Dwight Yoakam

One of my favorite Dwight Yoakam songs is "Guitars, Cadillacs". There's a line in it that says, "Girl, you taught me how to hurt real bad, and cry myself to sleep". I've learned that from certain fellows in my life. I wonder how many I've taught that to. I hope only the one who deserved it. I wonder why it is that we are taught that by relationships. Why is it that one cold look can knock us down? How can we unlearn how to cry ourselves to sleep? Is it just because I've been dating the wrong guys, or does everyone have those tiny scars that you can't see from relationships? Is it possible to listen to too much Dwight Yoakam? Can anyone articulate heartache better than him? Does love have to drive us to the brink of insanity? Why does it all have to hurt so much? I suppose there's a reason we have to express our feelings about love with words like pain, weakness, insanity, and scars. I just wonder if it is possible to get the love we all blindly thrash around for without all the pain. Maybe we aren't supposed to get it from someone else. Maybe that is all a lie. Maybe it comes from inside of us. Maybe it's from God. He's got a funny way of showing it for a lot of us. Maybe there is no such thing as true love, maybe all we can hope for is a close friend to share the rest of our lives with. Perhaps to survive in a relationship we have to accept that the other person will have the power to crush us with their rejection, and just live on the hope that they never will. Or maybe we are supposed to get to a point in our lives where there is no more fear of rejection, and then we'll be ready to do whatever it is that people do in a healthy relationship. That is a personal goal of mine. I'd like to reach a point with myself that I don't feel like I'm looking for something from someone else to make me feel good. I want to feel good about me by just being with me. Then I'll be at a point where I'm not choosing some jerk who ends up making me feel like crap. And, hopefully good guy who doesn't make me feel like crap all the time won't dump me a month later. Ok, wait. That already happened. I hope to strengthen that place where I feel good about me, and then when I get dumped after a month it won't ruin all the progress I've made. Maybe there isn't anything wrong with me. Maybe everyone just wants to be with someone who likes them for who they are, and isn't going to reject them for being completely NOT PERFECT. That's what I am. Completely not perfect. Most of the time, that's the way I like me. It's funny, though. Every guy I've ever dumped, it's been because he just wasn't perfect for me. ouch. I suppose there's a difference between perfect and perfect for me, though. Perfect is definitely not perfect for me. I don't think there is such a thing as perfect, anyway. The going definition of "perfect" in my neck of the woods generally makes me want to run screaming. Sorry, boys. Dwight, how did you know how to get it so right?