my careless contagion

Niall Horan's Too Much to Ask is a typical breakup song. I gravitated to it as my divorce neared about a year ago. After 20 years with the same woman, and my "heart dancing" without her, I was met with a potent mix of emotions of which I could scarcely make sense. Somewhere in our heads, so many of us think when we break up with someone that our rift could be easily repaired. "If they would only (fill in the blank)," we tell ourselves, we'd be inclined to give them another chance. When I told Kate, my ex-wife, I was leaving her the first time, she clearly wasn't listening. I can still see the room we were in as clearly as this one. I can see my anger in the air. I can feel that moment like it was yesterday and not more than five years ago.  After trying and failing to make our marriage work over the next few years, I again told her I was going to leave her. A great storm was in me for the longest time as I struggled with that possibility, and onc...

This Town is a song I passed on the radio one day after Cindy came back into my life. I heard enough of the song to go right back to it. As I listened closely to the lyrics, my heart melted because the song encapsulated so many of my thoughts about her.  I mentioned the song to her, and she said she had thought of me every time she heard the song. I guess it was our song. The town in question doesn't matter. We grew up together there, but it could have been anywhere. The truth is, I can't add much to the lyrics of this song. My thoughts are all there. When I saw that she had more than moved on from our fleeting stab at a relationship when we were freshmen in college, that she had two beautiful children and a handsome man in her life, my heart was glad for her. Secretly, it sank in me because someone else had more than made her happy.  I sat, holding my tongue, wanting to do as the song says and tell her all the words I wanted to say the first time around. And then ...