Lyrics

Dear John,

I already had started to become obsessed with Something Corporate right before we started dating. I think Pandora introduced me. And then after our first date, I was so giddy and "Punk Rock Princess" became my favorite song, you musician, you.

Later, after I started my job and then you moved, I just felt sad every single time we talked on the phone and "Down" became number one. As soon as our conversation veered towards actually breaking up a week ago, the same song automatically popped into my head.

Let's get drunk
You can drive us to the harbor
Wish upon a star
But do you know what stars are?
Balls of fire
Burning up the black space
Falling from the landscape
Exploding in the face of god.

Lets get crazy
Talk about our big plans
Places that you're going
Places that I haven't been.

This line always spoke to me. You've been everywhere, and I felt like a sheltered little brat. But I was so excited to go on a moving adventure with you. Which, of course, now may have come to a halt.

Build my walls up
Concrete Castle
keep this kingdom
free of hassle yeah.

I hear sound echo in the emptiness
All around but you can't change their loneliness
Look what you've found
I've fallen down.

Ahhh this chorus. So beautiful. I always try to sing it - usually when I get off the train on my way home and I'm walking to my car parked alone on the third floor - but for some dang reason I can't get the rhythm right and it always sounds funny in my voice!

Taste the saline
Rolling down your cheekbone
Tell me that you're alone
Tell me on the telephone
Feel your heart
It breaks within your chest now.
Try to get some rest now
Sleeps not coming easy for a while
Child

I never could figure out why I ended every one of our phone conversations, even when you were only an hour and a half away, in sobs. It was either:

• I am a huge slut and can't deal with not touching you
  
• You were really bad at phone conversations? (not really)
  
• They always turned super-philosophical and I felt like an idiot
  
• I just super-miss(ed) you

I think these lyrics kind of tease it out: I'm telling you that I'm alone...on the telephone. It's still being ... alone. Bah.

I hear sound echo in the emptiness
All around but you can't change this loneliness
Look at what you've found
I've fallen down.

Jason Mraz

I re-discovered the gloriosity of Jason Mraz today. I sort of used him to get through my last breakup, and when he showed up on my "Heal" Jango mix I made at work, I sighed and settled my way back into a celebrity crush.

1. Who doesn't love videos with cheesy musical-like choreography?
2. His lyrics? So amazing.
3. He's from Virginia!
4. He moved to SAN DIEGO!
5. Um, his Website is HILARIOUS. Just go to it. I can't rely describe his perfect sense of humor ("You better better keep that ish wrapped up tight so you don't catch MEDIA" ha-ha).
6. NEW CELEBRITY CRUSH (since everyone rejected my crush on John Mayer, I guess he's too sketch-tastic now).

 

Hehe

Dear John,

Can you believe it? They actually write funny, tongue-in-cheek break-up songs. Ohhh G. Love.

Remember that time you sent me a picture message after not talking to me for days of your car parked at the curb outside your work and the caption "city living na nah na nah nah." I thought at first you were taunting me in a mean way - a "you aren't here yet and I'm way cooler than you for living in the city ha-ha" kind of way. But wasn't I smart? And I didn't jump to mean conclusions. I suspected they were lyrics, and I was right. And I discovered G. Love. So thank you for that.

People say
You're gonna fall in and out of love all the time

People say
That it don't come easy
But you sure came easy on me oh my

Look at me
Still hangin' 'round
Still hangin' 'round
Ooo baby I'm still around

Scandalous, G. Love, scandalous. And I like it.

(Except that you/I can't hang around, cuz we're on opposite sides of the country. Boo. I guess I shouldn't try to live vicariously through songs anyway.)

RANDOM crap

Dear John,

I am annoyed with the random things that are making me think of you today!

What catalyzed this post/letter was closing out the folder I labeled "complicated" on my desktop. It's complicated because it has something to do with work and videos and converting them. But as I closed it, I thought about the "It's complicated" label on facebook, and how silly it was and how much of stir it caused when they introduced it as a possible relationship status.

Then I thought, well, doesn't that accurately describe my situation?

I've also always jumped straight back to "single" the very few times I've actually had to break up a facebook relationship (because everyone knows facebook tells all), and this was the first time I didn't click the "end relationship" button because, well, I was out of town without a computer when it happened between us.

But right now I just have the relationship status part of my profile mysteriously "hidden," like so many of girlfriends have it all the time - which used to frustrate me. Now I think blankness is the closest I can accurately describe my "relationship" situation.

