I Cried Listening To A Mad Caddies Song Whilst Packing Up A Steam Cleaner For The Ex - What Stage Of Divorce Is This?

I was just talking to my best girl friend today about how my family's entire mission is to look "put together," even if we clearly don't have our shit together at all. For my mother, this means making sure I have new laundry baskets that look as though I manage my home correctly. For me it means constantly wearing no visible upset, moving on and having all break downs in private.

The divorce shocked many close to me. Why? Because I am completely amazing at keeping up those appearances. Forget writing, if I could make a career in holding it together in chaos, I'd be a rich. I've realized how much this quality of mine can work against me, however. And here I am in the midst of divorce stages, trying to find my way. 

So after getting through what would have been the 11 year wedding anniversary where I felt quote "ambivalent as fuck," followed by the dreaded 4 year anniversary of the car accident, which I was convinced wouldn't matter at all this year, but my daughter wanted to talk about it so "Hello PTSD, welcome back." I still felt like I could continue on just fine.

Then, on a random Tuesday I had to feed my need for music. I'm the kind of person where if I don't have enough music in my life I get legitimately cranky. Music is the soundtrack of my life. I love to sing and be ridiculous all around the musical adventures and when I haven't rocked out enough I go through withdrawals. So, Tuesday morning I started this weird journey on Spotify of all the playlists. Some of their playlists are horrible. Some are amazing and I just dove right in.

It was in the midst of this I found the "Release Radar" list and I was sending another friend all these songs, with all the feels, most of them super liberating and hopeful. Then it just hit me like a ton of bricks. This soothing Ska song by the Mad Caddies called "Let It Go," which is not a cover of the Disney hit, not at all.

I'm a lyrical person so if a song gives me a story, I love and can obsess even more. Now I'm going to have to give you a little more background as to why a Ska-Punk-Pop song could make me tear up in my garage holding a steam cleaner.

I'm about to write about something I've never admitted and have only just begun to deal with. In my early twenties I lost my absolute oldest friend to my depression, anxiety, and my ability to be a selfish bitch. He has known me since we were one year old. We were separated at age 3 when my family moved, then wonderfully reunited at age 18 and for the first year of our renewed best friend-hood, lived a block away and did everything together. 

He is alive and well, thriving and we haven't spoken more than a handful of words since 2017 and before that nothing since 2009. The memories I have of him always bring me joy and losing touch with him is one of my deepest regrets. This isn't a lost love thing, although we had our flirtations, we were always better at the whole friends who are like family thing. He was someone who actually knew me really well, whether he wants to admit it or not, and when my life was crumbling, neither of us could really deal, which I only realize now after becoming so proficient with life crumbling moments.

One of my favorite memories of him is our conversations and battles in music. He was in a band, that's how I met my ex-husband in fact. He introduced us. And one of my oldest friend's most favorite bands is The Mad Caddies. I feel like while he was obsessed, I mostly tolerated them, but they weren't as high up there for me as some others.

We went on countless drives together and always argued about music and he usually won. Even when I thought I won or we settled on the radio, he'd torture me with off pitch renditions of whatever we settled on. I will never hear Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way," without remembering him singing it at me, not to me, but at me, in the front of my beloved Toyota Echo during my Oregon years. I miss him a lot and hope one day, to at least be able to tell him that.

Okay, now back to yesterday. This Mad Caddies song came on my playlist and I immediately thought of my oldest friend and then, thought of my ex-husband. I broke down when I realized I couldn't share it with either of them because it just wouldn't go to the right place. It wouldn't be the same as it was 14 years ago. That part of my life was just...over. And while holding a steam cleaner and getting my daughter ready to go over to see her dad, I cried in my garage listening to the lyrics. What made me so sad? I'll share below:

It's not easy being loved by someone else

And at the same time giving it all back up yourself

Caught between the colored lines

Native to the home of domesticated energy, hey

And now the summer days have faded into years

And all the good times shining light in all the tears

Caught up in the reality of life and growing up

So baby we should let it go

Cause no one's right and no one's wrong

We should try to carry on

In our hearts, in our souls

Baby we should let it go

Baby we should let it go, yeah

Well all that time spent losing out is lost and gone

To that feeling that keeps us alive, in love, and strong

Caught up in the finality of a life that moves along

So baby we should let it go, baby we should let it go

Cause no one's right and no one's wrong

We should try to carry on

In our hearts, in our souls

Baby we should let it go

Spinning minds in a daze

Watching time fade away

For our hearts and our souls

Baby we should let it go

Baby we should let it go yeah

Caught up in the reality of life and growing up

So baby we should let it go, baby we should let it go

Cause no one's right and no one's wrong

We should try to carry on

In our hearts, in our souls

Baby we should let it go

Spinning minds in a daze

Watching time fade away

For our hearts and our souls

Baby we should let it go

I knew if I sent it to my ex-husband it would open an unnecessary can of worms. Knowing that I couldn't share it almost made it worse in a way. I did send it to my oldest friend and received no response.

I have made the comment quite often and recently that I feel like I spent half of the years of my marriage mourning the end of it but refusing to take it off life support, so to speak. This song just kind of summed it all up.

It also reminded me of the way my ex and I had met, and that I once thought I couldn't live without both he and my old friend and now for both parties, we barely speak. In these strange times filled with brokenness and new opportunities to heal,  I was certainly due for a mental collapse of feelings.  

It left me wondering, which stage of divorce, stage of life does this usher me into now? We're in a pandemic and there is no "normal," so then what of it all? Was it just everything at once or am I in some kind of limbo of growth? If you asked my ex he'd likely blame the Mad Caddies cry on my period, but I can assure you it wasn't the culprit for this particular moment.

After listening to the song over and over to the point where I just about have it memorized, I figure it comes down to this: I'm mourning the good memories of the life I once had, but am somehow also desperate to move on and "Let It Go."  It may be a cliche but it's on point. 

I miss the simpler days of three figure rent checks, going out to eat and somehow always having money to do so, having real energy to anything, and being young and free. I miss the people who made me into who I am now.

So, as I stood there passing along more stuff to my ex, I realized that I had been letting it all go. I was replacing all that was "us" and leaving him in a pile of relics of a life that no longer exists. It sounds mean when I type it out that way, but if you asked him he'd say I left him with nothing to start anew with, which is far from the truth, but not the point of this particular post.

Mostly I think I'm sad about my oldest friend because I've reached out and he hasn't responded and I don't want to let that part go. I wish we had the catch up text where he told me about his family, his work, his pets, and his home.  I wish I could text him when one of the many songs that remind me of him comes on as just a "hello," but we haven't made that re-connection. Perhaps I'm in mourning that the parts of my past self I wish to resurrect don't share the same sentiment, or that they have been fully let go, and are gone.

You can chalk it up to being 35, divorced, living in the midst of a pandemic and having everything so unknown but I feel like maybe this silly ska song just kind of forced me to let it go. "No one's right, no one's wrong, we should try to carry on." For now, I'll replay it until I can't stand it anymore and just hold the sentiments close that maybe I'm not as "ambivalent as fuck," as I thought.