Love Songs

The first time I heard Adele sing, I yawned. I'll admit it. I was bored, and thoroughly not impressed. "She's got an interesting sound, but that song is annoying," I scoffed to my daughter. A few weeks of radio overplay later, I was ready to hunt her down with an angry mob. Then we added it to our play list at work and I really thought I might have a new contender for my Celine Dion Get Off My Airwaves (you freaking Canadian) Award (although Adele is British, thereby making her slightly more tolerable, I felt). Then I heard Someone Like You...and I took it all back. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, and I had no idea why. I recently added Set Fire To The Rain to my Ipod. Her voice makes me want to grab my thesaurus, and use words like smoldering, haunting, heart stopping (see, that word right there proves I needed the thesaurus). I've long been a fan of the over the top diva power pipes-Xtina, Beyonce-but Adele is in another class, another world. Her songs are like a punch to the stomach, you don't just hear them, you feel them, and they take your breath away.

(Not Adele, but possibly setting fire to something)

What's more, when I listen to Someone Like You (the song that makes me cry for no apparent reason) and Set Fire To The Rain it makes me wish and wonder. I'm not much of a love song kinda gal. Lil Wayne's How to Love is about as sentimental as my Ipod goes, unless you want to count Usher's Love In This Club II, which probably only counts as a love song because Usher can make even the naughtiest lyrics sound smooth. (And he does refer to himself -in the third person-as "daddy" multiple times, thereby earning himself some extra "love" points, I'm sure). I am the person who once told someone that I thought the song Spacebound by Eminem was "romantic." Which it is, until the part about choking the life out of his loved one...
Back to Adele and her lyrics that make me wish I could muster the kind of heartbreak that would lead to a search for "someone like you" or the passion to "set fire to the rain." I wonder what that feels like-to hurt that much, to feel that much.  Now I have passion-anyone who has ever seen me cheer at a ball game knows I can be passionate. Want to argue social causes? I'm quite passionate and I'm proud of that. My kids know their mom will take a stand when it matters, but "love" is not a cause as far as I'm concerned. It's just a nonentity, unless you are talking about the family kind-the mother to child kind; the aunt-to-nephew kind; the Cards fan-to-beating-the-Cubs kind. I know other people believe in love, have love, show love, even wallow in it. I have friends who are in darling relationships, are happily married, or are planning to get married. I know love happens, look at celebrities who are perfect examples of soulmates. I adore Beyonce and Jay-Z.There's that Kardashian girl, the one who didn't marry the ugly white guy. Some of our Presidents have had wonderful marriages... But, quantum physics also happens, that doesn't mean I understand it.

(Not a Kardashian, or an ugly white guy)

 Let me clarify a few things here-I am not a person who is bitter or angry about love, I simply don't believe in it. Not that I think it's like Santa Clause, I know love exists (and brings presents, after all I work in retail) but for myself-love fits about as well as skinny jeans. Not attractive, friends. Not attractive. And I don't buy into many of the ideas of love I see portrayed around me...I don't believe we "fall" in love. Love is a choice, we choose who we love. And if you choose to love someone who makes you miserable, then you chose to be miserable. If you choose to love someone who doesn't love you back, well-good luck with that round hole and square peg. As you can see-I don't spend much time reading Nicholas Sparks, Twilight or watching any movies with Matthew McConaughey /Hugh Grant/Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson/Cameron Diaz/Drew Barrymore....I've shared plenty of awkward, and amusing, adventures with people in my lifetime-sadly none of them turned into a movie deal... errr I mean true love.

I work in retail, and Valentine's Day is coming, so I see love as a useful tool in the world. Valentine's Day=presents=money spending=hours for me=bills paid. Just as the love of Christmas helped fix my car, buy birthday presents for my son, and keep the heat on at my house; so will the idea of love in the next month I hope. But helping people pick out presents for their significant others doesn't convince me love is waiting for me-it's not. And for anyone who is going to tell me that love happens when you least expect it-do you know what really happens when you least expect it? Car repairs...stitches for your son..thunderstorms while wearing white..pregnancies. There is no cupid with a giant novelty hammer waiting to crack anyone on the head. Life holds enough unexpected surprises for me, peering around corners for my true love does not need to be one of them.
I'm sure there is a word for people like me-I like practical, but those of you with soft hearts and violin (or -shudder-Kenny G) music in your heads might say jaded. I'm a realist-I analyze situations and make sense out of them, and that includes interactions between men and women. I know some people in wonderful happy marriages and I know they found that kind of love that lasts, they work at it every day and they made a commitment to each other and their love-if you will. I get that, but I also know there are people like me..who, quite simply didn't. And won't. I see it a bit like the ability to sing, something else I wish I could do when I hear Adele. I see people walking down the mall or coming into the store I work at who are obviously happy and who see only each other and I can appreciate, even envy, that. But I can't imagine ever having it, I can't imagine even wanting it; because to me that idea is a bit like waiting for my Hogwarts letter...there are those with magic and the rest of us are just Muggles. So, while I have nothing but respect for Adele now (and have made this public apology), I think Drop the World  still probably will play more often in these headphones for a while. Because this Muggle just doesn't understand that magic called love.