ANYWAY. It made me remember the last time you broke up with a girlfriend (you serial-monogomist-turned-non-believer-in-relationships, you) and how my roommate and one of my friends went out of their way to give me the heads up.

"Heart!!! Have you checked facebook yet this morning?" asked my roommate at like 8am.

"Uhh no, why?"

"John. He's single! Weeeee!"

"Omg, Heart," read my friend's text, "I just checked my facebook and you'll never guess who showed up on my mini-feed as single! John! Go for it girl!"

I wasn't even 100% sure of my crush on you and everyone else already saw it.

So today, what other girls are gleeful at your newest update?

Love,
Heart

PS: Stirring sugar into my coffee this morning also reminded me of you, because you taught me to not tear the packets all the way open, since single-pieces of trash are better for the landfills or something. What the CRAP, heart?!

Pet hair makes me cry

Dear John,

I was doing really well today.

Unpacking was way easier than I thought. But then I came across my suit skirt.

I went to hang it up, and then I noticed the pet hair on it from lying on your make-shift bed. Fido, Rex and Princess** are so smart. They nudged between us when we weren't touching. They buried their heads into our legs and licked at the salt on our skin when we finally were.

Even though I only met them twice, I miss them so much too. One of the weird things about breaking up is that "missing" anything and everything always seems irrational, but is there nevertheless.

Love,
Heart

**No, these are not their names. Not even their genders, actually, though I'm not sure why I'm protecting the identity of animals.

I want my own puppy I think.

Forever

Dear John,

I just yelled at a diamond commercial.

It was one of those nice ones too - not the overly cheesy ones that pop up around Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day - where the young couple walks around the old couple who are holding hands, only to rejoin their hands on the other side. The hands have diamonds, like duh, but that's not the point.

The point is that I no longer believe in their tagline:
"There are only two things that last longer than a [lifetime? I actually can't remember this word]. Diamonds are one of them."

Ahhh I've been a hopeless romantic my entire life, even while watching my parents argue and after struggling with a really rough break up with my last "love." But I chalked it up to bad communication for the former and immaturity for the latter, and reestablished my faith in love.

Then I found you and jumped into love so fast. We Indian soul-gazed, you wrote songs about me, we spoke the words, we discussed moving cross-country and into our own place together. I guess I assumed that the only guy who would ever suggest all that would be someone as crazy and faithful in love as I was.

Changes, changes, timing, timing (if I could I would punch timing in the face for me and all the pain it has caused me and all my girlfriends) and poof, now we're apart. Does that mean we're no longer in love? We said the words at the last possible seconds before our separation. And we'd been talking for weeks about how we didn't get to fully explore our love.

So why give up on it so soon? Why not give it a chance? Maybe, as you believe, we would have broken up eventually - whether it was a year down the year or thirty. Maybe love isn't forever. Or maybe true (Godly?) love is, but flawed human love is.

Regardless, I yelled at a commercial. If there were a ballet or a Hollywood movie in front of me, I would also yell at it. Because love still messes crap up. And I hate that, possibly because of marketing, my standards, hopes and dreams were so high.

Dear John**

Ah, the perfect way to resurrect Care and Feeding from it's untimely death from the lashing, mouthy wit and too-hott-to-handle hands of Like, Oh My Blog:

A break up.

Boo, hiss.

I was thinking of creating a whole new blog, but why bother? Care and Feeding - weak and breathless as it may be right now - is probably the perfect outlet for Dear John.

I also was thinking of making Dear John letters REALLY GOOD, so good that I could become another blogger with a book deal. I could be all Carrie Bradshaw and even better because I could find a creative outlet and a career in a time of pain and confusion.

But I don't know if I can really - if I'm being true to my feelings and what I would actually say to John** - pull that off. These letters will all probably be pretty whiny, and a lot will be analysis of lyrics, because that's what I do. I get too wrapped up in other's words.

Also, I was thinking back to my last break-up, and I could hardly remember it. What hurt the most at that moment of realization was that in a few years time, I can be in the exact same place I am now:

Totally upset about Boy XYZ, and having forgotten all about John. Now, is that fair to John? Does it allow me to grow? Or will I keep making the same mistakes?

**No, duh, his name is not John. Very far from it. Also, try this irony on for size: John broke up with me. And he did it in a very, very nice and considerate and somehow sexy way. So I am not breaking up with him with these letters, just loving and thinking and trying to grow. Maybe one day I'll even share with him the link.