She's a Waterfall

After a breakup, music is so powerful. 

On Saturday, I heard Steely Dan's first few notes of "Peg" on the car radio, then immediately shut it off. I then had a hidden mini panic attack in front of my 14-year-old son on our way to buy him a new pair of sneakers. I'm 50 and thought that man would be my husband - we’d been dating for 6 years. When I told my son we broke up, he looked at me and said matter-of-factly, "What are you going to do? There can't be another one." I agreed with him. All I can listen to lately is The Beatles channel. When it was exactly 7 hours and 15 days after the breakup, I listened to Sinead O'Connor on repeat. I posted a photo of the (I can eat my dinner at a) fancy restaurant that I ate at alone when I went to Paris to celebrate my 50th birthday. He didn't go, didn't want to, didn’t text to ask if I got there ok, didn’t ask how my trip was afterwards. 

I brought his daughter presents from Paris the day after I returned home. Neither asked to see my photos. "You didn't call me on my birthday," I told him when we sat at the kitchen table 25 days ago, finally ending it, him all slumped over. God, I'm not going to miss his smug daughter. “You know where she gets that from…” says my therapist. 

I was listening to KEXP radio last night, and Kevin Cole played Waterfall by the Stone Roses. I remembered that photo of my college-aged ex-boyfriend in England in his Stone Roses t-shirt—my favorite photo of him. The song resonated. She'll carry on through it all. She's a waterfall. I will.