[Graphic language in this one.  Sometimes you just gotta let loose]

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Thank God Smashing Pumpkin’s Billy Corgan was such a control freak, or Silverfuck might not have happened.   And I wouldn’t have my baseball bat song. 

Click pic for audio sample.

I hear your winter.

And I hear your rain.

And I’ve failed your summer ways.

And I feel no pain.

I hear what you want

And I feel that way

I hear what you want

And I feel that way

I hear you fade away.

And I hear you crawl.

And I gave my life away.

And I feel no pain….and I feel no pain….and I feel no pain

And I… feel…. your…. pain.

She was my lover, so sweet.  She was my angel…

What I’ve recovered of me,

I put into a box underneath my bed….

The lyrics read so beautiful--but turn aggressive in the song--and tell about a recently ended all-consuming relationship—wherein the person gave up parts of themselves in order to be part of it--and that’s when the musical story grows in complexity.  He has broken up but he isn’t sobbing; he’s reflective.  He isn’t apathetic; he’s growing in awareness of himself, and the parts of himself that he gave up to be in that relationship.  And how resentful he is about it.  And he doesn’t want to mourn quietly about it, because he has lost more than a relationship; he lost himself in that relationship.  He made the ultimate sacrifice for a relationship and it still turned out like THAT.   And he’s totally super-pissed and needs to let loose.

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 February – July 2007 “…We’re just friends; this text is from S.; I have her pillow because she left it at the hotel during that business trip; this text is from S.; she’s married; let me take this call because it’s S.; I’m having wine with her and her husband at their house; I don’t know why she texts me so much; our marriage just isn’t working, Amy; I don’t know why I’m unhappy; but I don’t want to go to counseling; I want a divorce; I want to go through mediation so it’s quick; I need to have more of the money than you and the kids because I don’t want to live on a shoestring; Girls:  I’ll live close by and see you as much as ever; let’s go shopping for a rental around the corner; you can pick out your own rooms!; go back to school to get a career; I’ll be here to watch the kids whenever you need me to.” 

July 13, 2007:   ..”I AM in a relationship with her; she and her husband are already divorced, and I’ve been living with her during my long business trips; I’m moving to Virginia with S.and L. because it’s my only chance at happiness; I don’t want to end up like my parents; I needed all that money to fly back and forth to see the girls.” 

 July 2007-October 2008:  “I’m sorry the girls are upset about me moving; the heart wants what it wants; I don’t understand why they don’t want to talk on the phone with me?; can I borrow some of the girls’ books to read to L.?;  I’m sorry that Livy misses me so much; I’m sorry that you can’t go down to the basement to do laundry because they’re so afraid that you’ll disappear; I’m sorry Julia kicks holes in the doors;  I’m sorry that you had to quit your job because Livy couldn’t stop crying at school; I’m sorry you had to drop out of school to deal with the girls’ issues; I’m sorry you’re all so upset about this;  but it is what it is; I’m here with S. now; why can’t you be happy for me?” 

This is the shit that really went down during my marriages last hurrah.   During that year or so of exceptional bullshit. 

On that day when he moved away, the girls chased his moving truck down the street.  And he saw and stopped the truck.   Livy had lost her first tooth that day—in a bowl of popcorn, which required quite a search--and J.’s dad and I were both there, trying to talk some sense into him.  ‘Cause he cheated.  Okay.  What-freaking-ever; it happens.  But he wasn’t that kinda guy who would move 2000 miles away from his kids.  He came from a stable family.  He had a wonderful example of a dad to look up to.   Don’t do this, J.  We both said it.  Live here, and fly back and see HER.  

And when the truck stopped, I hoped that his sense had come back.  That the tooth and our talk had done it.  And he would stay here--for a year, til the girls got settled--and fly back to visit her.  Stay, and not risk the permanent replay in his girls’ heads of this scene of utter rejection.  Stop the truck and park, because no one was worth damaging them in that way. 

But it didn’t happen.  He just got out and gave them one more hug.  Then got back in and drove off. 

And the girls fell apart.

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Click for audio sample.

The guitar in Silverfuck is loud and aggressive and at times too much for me, especially at the end.  (Now, if I was at a Smashing Pumpkins concert, my feeling might be different, ‘cause of taking the mushrooms and stuff.  j/k).    But the drums that start at the minute mark and the whispered lyrics temper the guitar--bringing us through the seeming-chaos--and guide me into the parallels in my own life. 

I just did every fucking thing to make the marriage work.  Every fucking thing. 

And people—mostly those scared shitless of being cheated on--will conjecture that cheating is just a symptom, and that there’s something already wrong in a marriage that leads the cheater to cheat.  And I’m like:  Duh, there’s something wrong in the marriage!  There’s a fucking cheater in it! 

But we had a great sex life.  And I was there emotionally for him.  At the expense of myself, even.  I gave up so much to be with him--important parts of myself—and never knew it because, at the time, I just thought I was doing whatever it took to have a functional, long-term relationship (having reformed myself, during the marriage, from one who bails too soon into one who was essentially hyper-committed to commitment).  And I became so ingrained in that pattern, that I didn’t even know what I had given up until years after we divorced.  And I’m like—Jesus—how could I have changed myself so much for that asshole, when he obviously wasn’t even worth it? 

