Masochism

I love NPR. Love it so much that I tend to listen to it all day: in the morning, when I'm driving to the gym after work, and when I'm picking up my SO from his job. I even listen to it at work, mostly because I think it is better than the local rock station, which my co-workers love.

Today, while I was the only one in office for a few hours, I decided to listen to some old episodes of This American Life.

In the final hour of my workday, I listened to the episode titled "Breakups." Now, I had heard this episode before and loved it. Somewhere, in the back of my head, I knew this was probably not the best time to here those stories again, but I pushed that aside and clicked on the free podcast anyway.

May I just say: I am glad no one was in the office. One of the writers, a girl with the cutest lisp, played songs by Phil Collins, who she subsequently interviews in the piece. You never imagine yourself crying over corny weepy love songs, but that is what I did for about 15 minutes.

The girl played "Take A Look At Me Now," and the tears just came. Hearing about "empty spaces" and "coming back to you," when your not entrenched in the situation, seem juvenile. And yet, I had to grab a napkin within a second of the song clip.

The interviewer talked about how she wanted to write her ex a love song to try to get him back. All she wanted was for them to be together. And all I could think about is how I'm probably going to tear my heart from my chest soon. I still have that damn song stuck in my head, too.

Listening to her story made me wonder how I will be when it happens. Am I going to end up on the floor of my apartment in my pajamas listening to sad love songs and balling for hours? I'm not a songwriter, but will pages and pages of bad poetry or endless blog posts soon find their way on my computer screen?

Or will I chicken out again, and stay. For now, I'm going to the gym, listening to NPR. Denial girl has not made her last appearance.