I’ll give you everything in the world but my heart

‘Cause I gave half to them halfway lovers
I left some to them two drunk summers
Left a piece at the bar with the keys to my car
I know I’m never gettin’ it back
I lost a lot to that whiskey-sippin’
I gave the rest to that rockstar-livin’
Take all of me, but there’s one thang missin’
Baby, I can’t give you what don’t belong to me

There’s some weird closure in realizing you can’t give someone all of you, because as the years go by you’ve spent so much of you life giving pieces of yourself to people, that there’s really not much left.

When it comes to my heart, I love deeply, but it hasn’t been whole in like a decade. I gave it to some halfway lovers, I never had drunk summers, but I had a couple interesting summers when I was 18 and 19 working in restaurants. I gave a lot to that bartender livin’. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade bartending, with that comes meeting people, whether it’s guests, coworkers, liquor reps, whoever. You meet all these beautiful people and they come into your life and some come along and steal a little piece of your heart, and I don’t believe you ever get that back. When I think back now to coworkers who meant the world to me, coworkers I slept with, guests I slept with, all of it, they all took a little piece of my heart. I’m such a feels guy that even the people I’ve had casual sex with, which are very few, they got a little piece of my heart too.

I can lay you down, I can change your life
Maybe not forever, no, but, baby, for the night
If I knew I’d meet you one day
I woulda never gave it all away

I still believe this verse to be true though. I may not be able to give someone my whole heart, but I can certainly change their life. And no maybe not forever but definitely for a night. Like Hank Moody once said “I may not go down in history, but I will go down on your sister.” And without getting too graphic I like to think going down on a woman can really change her life.

Now for the wholesome part of that verse.

If I knew I was going to meet someone that I met, I wouldn’t have spent 6 years in a relationship, I wouldn’t have gotten engaged, and I wouldn’t have bought a house. Do I regret any of that? fuck no. All of that took me down the darkest path there is and guess what? There’s beauty in the darkness. Stars only shine at night. I believe there’s more beauty in dark times than there are in good times. But I would have saved all of that energy, all of those lessons, and all of that love, to give to someone else. It’s not just because it didn’t work out, it’s because someone better came along. Someone who matches me and who I am and pushes me in all the right ways came along. Me and that person are gonna be friends for years to come, maybe not to the degree we are today, and maybe sooner than later we’ll end up more acquaintances, but if I knew one day I’d meet her, I wouldn’t have given all of what I did away, because she deserves more of it. More of the good parts of me, and a lot of those are gone.

Yeah, you keep holdin’ on, but it’s gone when it’s gone
And you can’t replace it
Baby, let’s just face it

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.