Or, not.

Chrissie Hynde sings words straight out of my own soul. Or maybe my soul is straight out of her lyrics? She makes me think of me, when I was young. Maybe that sounds pretentious, I don't mean it to.

Why you look so sad?

A perpetual question, directed at Colin. What's so sad, you gotta ooze that out of every pore? If you have a feeling, express it. If you're mad, get mad. If you're sad, cry or something. Or, brood. A lot. That works too, but it doesn't really get it out, you know?

Colin was like a time-bomb of rage. Not scary, not in a personal-fear-of-safety sort of way, but definitely imminent. I didn't mind it then. It was because he had big thoughts, I was certain; powerful things happening in his brain that he didn't have words for. He couldn't express it, but I desperately wanted him to. I wanted to understand him, to sort out the cause of his sadness and his anger and his jealousy.

Let me see you through.

I spent a lot of time wanting to fix him. The Wendy Dilemma, no? If there was a cure for him, I would have searched tirelessly. If there was something wrong, I would pick at him until he told me or convinced me to go away. The latter happened more than the former, but that didn't stop me from trying.

When I was young and naive and thought I could fix any problem by simply loving him hard enough and long enough (and not in the way you're thinking, naughty ones), I would have. It was like, my mission. I was standing by my man, ala Mary Wells.

When I think about the me-back-then, I'm a little embarrassed. I didn't feel naive then, but comparatively... I'm not sure how he put up with my bright-eyed freshness, my insistence that he couldn't do or say one thing that would make me turn away from him. He eventually chose not to put up with it at all, something I would internalise for many years.

He really ruined everything. He dried up the part of me that will seek to understand mood swings, a ridiculous temper, inane argumentativeness, and the myriad of emotional responses that normal people have. Poor Husband, who gets so little patience from me. Fifteen years ago? I would have patted his hairs and whispered encouraging things to him as he was wallowing in his self-pity and his un-named demons. Today? Today I'd drop off a glass of water and tell him to grow up some.

When you're standing at the cross-roads, and don't know which path to choose...

He chose a little bit wrong, and I couldn't follow. Or, he chose a little bit right, depending on your perspective.

But The Pretenders... man, that never gets old.