"Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame. Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned. But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die..." We all know what comes next in Pink's song- Try. I mean it's in the dang title- "you gotta get up and try and try and try. You gotta get up and try and try and try." I used to only hear that part of the song. I used to focus in on that last line and take that part to heart- that I have to keep on trying. I tend to take songs and make them about myself, I mean I think everyone does that. The artist writes it from a deeply personal place and even if the verses suggest it means one specific thing to the artist who wrote it, I typically hone in on the chorus and apply that to my life. But today when I heard this song again, for the millionth time, it was like I heard the first part of the chorus, for the very first time.
To me, if I'm going to take heed to the anthem that I have to "get up and try and try and try" endlessly, then I needed to know why? And I needed to why it is worth it? That first part- the desire. I know what that is to me, very well. It's been the same desire I've had since I wrote that first love letter when I was 16, after I had watched Dirty Dancing. I wrote about this desire to "dance with whoever I was going to marry...dirtily of course." Like they did in the movie. That movie resonated with me because I was definitely the shy, inexperienced girl. I was curious and I wanted to help others, but I also wanted to be cool and I wanted to fall in love, dance and make love. Thus started my letter writing to my future love. That desire is to BE desired, in that way. To be loved in more than a friend way. To be wanted, fully and deeply, intimately. No other love can be that for me, than the love "that dare not speak it's name."
So I thought about this desire I have and how by simply having it, the flame was lit. It's alive. It's on. It can't be turned off. No matter how many times I say "oh it doesn't matter." "I give up." "I'll just be alone and live my life and enjoy it." I won't. I can't. Not fully. That desire lit the flame and it's there. It can't be extinguished, no matter how much I wish it to be. And yes, someone is bound to get burned. That someone is ME. I get burned every time I try to connect with someone I meet, that could have potential for something, and they don't respond back. I get rejected, I get forgotten, I get discarded, I get burned. But just because it burns doesn't mean I'm going to die. It's not going to literally kill me, to be rejected. Rejection can't kill. Your depression over that loneliness and rejection most definitely CAN kill. And it does. I'm not here to say whether or not some people can live with that or can't. That's their journey. I most definitely hope that they can find the help they need to make it, but again, not my journey, not for me to say. I know that if I didn't have my little godsons that loved me and practically worship the ground I walk on, that I might not get up and try and try and try. I might give up. Forever. Permanently. But that's too scary for me to even contemplate in actual terms and I could never pull it off, and again, I would never do that to them or to my best friend or parents. Their lives would be forever changed and I don't want to be the cause of that. But I get it. I get wanting to give up. It's not that I haven't prayed a hundred times that it would all just end. It's tiring. Getting up and trying over and over again is really hard, impossible even at times. But it's sort of all we have. We have to. Because that flame is lit by that desire and we have to follow it. Just because you get hurt by your desire, doesn't mean it's over. It doesn't mean that's it, you've used up all your chances, cashed in all your tokens, there's nothing left. Being hurt or rejected (or whatever term you want to put in there) is not the end. The end is the end. When your life is over and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's not now. You're breathing and you're alive. Your desire is there, your flame is burning strong. Nothing will put it out while you're still breathing. So yeah get up and try, yada yada yada. But more importantly- just know that when you fall, when you get hurt by this desire you've had your entire life, that doesn't mean the answer is NO. It doesn't mean you won't get your desire. It's not over. It's never over till it's over; and you won't know when it is anyway. So lick those wounds, slap on some Neosporin and a Bandaid, wait not a Bandaid because you're supposed to let a burn breathe, or not, I'm not a doctor, don't take my advice literally. But the important thing to remember is: You're not alone in it. There wouldn't be a song that speaks to millions of people, if you're the only one who could respond to it. So run cold water over it, blow on it, do whatever you have to and get back out there. Even if "getting back out there" is simply the first step of acknowledging your desire isn't going away and believing it will be met someday.