“When you lie… in your bed.

And you lie, to yourself.

....Lie....

....Lie....”

And then when he left me, and left our girls, I was like, “Are you fucking kidding me?  Really?”, and landed in a spot where I realized that I had given all this up—my voice, my thoughts, my viewpoints, my initiative, my time, my trust—thinking, for fourteen years, that he was some special guy worth keeping, when—really—he was just like everybody else.  Average.  Weak.  And I wasn’t even that mad at him; I was more mad at myself.  Because, realistically, being angry at him--who I had no control over and who was acting like a dipshit who had just gotten his first penis--seemed pointless.  But I was smarter than this shit, and had control and power over my actions.  And look at me:  how brilliantly I'd navigated my adult life!  That's some depressing, anger-inducing shit:  to have to live with where my own choices had led me.  

Some of us don’t need permission to be aggressive.  Or don’t have a dormant fuse.  But not me.  I’m pathologically easygoing, remember?  And it became clear that I’d have to adapt my survival strategies to fit the requirements of the situation.  Because nice people like me often fool themselves into thinking that the high road is the only road.  And they get taken by a sneak attack and their baseball bat is wrestled from them. 

And there I was.  At the end.  Alone.  Reflecting.  Trying to keep my shit together for my kids.  Trying to prevent a lifetime of sadness from settling into their 6 and 9 year old hearts. 

And I really needed that fucking bat.

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The day he finally admitted that it was all a ruse and that he was moving away, I threw a cup of cold coffee at him.  And it’s funny, because he got so indignant about it.  Like, in throwing the coffee, I was pushing boundaries of decent behavior that were simply intolerable to him.    Pretending to himself, I guess, that he hadn’t just confirmed that he'd fucked us all over, and would be breaking the kids’ hearts by moving away to live out his mid-life crisis with that 50-pair-of-jean-owning, psychopathic bitch.   Seriously, J.?  This is the hill you want to die on?  Coffee on your shirt?  Yeah, asshole.  Here’s that coffee. And don’t forget your fucking Eminem CD too.  Can’t have a mid-life crisis without that, now, can you asshole?

6:20

“Bang, bang you’re dead,

 hole in your head.

Bang, bang you’re dead,

hole in your head.

Bang, bang you’re dead.

Hole in your head.

6:46

I hear what you want

And I feel that way

I hear what you want

And I feel that way.”

This song was one of my sanity-savers during that year.  Because I was pissed--at myself, at life, at him--and disappointed, but had to keep it together.  I didn’t want to be “angry mommy” and make my kids feel like they had lost me too.  So I’d turn up the music and—with disc and decibels—would try to laser it all into my brain.  Or, out of my brain, depending on my mood.   And the music lit the fuse, and breathed life into the acceptance that it was okay to be super-fucking pissed about what had happened, and about J. and S.’s continuing demands and dysfunction.   To fantasize—amid loud guitar--of pummeling some sense into them both with my girls’ stiff foam baseball bat.  Because anger is a good teacher, and a great agent for change, and I didn’t ever want to be in that position again:  blindsided, without even a strong sense of self-awareness to protect my kids from further uncertainty.  And also, I guess, because I had this little spark of intuition pushing me into acknowledging that heartless, morally-bankrupt mother-fuckers usually don’t change until the nicest, most patient person they know finally stands up to their bullshit and says, “Fuck you!!!” 

Then—at 8:42--the music would fade out, I’d give myself a pep talk, and reality would set in.  The reality where I had to be the voice of reason.  Where I couldn’t ever devolve into a complete emotional meltdown because my kids were looking to me as a source of strength.   Where I didn’t want them to blame themselves, and yet also needed to leave them room to love their Daddy. 

Where I didn’t know what else to say so I told them the truth:  Daddy was just making a mistake.  “Because that’s just what people do sometimes, girls; they make mistakes.” 

The soft, slow parts in Silverfuck mixing with the loud and fast signals a complex journey from one form of aggression to another.  Because you can’t always be loud guitar, in-your-face coffee-throwing-baseball-bat aggressive; it’s too much work.  You have to balance it out with smoldering, simmering, plotting aggressive.   Aggression, where you watch him impulsively run off—knowing he will regret it--and stay here, and rally, and become stronger than you ever thought you could be.

Image of the band retrieved October 7, 2012 from http://www.google.com/imgres?start=103&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=709&tbm=isch&tbnid=w3T7RKazq6o0KM:&imgrefurl=http://kompormbeldok.blogspot.com/2008/08/smashing-pumpkins-flag.html&docid=7mAHoyl0SiuLnM&imgurl=http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/9022/smashingpumpkins9vy.jpg&w=386&h=502&ei=EcxxULj5CeKDjAKMuYDAAQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=311&sig=111113589277632839098&page=6&tbnh=158&tbnw=119&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:103,i:99&tx=67&ty=70