2010
SAPPHO SPEAKS: ARE YOU REALLY THE PERSON I LOVE?
| Hot: |  |  | | | |
Lectori Salutem! or L.S. (Greetings to the Reader!)
For the first time I am going to ask you to go listen to the one and only song available on today’s website and it’s by up and coming artist Kate Voegele off her first album called WISH YOU WERE. I had already been thinking of this phenomena since I had written about social chameleons and how insidious they are. When talking to my friends, I realized that it didn’t take a chameleon or any special powers at all to make us idealize the person we are with, especially those doomed relationships that leave us scratching our head, wondering why we want her back in our life so badly when the reality of her does not mesh with the vision in our heads.
A lot happens over the course of a year or 6 months, especially if you have convinced yourself that love is in the air. The beautiful, smart, funny, artist with so much talent had you backing her in every way as she put together pieces for a showing. It took awhile to realize that the only art you were going to see done by her had been completed in the distant past and the gallery showing was a pipe dream intended to draw your enthusiasm and financial support on each and every date you ever went on. She was the starving artist. IN your mind she had become so much more.
Since you had worked hard for your dreams, you had created a life for the both of you where her creativity was met with critical success and the two of you thought of moving in together somewhere after year one. Maybe a real artist’s loft for the both of you to express your talents, you at a desk, she at an easel – you could picture the both of you in your mind’s eye. Where on earth did these images come from?
Not once had you seen her brush in hand or heard her brainstorming an idea for a piece of art. It was a daily bitch fest of how hard life was as an office manager (she had a great gay boss with cushy hours and great benefits) and how she just couldn’t muster the energy for her art. Why, oh why was this never the accurate picture that came into your mind as you thought of her and the sadness you felt once she was extricated from your life. The worse part would be that she would leave you for being too supportive and putting pressure on her to create when she just wasn’t ready to move in that direction. She needed someone more laid back than you. Ouch!
Now that she was gone, you just knew if you had given her more space to be her authentic self, the two of you might have had that loft in midtown. God woman! Open your eyes! This woman is a waste of space in your life plan and projecting on her the attributes of the person you really want to be with only prolongs the agony. God, I have heard this story around the lesbian water cooler for years and watched it happen to so many of my friends. For me, that infatuation love happened only in my younger years but it follows many to their grave.
How many times have some of you said to yourselves the lines in this song, “I’ve seen your act and I know all the facts. I’m still in love with who I wish you were. It ain’t hard to see who you are underneath. I’m still in love with who I wish you were. I wish you were here.”
The truth is, I really can’t say it any better or more eloquent than the simple lyrics of this perfect little song, WISH YOU WERE. So beware of what your heart sees, especially in those early stages of love (cause sometimes you ain’t in love with her but a figment of your imagination) and also when it has been freshly broken. It is in these times it sees through optical glass and life should have a warning that “images are not as they appear”. Take care of yourselves and try to see everything as 20/20.
Much Love.
Inspired by Sappho
MUSIC OF THE DAY
As I said, today is going to be a great up and coming singer and I am going to treat you with two versions of the same song, one full band and the other acoustic. Of course as I said, it is called Wish You Were.
Wish You Were Kate Voegele
Wish You Were (Acoustic) Kate Voegele
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside of you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phase like ‘maybe we should just be friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul hurt, a real get’s-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
Neil Galman
