You’re Like a Diamond…

“… But she treats you like Glass
Yet you beg her to love you…
But me, you don’t ask.”
– Gladys Knight and the Pips

Jealousy is a disease…

So this morning’s song(s) are courtesy of my co-worker / sister Drenna. Her FB status updated and firmly planted this song in my head. And her comment on her own status after posting similar lyrics was “I just sang that song HARD in my pillow like I was Gladys,” and I felt her. I remember hearing and singing that song and having it touch me in a special place.

In all honesty, I think most women have probably shared a view from this same vista. Watching someone that you could love with all your might and make him as happy as you know he could be but he pines away for someone who isn’t worth his time and effort. And you sit there at times from afar (or maybe not so far) trying to gently convince him w/o breaking boundaries that maybe… maybe being with HER isn’t such a great idea for his life. Gently. And it can spin off in a million directions from there. He could completely ignore you. He could take you up on that suggestion and start dating someone else. He could decide to stay with her AND somehow be with you. All roads, with your rose colored glasses of what your particular future with him could be like, lead to fuckery. But it’s so impossible to see situations as they should be when you’re the one afflicted with “love” or “infatuation” as it were. You just know you could do better for him – appreciate him the way he “deserves” to be. There have been a MILLION songs written to express the same sentiments shared by women looking on as they “spend the rest of their lives knowing that someone else is married to their husband” (copyright When Harry Met Sally). A more recent version of the same sentiment was expressed over heavy beats and staccato piano by Mary J. Blige and Li’l Kim in “I Can Love You”. In the 90’s there wasn’t a girls head that wasn’t bopping to this jam. So I included it in the playlist.

Truth be told, I’ve been in that situation more times that I care to count. To say that my marriage sprouted from such a situation would be an exaggeration. Yes, he was in love with some silly girl who had NO idea what she had in her possession. But at the time that I found Earl romantically — HE had already made the decision that he could do better. I mean… it was after learning that she’d slept with… well… everyone. And when Earl is done? He’s effin’ DONE. So I didn’t have to compete with her in that regard. I did, however, have to fight her off a few times as she (of course) came to the realization of what Earl could have been to her later and she tried to *ahem* reclaim what was hers. Y’all that know me? Knows that was NEVER. HAPPENING. But the essential is that the lynch pin in the decision is HIM feeling like he can be loved better by someone else. Till that happens? You’ll just be in the corner pining and wasting your precious lifetime when you can find someone else who can belong all to you and appreciate all this love you have to give.

I’ve also been on the flip side… where some girl convinced my then man that she could do better for him – and he believed her enough to see her behind my back. And upon finding out, I’ll let him be with her instead, cause I didn’t want to have anything to do with that anymore. Well… those relationships never lasted long… but I ALWAYS found myself in at least one situation where he was there with his new girl… and she was giving me the side eye like I wanted anything more to do with them. And the last song on my list would have been PERFECT as a soundtrack.

It’s always better to put that lamenting energy in to finding someone just for you instead of making yourself crazy for someone who could give a shit.

(friends reading this off of my facebook feed who can’t see the playlist, click on “View Original Post” before the comment box to go to my blog and listen to the songs :))

  

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