Post for the broken hearted

I may turn this blog into an advice-to-the-broken-hearted blog. A lot of the readers who are coming here lately (and that's not a lot) seem to be coming based on a search of "how long does it take to get over someone?," or something to that effect, leading to an old post.

I wonder if I have any helpful advice to offer? I wonder if I could make any money at it?

If you are coming here to find out how long it takes to get over someone, or how long it takes for a broken heart to mend, there is no simple answer to that question. From experience, if your heart is truly broken, it will take a while. And sometimes, when you think you are past it, or the worse of it at least, something or someone will remind you of your pain and loss. The good news is the scar tissue builds up and eventually the pain is less severe with each passing hour, or day, or week, or month ... or year. It's not a linear progression, but a progression none the less, in spite of the regression and backsliding that inevitably occurs.

For me, as I remember it, the first few months were exquisite torture. When my ex moved out of town a couple months after our breakup, that helped, especially since we worked together. Seeing her every day for a few months kept the wounds too fresh and open. After she left, I could go for short periods of time without thoughts or memories of her and us crossing my mind.
The first six months were rough. The first year in fact. In the second year I changed jobs, moved to a new state and started some whole new routines, which helped me move on even further emotionally.

By the time I felt ready to date, there were no immediate prospects. Perhaps meeting someone new and spending time with someone new would have helped things progress faster. It had in the past, even if those rebound relationships didn't amount to much. That does not mean I would suggest anyone date just to date for the sole purpose of trying to mend a broken heart. And fortunately I have had someone to talk who I hope will be part of my life for a long time to come, but so far we have been kept by miles, bad luck and bad timing. The end of that particular story is not yet written.

We all move on in our own time and in our own way. If you are nursing a broken heart, I empathize with you, my friend. It does get better, even if it doesn't feel like it ever will sometimes. The time it will take will depend on how deeply you were in love, how long you were together, the depth and number of memories you creating with your ex and how often you have to confront the memories after the break up. A few significant "anniversaries" of dates important to the relationship may have to pass before those dates quit haunting you.

I just realized, just now as I wrote that, that one of those significant dates came and went a few weeks ago with no notice by me. I had no conscious thought of a certain date in mid-March. That date was supposed to my wedding anniversary. I forgot all about it.

Hmm. Imagine that.

I am very thankful for the friends who helped me re-establish a life as an individual again, talking to me about my feelings when I needed to vent and talking about anything and everything else when I needed to forget about my pain for a while.

Now that pain is distant, like a mirage on the horizon. It's like my mind is playing tricks on me. Was I really once engaged? Was there once a person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with? Perhaps, but whereas that once defined me and comprised most every waking thought, now that is just a fact of life. A small fact getting smaller, like the name of a third grade teacher, or knowledge gleaned for a college course. It's there, tucked away in a corner. Part of who I was. Part of what has made me who I am. But only a part, seemingly less significant with each turn of the calendar page.

Yes, if you bother to read any of the recent post here, you will not that I am not always a happy guy. I have good days and bad days. But even the bad days now are about me and the life I have now, my current struggles and foibles and failures. But they aren't about a life I may have once felt I lost, or was taken from me or someone who broke my heart.

No, on second thought, I have no desire to turn this blog lamenting a lost love. I empathize with the heartbroken who may come seeking help and hope, but I have no desire to try to remember how bad it felt when I felt bad about a lost love. This blog may not yet have evolved into what it will be someday. But one thing is clear, it is not the blog it once was. The posts with broken-heart themes are still there, but they aren't all that's there. It, and I, are just struggling to find our way and dreaming of what we may be, if and when we ever grow up.

There's a song, The Lonely by Toby Keith, on his Blue Moon album. It's one of those sad, broken-hearted country songs featuring a play on words. The lonely refers to the broken hearted people who congregate at a bar to drown their sorrows and The Lonely is also the name of the band that plays there. There's a line in the song that says: "If you are here to see 'The Lonely,', it's standing room only, for 'The Lonely'."

Well, if you are here to see "The Lonely" folks, that band has moved on down the road and is touring elsewhere. Sure, the band stops in and plays a set now and again. But "The Lonely" is no longer the house band.

How do you like your Chicks?

It is rare that I rush out the first day a CD or DVD goes on sale and buy it. It's usually not that important to me. But on Tuesday, when the Dixie Chicks' new album "Taking the Long Way" was released, I did make a special trip to the store to pick up a copy.

I had purchased and downloaded their new single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," from iTunes a few weeks ago. Although I had only listened to it a time or two, I had heard enough in the song to tell me that I wanted to hear the new CD. Lead singer Natalie Maines' vocals sounded as powerful as ever and I've been a fan of their music for years.

