Like a Freight Train...

Sometimes the memories flood in - things you haven't thought much about for years.  Today, a song came on that I hadn't heard in years. It was "Everything I Own" by Bread, from 1972.  It was also the last song I used for a ballet solo, since I quit ballet when I was 15 because I was more interested in a boy.  My mom was so disappointed in me - I had been taking ballet since I was a little girl.

So, this song comes on.  I turn it up and next thing I know I am that young teenage girl again - performing my solo in my den in front of my two dogs, who don't quite know what to think.  Not as thin and not as graceful, but in my mind I can see the dark royal blue leotard with silver sequins and a matching ballet skirt and I am there again.

Then comes the freight train of  memories with the following verse:

"Is there someone you know
You're loving them so
But taking them all for granted
You may lose them one day
Someone takes them away
And they don't hear the words you long to say"

and I become a sobbing heap on the floor - huge, gasping, grieving sobs for so much that has been lost in the forty years since I last danced.  And the realization that I am also grieving what is happening in my life - the widening gap between the man that I love more than I thought possible and myself.  Because we both love each other, but we are both taking for granted that somehow this huge mess is going to work out - he is convinced that somehow I will come to love living in the confined spaces of a boat in places where I can find no privacy or peace or quiet, and I am convinced that somehow, as he continues to follow his dream with or without me, that he will be ready to settle down when it is done in one place and want me there beside him.  Deep down I know I will lose him to his dreams, and the words we don't say to each other are becoming an ever deeper abyss. 

This was in 1972 - I was nine in this one.