The Wild One, Forever
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — the pied pipers of the broken hearted.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — the pied pipers of the broken-hearted.
So, here I am again with the one woman who won’t leave me. Lulu. My cat. I’m not saying she wouldn’t leave if I let her out of the front door, but she’d probably just go far enough to chase the birds. Lulu and I have that in common. We both chase birds, albeit different species and for different reasons, the results are the same — we both end up in the same chair, alone, listening to all kinds of sad bastard music.
Currently spinning on the digital Wurlitzer is the master of romantic verisimilitude, Tom Petty, and his appropriately named Heartbreakers.
The X is gone. She said she would think about what she wanted. I foolishly believed she would do it. Perhaps that’s cynical, but I’m no cynic — what kind of cynic would get back together with the woman who put his heart through a meat grinder once before?
Here the Lu, and I sit, listening and thinking. Sure, maybe she’s thinking about the relationship (she = the X, not the Lu). But the reality is in what she said and not in the tears she couldn’t force:
“You’ll never be what I want you to be.”
I know she loved me. I felt it. But, I do think she sold the relationship short. Sometimes when you short the market you win (see Goldman Sachs) and sometimes you lose (see everybody else).
The truth is I never will be what she wants. Not out of malice or stubbornness, it’s just that the ideal person for her, or anyone, doesn’t exist. Maybe it does for some but I’m not a believer in “the one.” She’s chasing that unicorn of “the one.”
You either love the whole person or you don’t. She doesn’t understand that … yet. She will someday I hope.
Yes, of course, there is behavior I could have modified and changed. I suspect over time most of it I probably would have. Could she say the same?
“They call you the wild one, said stay away from her
Said she couldn’t love no one if she tried”
The Wild One, Forever
-Tom Petty
I met her at a friend’s birthday party. The funny thing about the party is that I knew no one. They were all up and coming comedians. I wasn’t. I had been drinking … a lot and had forgone dinner in exchange for a few more pints of Guinness at the bar.
It was about midnight when we finally met. I had spent most of the night talking to one girl thinking I could sweet talk her into coming home with me. It became clear that wasn’t happening when she flatly told me she would never date a white guy. She looked irritated when I said: “Who said anything about dating?”
Oh yes ladies, I’m a charmer.
Now, I recall talking to the X, but I have no recollection of any formal introduction and certainly had no idea what the hell I said. Or what she said.
I remember three things. One, my buddy whose birthday it was called me over and said: “be careful with that one dude”. Two, I recall drinking scotch on the roof and smoking a cigarette with her. And three, going to a bar and closing it out. I also remember not having any idea where I was and her offering for me to stay with her.
Okay, so that’s four things.
We’re all adults here, I think we can piece together what happened next. In the morning, I tried to sneak out because … that’s what you do, but she convinced me to stay … into the afternoon. When I did eventually leave, I got her phone number, wrote in on my hand because I had not yet grasped the idea of putting someone’s phone number DIRECTLY into my cell phone.
I knew we worked for the same company, so I checked her work stuff out. Did the requisite Google searching and the like. I did a little internet recon and decided to email her because, in what will come as no shock, the phone number got all mucked up with sweat and was illegible by the time I got home.
I emailed, she replied and we agreed to have dinner.
Although she would come to admit later she almost stood me up.
We fall in love, we move in together, we fight, she asks me to leave, I leave … it ended poorly … but I decide to stay in the neighborhood because I naively think she’ll come to her senses.
All of that happened in the span of about 14–15 months.
When we broke up, I began acting out. Like you can do when their heart gets busted. I eventually righted myself and moved on. Like you do.
About 14–15 months go by and she initiates contact with me again after seeing a photo of me with my the girl I was then dating … actually, not even her, just her hand. You see, while she may not have wanted me, no one else could have me. The relationship (or whatever) I was in was fine, even if I knew it would go nowhere. I think she and I were just killing time, but I’m a forward-facing guy, I just wasn’t interested in looking backward so I shrugged the X off.
