Writer's Block: Take me back
May. 30th, 2011 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feste_sylvain[Error: unknown template qotd]
Why, yes. Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" was the song that my ex and I held as "our song" during the summer of 1985, when she was stranded down in Florida living with her parents, before she came back up to college to get her MS in Mechanical Engineering. That song was in heavy rotation then, and even tho Henley intended it to mean aging, questioning the past, and acceptance of our own youth, the lyrics spoke to us a bit differently: she was dealing with beach bums in her summer job ("boys of summer"), and would be returning north to resume her life and our relationship ("my love for you will still be strong / after the boys of summer have gone").
We broke up badly in 1991; one of my other exes claimed that this was because we did everything we could to salvage the relationship, so when that failed, we literally had nothing left. As a result, on the few occasions when we did run into each other afterwards, there was more than a bit of acrimony (mostly on her part).
She committed suicide in 1994; her wake was the day before my first daughter was born.
So I had to wait until I was driving my family down the highway, where we were between good radio stations, to tune into an oldies station which was playing "The Boys of Summer". My eyes welled up, and all I could say was "Not now!" as I hit the scan button to find another station.
Once I knew the problem existed, I could deal with it in controlled circumstances, and now the song only raises goosebumps on my arms.
Why, yes. Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" was the song that my ex and I held as "our song" during the summer of 1985, when she was stranded down in Florida living with her parents, before she came back up to college to get her MS in Mechanical Engineering. That song was in heavy rotation then, and even tho Henley intended it to mean aging, questioning the past, and acceptance of our own youth, the lyrics spoke to us a bit differently: she was dealing with beach bums in her summer job ("boys of summer"), and would be returning north to resume her life and our relationship ("my love for you will still be strong / after the boys of summer have gone").
We broke up badly in 1991; one of my other exes claimed that this was because we did everything we could to salvage the relationship, so when that failed, we literally had nothing left. As a result, on the few occasions when we did run into each other afterwards, there was more than a bit of acrimony (mostly on her part).
She committed suicide in 1994; her wake was the day before my first daughter was born.
So I had to wait until I was driving my family down the highway, where we were between good radio stations, to tune into an oldies station which was playing "The Boys of Summer". My eyes welled up, and all I could say was "Not now!" as I hit the scan button to find another station.
Once I knew the problem existed, I could deal with it in controlled circumstances, and now the song only raises goosebumps on my arms.
