I've fallen into a pattern in the past two months with one such person. And the level of crazy in my life has sky rocketed.
The person isn't a bad person.... well okay, they're kind of a bad person, but I knew that when I became close to them, so that's on me. But they don't communicate in a way that works for me. They don't relate to people in a way that works for me. They don't work for me. It's no one's fault; it just is. And, as a result, they made me start to doubt everything about who I am. I began to doubt every conversation, joke, or emotion. And it'd be one thing if it was just with this individual, but it bled into every relationship I have. I apologize constantly for things as mundane as sharing a story or asking a question. I second guess situations and conversations. I'm quick to assume people are angry. I beat myself up for every emotion. Of course, this has pushed away other people I care about. It's a cycle that's made doubt everything about myself.
And you know what? I'm 33. I'm just too damn old for that sort of shit.
So I had to walk away. And it hurt. Well, present tense. It hurts. It makes me anxious and sad. I cry when I think about it (when I'm not cycling to blinding rage, of course). And there are times where that pain makes me feel incredibly weak. Times when I break and want to check their social media, even though I know it's a bad idea. I've feel sometimes like I am in shambles, and that's embarrassing. But I've tried to remind myself that it takes a lot of strength to walk away and weather the negative emotions. In some ways it'd be easier to stick around and wait it out, to try to repair the damage. But it wouldn't be the best choice. I was right to walk away. Sometimes you have to close the door, no matter how much you'd rather not. So I closed it.
So, while Lisa begs her man to stay because she misses him, I'm going to keep walking. I'm going to keep missing my friend, but I'm going to keep reminding myself that missing someone is okay. That you can miss someone and still be happier without them. That I won't feel sad forever. That it'll fade.
And that these feelings? They definitely don't make me weak.
"I thought that I was strong
I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave"
Oh but now I know that I was wrong
'Cause I missed you."
See, the implication is that if you miss someone--if it's hard to walk away--then you're weak. You were wrong to leave. You'll never get away.
Lisa. Come on.
Because the truth is, if it's easy to walk away, if it doesn't hurt or make you sad, then it doesn't require any strength. You don't have to be strong to walk away from someone you don't care about, and you don't have to be strong to say goodbye to something you won't miss. But to leave something you know isn't good for you? To leave something that you love and care about and are invested in? That takes strength.
See sometimes I run into people who I just can't handle. I run into people who make me feel uncertain. Insecure. People whose love, for whatever reason, I can't read. They're few and far between, but they're out there. And those people, no matter how much I love them, are crazy-making for me. I've fallen into a pattern in the past two months with one such person. And the level of crazy in my life has sky rocketed.
The person isn't a bad person.... well okay, they're kind of a bad person, but I knew that when I became close to them, so that's on me. But they don't communicate in a way that works for me. They don't relate to people in a way that works for me. They don't work for me. It's no one's fault; it just is. And, as a result, they made me start to doubt everything about who I am. I began to doubt every conversation, joke, or emotion. And it'd be one thing if it was just with this individual, but it bled into every relationship I have. I apologize constantly for things as mundane as sharing a story or asking a question. I second guess situations and conversations. I'm quick to assume people are angry. I beat myself up for every emotion. Of course, this has pushed away other people I care about. It's a cycle that's made doubt everything about myself.
And you know what? I'm 33. I'm just too damn old for that sort of shit.
So I had to walk away. And it hurt. Well, present tense. It hurts. It makes me anxious and sad. I cry when I think about it (when I'm not cycling to blinding rage, of course). And there are times where that pain makes me feel incredibly weak. Times when I break and want to check their social media, even though I know it's a bad idea. I've feel sometimes like I am in shambles, and that's embarrassing. But I've tried to remind myself that it takes a lot of strength to walk away and weather the negative emotions. In some ways it'd be easier to stick around and wait it out, to try to repair the damage. But it wouldn't be the best choice. I was right to walk away. Sometimes you have to close the door, no matter how much you'd rather not. So I closed it.
So, while Lisa begs her man to stay because she misses him, I'm going to keep walking. I'm going to keep missing my friend, but I'm going to keep reminding myself that missing someone is okay. That you can miss someone and still be happier without them. That I won't feel sad forever. That it'll fade.
And that these feelings? They definitely don't make me weak.
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