However, the X pursued me doggedly. Since we lived only a few blocks from each other it was “Let’s get coffee.” and “What time are you taking the train in the morning?” etc. Not surprisingly, the relationship (or whatever) I was in spiraled downwards.
And that ended … poorly.
“Baby, time meant nothing, anything seemed real
Yeah, you could kiss like fire and you made me feel
Like every word you said was meant to be
No, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me.”
Even the Losers
-Tom Petty
So the X and I reconvened.
The X attacked this second round of the relationship with a ferocity I didn’t know she had in her. She wanted me, me. Because I am an optimist, I bought it hook line and sinker.
I believe in the power of love (damn you Huey Lewis and your News). I made it a little difficult at first because I had never gotten back together with someone after that amount of time and there was some blood, not water, under the bridge. I think I was also just dumb enough to think she was the right girl at the right time.
We talked and determined that the only way forward was, to be honest … and we were. We talked openly and honestly about everything. I don’t think she withheld too much from me. It was good and more often than not it was great. She talked about kids, we talked about places we would go, things we would do. We made love, we had sex, we fucked. We laughed, we cried, we sat in silence. We did things, we didn’t do things. We had a relationship.
We were having two different relationships.
I’d be lying if I said it was all great. It wasn’t. We fought, sometimes viciously, but we always righted the boat. We would clear the air by clearing the head and putting perspective on what the real problem was. Intelligent discourse is something I can get on board with, even when it comes to emotions.
Care to guess how long Act II lasted? Let’s just say 14–15 months appears to be her threshold.
The X believes there is someone else out there who is going to fulfill her in some way I can’t. And I suspect that’s true. But that’s a dragon you can chase forever. I’m not entirely convinced she’ll ever know the meaning and value of what it means to be in love.
“I‘ve given up, I’ve given up
I’ve given up on waiting any longer
I’ve given up, on this love getting stronger”
Don’t Come Around Here No More
-Tom Petty
Everyone has “the one that got away”. Well, all things being fair, there is a reason why everything ends and time clouds the ability to see those reasons. So in some cases, what we see as “the one that got away” may, in fact, just be the one that ended before it got tragic and sad.
I’ll end up some story the X tells her kids. The one about the older guy she dated and who “got away.” She’ll tell her girls not to make the same mistake. And they will.
We all do.
She’ll tell her sons to treat their girlfriends the way I treated her and they will … and then they won’t.
The circle will never be broken, it’s the way of this sort of thing.
Love is what it is, a word.
It’s the feeling, emotion, and action behind, within, the word that defines it. Unless you can understand and wrap your head around all of that embedded in the word, then love is just a word.
Love is the easiest part of any relationship.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were the band for the brokenhearted — “Stop Draggin My Heart Around”, “Don’t Come Around Here No More”, “Straight Into Darkness”, etc. Something tells me he had some hurtin’ in his life.
Sex and drugs aren’t the fuel of rock and roll … if you think hard enough you’ll realize that the real fuel is love and broken hearts.
The X is gone and I don’t anticipate her return. Life is about choices and it’s statistically impossible to always make the right one. And with love, you may always doubt if it’s right, but you’ll know when it’s wrong. You’ll know.
She has an idea in her head. Don’t we all? The X owes it to herself to see if that person exists. I never said she was the right one for me, I simply knew I loved her and wanted her. I never promised I’d spend the rest of my life with her. I would’ve liked to try.
Who knows, maybe that Hollywood ending and true love forever exists for her. Based on my experiences, my friend's experiences, every artist's experiences, every musician's experiences, every writer's experiences, I don’t think so.
Love has more to do with work, compromise, acceptance, understanding, hurt, empathy, respect, pain, tenderness, support, understanding, laughter and sacrifice and so much more.
And any of those can change on the drop of a dime.
When you fall in love, and I mean true love, you strap yourself in, put your helmet on, and go along for the ride. Sometimes that ride stops short of its destination.
While it hurts, you do the only thing you can do — take a breath and let it go.
“ But remember, good love is hard to find,
good love is hard to find,
you got lucky babe
you got lucky babe, when I found you.”
You Got Lucky
-Tom Petty