Sunday 7 June 2009

Everybody's somebody's fool

My aunt used to wistfully sing this Connie Francis song to me from a tattered book that had taken her through her loneliest times in the army. I was just about six, or maybe eight, but even I could tell there was a sad story in there somewhere. Over the years we heard murmurs of a certain Captain Y and a Lieutenant X and a whole string of other designations but she took her secret with her when she died an old spinster four years ago.

Cut to 2009, and I am finally seeing that this Connie person was really onto something there. Everybody IS somebody's fool, everybody IS somebody's play-thing! And there are no exceptions to the ru-u-ule. Yes everybody's somebody's foo-ool! It really is a very catchy song.

Anyway.

Like I was saying. I've realised the hard way, that we all have one person who makes self-respect seem like a bell and whistle. It doesn't matter that you can list ten reasons for why this person doesn't deserve even your memory, without batting an eyelid. It matters even less that your friends are wincing at just how many times he/she shuts you down. And should this person make a gesture that only technically, after really having searched for it, qualifies as a nice thing, to you it's the equivalent of a kitten and a puppy baby, a kittuppy! You can't remember why you even considered considering cutting this person out of your life. Until he/she does it again.

Are these people walking genital warts? I don't think so. Are they awesomeness-incarnate? Nope, that they're not. It's what we ascribe to them that makes them so irreplaceable. And when you figure what that is, this person begins to unravel before your eyes. And suddenly it's blindingly clear that this person is just another person. And you were here before him/her and you will continue to be here now that he/she is gone.

That
is closure.

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