Buddy

Dear Bono,

Today is my birthday.  To echo my thoughts from yesterday, at what age do birthdays become more disappointing than exciting?  Actually, last year I had a great birthday.  My husband and I went to Harper's Ferry with some friends.  We stayed at a local B&B, went tubing, saw a ghost tour, and generally had as good of a time as four people can have in 102 degree weather.

Yesterday, we saw Monsters University.  I loved it.  I love almost all the Pixar movies, and I admit I cry in the majority of them.  This one I did not cry during.  Usually, I think that the crying is an outward manifestation of my other internal conflicts (stress, exhaustion, hunger, for example) rather than something triggered by something truly touching in the movie itself.  Not that Pixar movies aren't touching.  They are.  They have heart.  They have amazing visuals.  But since I have found myself on more than one occasion crying during a particularly sappy greeting card commercial, I have realized there must be something other than great storytelling at work behind my tears.  I didn't cry during Mosters University.

It's not that I am not at a particularly emotional state.  I do have several feelings left over from my lack of matching.  There's even this part in the movie where Mike Wazowski is looking for a buddy on his school trip.  You know, the buddy system-the fool-proof system where if you have a buddy and you get lost, you won't get left behind, because your buddy will let the teacher know you are not around.  Unless, that is, your buddy is also lost.  Anyway, Mike Wazowski couldn't find a buddy.  Apparently he is not that popular and usually gets paired up with the teacher (sidenote: this would make him least likely to get left behind, ESPECIALLY because the teacher is the most likely person to not get lost.)  And this really spoke to me.  Not because I never found a buddy when I was young.  Finding friends in elementary school never really eluded me.  That came later in high school, when all my friends took turns hating each other with me in the middle not knowing which side to turn to.  This resulted me in staying up late at night lying face down on my bed and listening to Art Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on repeat.  My mom could sympathize.  I think she did the same thing in her younger days.  The music from the early 70s was much better at expressing my teenage angst than that of the late 90s.  For some reason "Tearin' Up My Heart" didn't really speak to me.  Though my college roommate who also wanted to go to medical school but kept failing tests in chem 105 would turn up Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" really loud.  Apparently that worked for her.  I think it came out after I graduated high school though, and again, was not as deep as the stuff I listened to.  Anyway, high school is drama and annoying.

What got me was how much Mike Wazowski's not finding a partner was like me not finding a match.  I'm the kid at the end who was desperately running around looking for someone... ANYONE... It made me want to go lie face down on my bed and put "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on repeat.  I refrained.  At least the last 15 years of my life since high school I have gained some maturity.

Bono, do you have a go-to song for when you feel like nothing?  Does that even happen to you?  For some reason, I'd imagine not.

Sincerely,

JP