Winners and Losers

Tonight on the drive home I listened to a couple of songs on the radio and thought about the past year.

One was Over and Over by Nelly and the other was With You by Jessica Simpson (yes, I was temporarily on a pop-top40 station, all the good stations were on commercial breaks).

The lyrics to either weren't a big deal. Nor were the songs themselves really.

I was thinking about something totally unrelated to true love and guys with serious heartbreak. I was thinking about an 'us' that used to exist.

Ok, that sounds a little too harsh and jaded, and I'm sure it will be misinterpreted. But that's not what I mean.

I was thinking about this girl I used to know, that I love. I don't think I'll ever stop loving her.

But she's the second girl I've let slip away from me (her choice, both times, though certainly I take any blame for f***ing things up enough to make it reasonable for them to want to go).

And I've been thinking about the fact that I've taken this pretty badly. Still thinking from time to time about her, and how much I loved her and half wish I could win her back, etc. The usual guilt/drama/where-did-I-go-wrong?/what-if? stuff.

But from the rumours I hear (sparse though they are) she's with somebody new, and he's great.

And that's really a good thing.

And thinking about that made me remember what I used to always claim. I always insisted that I wanted her to be happy. I said that was my first objective. I also told her, for the length of our relationship, that there was probably somebody better out there for her, and she always insisted that she didn't want anybody else. I didn't mean to prove my point by screwing up both our lives. But I sortof did.

Well, no sortof about it. I messed things up for us both in some big ways.

But from what I hear she's better now, and getting on with her life, which is great, even if I'm not getting on with mine. I wanted her to be happy, and appearantly, she is.

I don't play a lot of sports, and I don't often think about things in terms of 'winners and losers'. I tend to focus more on situations where I can succeed without having to defeat the aims or goals of my fellows. I'd rather work with people than subvert their attempts at reaching for their dreams. I'd rather encourage than criticize. That's just the way I am.

But I work at a restaurant as a bartender, and spend most of my evenings surrounded by televisions displaying various sports, almost all of which demand that, in order for there to be a winner, there must be a loser.

So I came to the realization that if it comes right down to it, if for this girl to be happy I had to screw myself up for a time, and have a lot of regrets, but that somehow through no ability of my own, but rather random blessings from heaven, she goes on to be happy, as I claimed I wanted her to be. . . I'm ok with that. Because I did say that I wanted her to be happy--and she is, I hope.

So I hope she turns out to be the winner, because I'm happy that she's happy. And I guess, in a different way, that makes me a winner too.