Castles Made of Sand

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE WELL NOT REALLY

I saw the young lady with the sad task of letting her boyfriend down today and she is still all torn up about it, some two weeks later. This, in turn, makes me sad, because she does not deserve the angst that comes along with these touchy breakups. And oh yes, to protect the innocent, she has asked to go by the code name "Pancake."

I would guess that she is just about certain that he is not currently the right man at the right time for her, but he has not taken her initial efforts at easing off the dating relationship very well at all. That's easy to understand. No one likes to face up to the fact that the love they have going on is one-sided, but, dude, face it anyway. It's time to man up and walk away with a little dignity.

I tried to reassure Pancake that this is part of every life - or every life worthwhile. Oh, there may be people out there who have never broken a heart nor had their own shattered like an old 45 record of Joe Tex singing "The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)" when it falls out of the record case you bought at Kresge's. You may be one of those people, but I wouldn't feel too fortunate for it. I still say, you need to sample a little bit of everything from the vast Asian Buffet of life...joy and sadness, luck and misfortune, high and low, yin and yang, brown and serve.

I tried to reassure her that the guy will eventually move on. It's only in movies that despondent swains join the French Foreign Legion. He'll find the right woman, who may in fact be she in a couple of years; who knows? All we know is that the "she" of today is not right for the "him" of today.

I tried to reassure her that the only alternative to breaking it off is - staying with him forever and being his reluctant wife and mother to his children.

I tried to reassure her that no one really wants someone who only stays around so as not to break a heart. That is no basis for a relationship.

Once again, I turn to the rich garden of verse from the library of old-skool country music. Freddie Hart and the Heartbeats remind us, "Feeling is believing, and I feel it...and if you can't feel it, it ain't there."

I tried to reassure myself that sweet, kind people should not have to undergo heart-rending pain, but it's in every life, so we're all going to beat on, boats against the current, but instead of being borne back ceaselessly into the past, as Fitzgerald said, we're also rowing our boats confidently into the future.

It's really the only way to go.

Good luck, nice Pancake lady. It'll be all right. It always has been.