Songwriter: Billy Corgan
Original Release: Gish
Year: 1991
Definitive Version: None
Oh, hey, what do you know? It’s
another breakup song. Sorry about that; it’s just the (bad) luck of the draw
that these have been on top of one another. This one isn’t as heavy (or as long
of a post, thank goodness).
I had just discovered
Smashing Pumpkins and Gish in October 1992 before Jenna and I went out for the
last time. Unlike with Melanie, the end of whatever relationship Jenna and I
had going came as no real surprise. The entire time we dated, I felt as though
I were living on borrowed time anyway.
I assumed that because she
had been with her previous boyfriend—living with him, in fact, now that I think
about it—for more than a year, Jenna was going to need some alone/rebound time.
Well, I was looking for more than being a rebound romance. My plan, as I
mentioned, was to be cool and bide my time after I got the news that Jenna had
broken up with her boyfriend. Events, however, conspired to commit that plan to
the scrap heap, as I’ll detail in the not-so-distant future.
But after we started to
date, I kept holding back, not wanting to push too fast, like I had to my
detriment before. Ironically, THAT was the thing that doomed me this time
around. Maybe it was inevitable that Jenna and I weren’t going to work out,
regardless, but when I should have showed her more attention than I did (and I
was afraid that if I swung in that direction, I’d show her too much), she saw
that as disinterest. It was anything but, and in retrospect, I should have come
clean with how I really felt. If I’ve learned anything in life—and that’s
debatable—it’s that you should be honest at all times. It saves time, if
nothing else.
Anyway, our last date was a
horror double bill at a drive-in near to where she lived in Clio, north of
Flint: Sleepwalkers and Pet Semetary II. Now, before you chastise me for that
questionable choice, let me point out that it was Jenna’s idea. She was a
horror-movie fan, and Halloween was right around the corner.
It wasn’t a great date; it
was chilly and a light rain fell, which made it unpleasant to keep the windows
down for the drive-in movie speakers. And I had a sense of foreboding as I
drove away that night with Gish on the car stereo, not from the movies, which
were predictably lame, but that my time with Jenna was up.
Sure enough, a few days
later, I got a letter from Jenna giving me the heave-ho (which I think I still
have somewhere for some reason). She wrote exactly what I had been thinking the
entire time: She wasn’t ready to date someone else yet. She needed time to be
alone, she wrote. It was confirmation that my original plan was correct, but I
never had a chance to enact it.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. Rats.
No comments:
Post a Comment