If you could only see

*This song was on the radio a lot in 1996 and 1997. I guess it seeped into my subconscious. After I met the girl I would eventually leave Nebraska for and start a new life with in Ohio, I consciously adopted this song as my "theme song" for our relationship. Obviously, this song is not about loving a girl; it's about rejecting how or who you're being told to love. It's a breaking-free song. I was breaking free from my parents with my act of defiant love for someone who I knew they would hate.

Anyone who knew me at the time was probably well aware that I generally did not love pop songs. This is a pop song, yet I adopted it. It became mine. All the years since then, when I hear this song, I immediately go back to that cross-country trip and what were the beginnings of my new life. I simply could not explain what I was doing or feeling to anyone. This song kind of bridged the gap.

If I could stay within the parameters of this band, then I could easily describe how that relationship turned out. In the years to come, I gravitated more toward another of Tonic's hits, "You wanted more." This is how I came to understand that relationship that I gave up so much to experience. Clearly, bitterness was not just contained in the song, but was in my heart as well. Unfortunately for me, I let that bitterness become apathy, and, without acting out, I simply died. I died my way out the relationship. I ceased to exist.

This year, I somehow made my exit from that relationship. With whatever I had left, seemingly. Because now I lay completely broken at the feet of what was once my marriage. I haven't gone far. I simply cannot move. It took everything I had to make that final move, and here I am, unable to move on. There is nothing to move toward and nothing to move away from. So I sit in the pile of my brokenness and wait until the wind blows me away or until someone kicks me out of the way. As I write this, it's clear I have become one of those tragic divorce cases where one of those people was simply never the same, forever changed in some awful way. Perpetually sad. Perpetually morose and cynical. I'm a divorce burnout. But at least I have a name and a reason. Before this, I was simply locked in a dead relationship and showed the same symptoms, only the reasons weren't quite so obvious. The death of a 20+ year relationship can make someone who is already sad seem downright tragic. So I'm a tragic casualty of divorce. Welcome to my tragic world. Thank you for listening.*

If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says

When she says she loves me
Well you got your reasons
And you got your lies
And you got your manipulations
They cut me down to size
Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
If you could only see the way she loves me

Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says

When she says she loves me
Seems the road less traveled
Show's happiness unraveled
And you got to take a little dirt

To keep what you love
That's what you gotta do
Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
You're stretching out your arms to something that's just not there

Sayin' you love where you stand
Give your heart when you can
If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me

Sayin' you love but you don't
You give your love but you won't
Sayin' you love where you stand
Give your heart when you can

If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about or love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me