Torch Song

I believe there are many people walking around that are carrying a torch for someone they loved long ago.  Although they may be single with a cat or married with a dog or divorced with fish... there is still someone from their past that they cannot let go of.

There's the guy who was married for 20 years with five daughters and still in love with his first girlfriend.  The mother of two who had an emotional affair with her department manager, and decades later cannot get him out of her mind. The sixty something woman who wonders how different her life might have been had she hooked up with Billy; Chris or Lonnie.

I believe that we look back only when our future is cloudy; when we can't see the forest for the trees.  Its like a soft baby blanket with silk trim that we want to snuggle up in.  We want someone to save us; guide us; protect us; adore us; desire us.  We want someone to read our minds.  More importantly this person - this third party - doesn't know our baggage and we're blind and deaf to theirs.

Its a chalk board wiped clean.  Its a pretty package waiting to be opened. Its not the real thing - its not what you wrote about years ago.  Its an old letter that you keep in a safety deposit box and read every decade. Just because you tear up at the lyrics of a song - the same song that brings a flood of memories - does not mean he/she feels the same way when listening to the music.

Today is what is real.  You can try to entice or engage the object of your past affections, but if all you get in return are two words or one simple sentence, he/she probably doesn't feel the same way.  They have moved on, and lucky for them, they have hidden the high school year book or burned the old love letters or taken the photographs and placed them in the trash.

In a recent interview that Jennifer Lopez had with People Magazine, she said one thing that struck home with me: "Scientology says that a third party on the outside could be causing a conflict that you don't even know about."

What I'm trying to wrap my arms around is this:  I must try harder to live in the moment and let go of lovely memories of the past.  I cannot 'turn back time' no matter how many times I hear Cher sing it on a CD.

It is what it is and many of us need to love and let go.  Love and get on with it.