I didn't think too much about the controversy that had surrounded the group a few years ago. Maines, a Texas native, pissed off a lot of people with a comment during a concert in Europe where she said: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." Her comments came at a concert in London on March 10, 2003, just 10 days before Bush launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Country music radio and many fans reacted with outrage. Dixie Chicks music was pulled from the air on stations all over the country.

Now, here we are three years later and armed U.S. troops are still in Iraq, still fighting and dying, and Bush's popularity has faded tremendously, as has U.S. citizen support for the war in Iraq.

But the Dixie Chicks' music is still not back on radio. Not their monster hits from years past, nor their newest single. According to an article in the May 29 issue of Time magazine, country fans and radio stations are still holding a grudge.

One country music radio programmer who was quoted, but not named, in the Time magazine cover story said the new single is "a four-minute fuck-you to the format and our listeners. I like the Chicks and I won't play it."

Well, anyone who won't listen to the Dixie Chicks, or play their music, or buy their album because of their politics is welcome to their opinion, but I find it all pretty funny, is a sad sort of way.

I don't often talk about politics on my blog or in my personal life, because I think people get stupid when it comes to politics. Everything in partisan politics get painted with a very broad brush, but the real artistry of statesmanship, and life, is in the details.

Life doesn't fit in tidy packages. Republican or Democrat. Red state or Blue state. Conservative or liberal. Pro-life or pro-choice. NRA or anti-gun. Rock or country. Pop or rap. East or West. North or South. White or black.

The last few times I've registered to vote I have not picked a political party to affiliate with. The truth is, I don't feel either of the major political parties represents me. I can be quite conservative on some issues and quite liberal on others. I certainly don't fit into the base of support for either party. And frankly the parties don't seem to know what they believe in either. The Republican party, which austensibly believes in smaller government, has in the current administration eroded personal liberties and allowed government to snoop on its citizens in the name of national security. And Democrats can't seem to do anything to set their own agenda except to be against whatever Republicans are espousing.

But what I find most amusing about this whole flap over the Dixie Chicks and their music is that people get so fired up over it, and yet it's a safe bet that many of them who get so passionate in their support for, or boycott of, a singing group's music probably don't even bother to vote with regularity.

Entertainers, like the rest of us, are entitled to their opinion. And thankfully freedom of speech, though perhaps an endangered species, is still allowed in this country. However, that does not mean that freedom always comes without pain or sacrifice or the slings and arrows thrown from others.

Another irony of this whole Dixie Chicks flap is that before the whole dust-up over the comment about the president, the Chicks and singer Toby Keith also got into a running public pissing match starting in August 2002 over comments Maines made about Keith's song "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue (The Angry American)" in which Keith tells terrorists that the United States will fight back and put a boot in their ass.

Maines called the song ignorant. Keith shot back at Maines' abilities as a songwriter.

The irony is that Keith and Maines and the rest of the Chicks may be a lot closer in their politics than one might imagine. Keith, who is a Democrat, has also expressed reservations about the war in Iraq, even though he has been unflagging in his support for U.S. troops and was supportive of the U.S. action in Afghanistan.

Not all country music singers are Republicans. Tim McGraw is another high-profile Democrat in country music. And believe it or not, not all country music fans are Republicans either.

And that's the whole point. Stereotypes don't always fit.

Now the question is, where will the Dixie Chicks fit in the American music landscape. The group features a Southern twang and country instrumentation, but will country music accept them back? Or are they pop now? The Time magazine article says their new album "may be the best adult pop CD of the year." But the magazine also asks the question "Will anyone buy it?"

Well, sure some people will buy it, but will it sell millions of copies like previous albums have? That still remainst to be scene. The Chicks themselves seem prepared to accept a smaller fan base.

"I'd rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, and people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith," said Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks. "We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do."

Well, Martie, I have news for you. I've retired my five-disc changer, but my iPod does have Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith and Reba McEntire in it. Of course it has other stuff too, like Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Aerosmith. There rock, pop, blues, alternative and country
music.

For me, I don't pick my music based on politics any more than I vote for politicians based on their musical tastes.

I still need to listen to the album a few more times to determine whether it will become a favorite, or whether it will fade into the background amid the hundreds of other CDs in my collection. But for now, it is in high rotation on the ol' iPod. If I like it enough I may even consider buying a ticket to their concert when they come to Portland in November. And if I don't like it enough, my music and concert money will be spent elsewhere, based on how the music resonates with me and my life, not pampered singers want me to vote.

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Dixie Chicks
Country music
Politics
Toby Keith