I’ve had a lot of music ruined in my time - the curse of being a hopeless romantic, I guess. Some of this loss was temporary; I’m finally able to listen to Pretty Hate Machine, ten years on now. Some of it fell within the acceptable range of casualties - that Aerosmith song about not wanting to close your eyes before the meteor hits the earth or whatever? No big loss there. But after much thought I remembered a really good song that in retrospect I wish I’d found a way to keep.

It was the summer after I graduated from college. I don’t know about other people, but for me it was a time to cling desperately to old ways even while the writing was going up on the wall: GROW UP. I was closing in on the end of said summer, the end of my lease in the lovely little college town in which I’d suffered and soared for the past four years, and the end of part-time scattershot slacker employment. And, I thought, the end of singlehood. My neglectful boyfriend with whom I had been on and off all through college had taken me back, and I was going to move in with him in the big city. What was that I was saying about clinging desperately to old ways? Better the devil you know, they say. So I was ready to grit my teeth and commit to him - largely because of the terror of the unknown.

It was August - the hottest of the hot, the pits of summer - and I was still a little tiny thing, the kind of girl who’s able to wear short-shorts and somehow make them look not so short. In Blacksburg they have a little summer festival called Steppin’ Out with vendors, music, and plenty of beer. I was hanging out downtown with some friends now lost to the mists of time, one of whom was a girl who knew everyone. And I mean, she seemed to know everyone, often in the Biblical sense. Some guy she vaguely knew through someone in that Biblical category started to tag along behind us. My first thought - ugh, how can we lose this jerk? - was quickly replaced by a hint of hrm, this guy looks kind of like a young Nicolas Cage. As a big fan of Valley Girl, this carried some weight.

The main recollection I have of that afternoon is him standing up at our little table of beery compatriots and stating with dramatic conviction: “I have something I need to tell you all.” (Dramatic pause.) “I have found Jesus!”

He thought this non sequitur was hilarious. We stared at him blankly. There were not a few eye rolls. But for some inexplicable reason, he seemed hotter and hotter to me. Maybe it was just because it was August. Maybe it was the nerdy glasses. Maybe subconsciously I knew I was about to make seven different major life mistakes, and adding another one to the pile wasn’t going to make that much difference. Whichever it was, or all of the above, I ended up giving him my phone number. I think I tried to do this surreptitiously so that my friends, who clearly thought this guy was a tool, would not notice. At the time, I didn’t think of this as a warning sign. Go figure.

He called me later that night. After a very short deliberation, I met up with him at his house. Which he glamorously lived in alone. It didn’t take long for us to spool out our tastes, our needs, our life stories. At first it seemed so easy it was almost laughable; I already had a cynicism about the words “soul mate” that I retain to this day. But the concept was bubbling around in the soup of my lusty hindbrain. I can’t remember if we hopped in bed that night, or the next day, but the deal was sealed early on. I hoped he didn’t think of it as a random one night stand; he seemed to open up in a way that could have been practiced but could have been earnest. Hell, it could have been both. By day two I didn’t care - I had remembered that there were better things in life than the half-assed boyfriend who’d treated me like crap and come crawling back… and who, by the way, didn’t look a thing like Nicolas Cage. And then I promptly forgot about that boyfriend. He didn’t fit into my new worldview.

And I wonder / When I sing along with you / If everything could ever feel this real forever / If anything could ever be this good again

I already loved that song, as a good hopeless romantic would. It might have been the first thing that felt that real to me. I spent that week learning about Jamie, listening to a song he wrote for me, sharing his weird tastes (which were weird enough that I won’t repeat them here), meeting his parents (!), and telling him everything - well, almost everything - about me. The Colour and the Shape had been out for a while, but now I had a focus for the swell of emotion that came when I listened to it. Jamie sang and played the guitar for me on those few sweaty afternoons we had together. We made each other mix tapes; he loved music the way I loved music, but I don’t recall telling him I knew this was our song, at least not until it was too late.

He announced before the week was over that I should scrap my plans to move north. I should move in with him. It was clear that this was meant to be. I had a decision to make.

See, I hadn’t mentioned the part about the boyfriend I was about to move in with. I am not proud, but I can’t and shouldn’t hide the fact that I wasn’t such a great person in my younger days. Where “not so great” equals “a complete lying shit.” I was so suspicious of this stranger who had walked in and set up shop in my world, when the only thing he’d done was make a phone call and been charming - I had no idea, amazingly, that I was the suspect in this case. After the way my boyfriend had treated me for the past four years, (poorly doesn’t begin to describe it, but that’s another set of ruined music for another time) hurting said boyfriend seemed almost logical.

The only thing I’ll ever ask of you / You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

The end of the week was coming. The moving date was coming. I couldn’t compartmentalize any more. And I was going to hurt more than just my boyfriend by the end. I did move up north. I didn’t accept Jamie’s admittedly cockamamie offer to move in with him. I tried to keep both of my plates spinning, and did so long enough to break up with my crappy boyfriend once and for always. The plates weren’t just broken, they were smashed: Jamie disappeared but for one sordid and uncomfortable evening in a motel room. I had said when, and he had stopped.

Now I have one set of gorgeous and beloved sepia photos, a better outlook on life, a favorite novel (Handling Sin by Michael Malone, if you must know), a men’s undershirt that still smells ever-so-faintly of man-sweat, stale Camel Lights and Carolina Herrera cologne, and an inability to listen to “Everlong.” I just hope that Jamie came out the other side with as much blessing and as little curse.