Dear Leader, formerly The Sheila Divine, is a Boston-based band that came into my life via a work friend (thank you, Jeff!) in 2004 and still maintains a spot in my “Frequently Played” list 17 years later! “Young Hearts” is best heard live and a song we can all relate to because it details out those conversations you dread but inevitably experience.
this is for “we need to talk"
this is for “it’s not you”
this is for “i have feelings”
this is for “i’ve been untrue”
this is for all you’ve been through
this is for sad goodbyes
this is for big departures
this is for the lies and lies and lies
I love this song because it reminds me of all the times I have walked away from someone I thought I loved…or all the times I've been the one left behind when they walk away. We've all had those moments leading up to “the talk” - you can feel your blood run cold, you feel your stomach flutter and you know you're not coming out the same person that went in….
I was in love with someone from December 2003 straight through summer of 2006 - I say I was in love with an emphasis on the I because it was totally an unrequited love situation-ship. I was 21 and too naive for my own good; he was 26 and in an on-again-off-again relationship where they seemed to like hurting each other and making up more than actually being together. I got caught up with him during one of their “off” spells and became collateral damage in the wreckage.
I spent so many nights in my car across from his apartment or taking the long way home just sobbing - wondering why I wasn’t good enough, wondering what “it’s not you” really meant because he said it wasn’t me…but then I was the first person he called when he was hurt, signals that are mixed are the most confusing kind.
It took me a LONG time (longer than I should admit) to get over him and I think I subconsciously sought him out in every guy I met after him for years after. I was drawn to emotionally unavailable musicians, I found myself once again in more than one “situation-ship” where we were kinda-sorta-not-really-dating. It was an exhausting pattern and it consumed all of my twenties and a few years of my thirties. Honestly I think I was 32/33 before I realized I was worth so much more than half-hearted bullshit attempts at love.
When I originally started scoping out what a book would look like I joked with my BFF, Jewels, that I would have one blank page that said “Dedicated to the story of Brian - 2003-2006, a story that no longer has to be told”....
But that’s the thing with stories, they evolve and this one has evolved so much that it really no longer even needs to be told. It isn't worthy of an entry in my book or a blank page; it's just a lesson I eventually learned that I can look back on now as a stepping stone in realizing how far I've come. ❤️
