PROMPTuesday #42, Remember When?

So, San Diego Momma had to go THERE with today's PROMPTuesday...and kinda weird in a way since "the song" made a debut back into my life just a month or so ago at my office of all places.

"The Song" is actually "Long December" by the Counting Crows. This was our song...and by our, I mean mine and my high school sweetheart and oldest daughter's father. He is not my high school sweetheart anymore, nor my oldest daughter's father. In fact, he is a balding, self-absorbed, completely selfish bastard, who will most likely rot in hell for all the bad karma he has put out into this world.

BUT...before I knew all of that, we were high school seniors who had known each other since 6th or 7th grade. But as seniors, we were an item. We were an item whose song was "Long December". I can't even recall how it became our song...but our song it was. Our relationship was over before it began, but we got completely lost in it for a blink of eye. No matter where we were, or what we were doing, we would dance if that song came on. Yes, we pulled over to the side of the road and danced. Yes, on my way to work at Old Navy, he hauled ass up a backroad to catch me at an intersection to blow me a kiss because our song was on. And yes, as our relationship was ending because I was pregnant with his daughter, we both cried during one of our last times together because the damn song came on. And yes, my eyes are welling up right now just thinking about the horrible, heart-breaky song.

I had no idea how powerful songs were, especially ones that remind you of someone you abhor. Of someone who came into my daughter's life when she was 8 years old, after never being involved in her life, and made the promise that if he was going to get involved that he would stay involved, and that bastard disappeared off the face of the earth after just one year. ONE YEAR. And left my daughter more wounded than had she never known him at all. And how ironic that it was after that Christmas that he disappeared? Guess it truly was a Long December. God he's a jerk.

Anyway, to tie it back to the mention I made about my office...and how mad it makes me that this song can still affect me in an embarrassing way...my co-worker listens to random music in his office, and our offices are situated as such that when we all leave our doors open, we can hear this music. So, one day, as I'm busy doing my Business Analyst-ish stuff...I hear "It's been a Long December, and there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last." I pause, and listen, to make sure I'm really hearing what I'm hearing...then I get that knot in my sternum that rolled it's way up to my throat. You know that knot...the one you get when you're trying really hard not to cry because you're a grown ass woman, and that guy is a bastard and you don't owe him anymore tears? Yeah, I got that one. I struggled through the rest of the song, thinking that it will probably be a super long time before that song ever makes it back through my co-worker's play list on his iPod. So, I shake it off.

But...the next day, when it's on again...I march straight to my co-worker's office and say "Please don't ever play that song again, unless you want to kill me or make me cry".

I have not heard that song since.