13: All I Ask

Every now and again a song comes along that moves you. I mean, REALLY moves you. For me, Adele's "All I Ask" is such a song.

I first heard it when she performed it at the Grammy's last week and honestly, I wasn't dialed in to the first part of the song simply because I didn't know it, but then she hit this turn and it caught my attention. Suddenly I'm listening when the chorus comes back in and she says:

"All I ask is if.... this is my last night with you
Hold me like I'm more than just a friend
Give me a memory I can use
Take me by the hand while we do
What lovers do
It matters how this ends
Cause what if I never love again....?"

Immediately I knew I was going to have to cop this album.... or at least download the song... but when the show went off, I didn't give it another thought. It re-aired last night and the performance affected me even more than it did the first time. I noted that when she hit the point that got me last time, she had gotten emotional and was trying to sing through tears. When I tell you.... bruh.

Right away, I downloaded the song. I listened once and then went on about my business, but maybe an hour or so later, I was just uneasy in my spirit. As committed as I was to not leaving the house yesterday, I suddenly just needed to get some air. So I decided I would walk to the corner store.... with the song on loop. It was a relatively warm night and yup, a slight drizzle; perfect storm for a breakdown.... or maybe a break THROUGH. I got halfway up the block before thoughts of all these fucked up situations started swarming me and before you know it, I was thinking about all the different times things that should have worked out, didn't. And what really fucked me up was there was a line in the song I couldn't make out at first and then on the way back from the store, I realized the line was, "I know there is no tomorrow." A FLOOD of memories rushed back. Times when I knew as I walked away that it would be for the last time. I cried in the rain all the way back to my house.

Then a strange thing happened.

I got to my house, let myself into the downstairs foyer and stood there in the dark, broken against the wall, listening to the last run of the refrain to get it out of my system before wiping my eyes and coming back in the house without alarming the midgets that anything was wrong. And as I listened to that last pass, I felt myself smiling. If this song is any indication of getting something out of the deal, my last failure was actually a success.

I told my girlfriend last week that I had a feeling the last thing I was doing wasn't going to work out. I woke up super early one morning and just laid in bed, basking in his morning texts and saying to myself that even when it doesn't work out, it's all worth it just to feel what I was feeling for a little while. Just a little while. It was just a couple of days later that that thing went up in smoke, but he did all I could ask.

"Let this be a lesson in love
Let this be the way we remember us...."

Man. I left there with no clue that there would be no more nights, but I won't soon forget that one. I can say that in a number of those situations that came to mind last night and bittersweet as it may be, it's how I got through. I focused on the silver lining of even having had those moments. I've been as lucky as I have been unlucky in that regard. Perspective.

So shout out to the guys who gave me memories I could use.

But....

It still matters how it ends.....