Divisions and Precisions

What Might Have Been

It's funny how a song takes you back. I've been playing around a lot on Napster. It's sort of neat, to have a song come to your mind, and just to be able to find it and download it, and then listen to it. I did that tonight. While I was roleplaying, someone used the phrase "what might have been". It triggered one of those odd cross-references, and I remembered having a favorite song by that name, once upon a time.

Summer, 1993. I was living in Martin, Tennessee, a supposedly happy housewife. Neither of us were employed, Gary was in school full time, and I couldn't find a job to save my life, aside from being (unbeknownst to me) horribly depressed and well on my way to agoraphobia. I was spending most of my days at home, rarely leaving the house. I can't quite remember what I did with my time. We didn't have a computer at the time, my first bout of internet addiction was still several months away. I remember reading a lot. I spent a lot of time at the puny county library. And watching a lot of movies. Bizarre ones, foreign movies, surreal movies, whatever. I had no real friends, with the possible exception of the couple who lived across the sidewalk in our apartment complex. We were more acquaintances than anything. I babysat for them from time to time.

So. I spent most of my days in our air-conditioned, dim apartment. Dim, because I kept the blinds closed almost constantly. I read. I watched movies. And... I listened to the radio. Constantly. If the TV wasn't on, the radio was. Silence drove me bonkers. At the time, I listened a lot to a puny local station (puny library, puny radio station... trust me, everything in Martin was puny). Their morning show guys knew me by name, I called them so often. It was a pretty sad way to try and feel connected to the world around me, but hey, we do what we have to do.

The other station I listened to was the country station from the nearest 'big' town. I was really into country that year. A song came out that broke my heart that summer of 1993: "What Might Have Been" by Little Texas. I cried the first time I heard it, and nearly every time afterwards. But I still couldn't seem to hear it enough. When it would come on the radio, I'd sit there, stockstill. Sometimes I'd even press my head to the radio on the headboard of the bed, just listening, and usually crying. The harmony gave me goosebumps, the words tore me up. Now I realize why, of course. I was desperately unhappy, and the words spoke to that part of me that knew how unhappy I was, the part that I was hiding. Every once in a while, listening to it, I'd flash onto Bob, my ex-boyfriend from high school, and wonder where he was.

Sensory impressions come back to me: the feel of our waterbed (where I spent a lot of my time reading), the sound of the central air conditioning kicking on and off, it was amazingly loud. Tennessee summer nights, humid and warm and sticky with swarms of mosquitoes. The faint smell of manure and sewage that always permeated Martin on damp days. The dim light of the bedroom in the afternoons, with the sun blocked from the window. The smell of me after too many days in the house and too many days unshowered. The feel of the tears that fell at the drop of a hat, but most often at love songs, and almost always at "What Might Have Been".

So tonight, I was curious how I'd react to hearing it again, after all this time. It all came back. God. There are so many memories I'd lost, memories I'd left behind. Maybe they were better left behind, maybe not. I don't know. I just have such a vivid impression of me as that 21 year old girl, how alone she was. I don't think I've ever been so alone in my life, before or since. God knows I never want to be there again.

Listening to this song now... it strikes me as faintly trite and tired, although I still like the melody and the harmonies. I haven't really cried listening to it, just a tear here and there while writing this. I haven't cried, but I feel... sad. Not a heart-crushing sadness, just... sorrow for that lost girl who was trying so hard to make her life work, trying hard to find her way through a minefield. I'd lost her, amidst therapies, and anti-depressants, and years of a better life... I'd disconnected from her. I left her alone again.

Not anymore. She's part of me. She had her own lessons to teach the woman I am now. I can hear her, in my mind, singing along with the radio:

Sure I think about you now and then
But it's been a long, long time
I've got a good life now, I've moved on
So when you cross my mind

I try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then and we have taken different roads
We can't go back again, there's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

We could sit and talk about this all night long
And wonder why we didn't last
Yes, they might be the best days we will ever know
But we'll have to leave them in the past

I try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then and we have taken different roads
We can't go back again, there's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

That same old look in your eyes
It's a beautiful night
I'm so tempted to stay
But too much time has gone by
We should just say goodbye
And turn and walk away

I try not to think about
What might have been
'Cause that was then and we have taken different roads
We can't go back again, there's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

No, we'll never know
What might have been