A little while ago I briefly fell in love with the kind of girl that I should have fallen in love with in high school and married right after college. You know the type. Homegrown girl next door. Loves beer, loves football, loves local dive bars and local pizzerias in Queens better than Michelin rated restaurants and hotel bars in the sky. I fell in love with her simplicity. It was something so different than what I normally ended up with and chased after my entire life. We would only last a few short months, but she left an impression in my spirit that will most likely last a few lifetimes.
She’s a weirdo, and a little
She’s a beer girl, and she’s cheerful
Singing woah-oh-oh-oh, what do they know”
I think what I loved most about being in love with this girl, was that life while I was with her was so different than what I had been used to for so long. No pretentious balls to attend and throw tuxedos on for, no private planes across oceans to see one another in, no operas, no glass towers or helicopter landings onto private yachts. None of that. All I needed when I was with her was whatever I woke up in, air to breath and a thirst for laughter. There was never anything more, and never anything less. It was perfect in the barest ways. It was what I remember puppy love to be like. All you cared about was seeing the other person’s face. Everything after that was simply extra fat.
And she said that together we could take on the world
And she told me that I’ll never find another girl like her”
“Boys That Sing” is that girl, to me. I sit here and I listen to this song and all of our time together comes racing back into my mind, as if she were here right next to me, waiting for me to finish this post so she could kiss me and smile. Waiting to kiss me and smile so we could head off into some beer garden in Williamsburgh and laugh all afternoon, evening, and late into the night.
Maybe if we met in High School, somehow, I wouldn’t be right where I am now, writing this. Maybe I’d be at home with her and our three kids, watching our favorite show together with a bottle of wine as our children slipped into a coma from a full day of family fun in the snow. And maybe, after I did finish writing this, I would turn my head from my desk to a surprise kiss from her and that smile that felt like everything a good home should feel like.
And she said that together we could do anything
And she told me that she loves a boy who knows how to sing, so I learnt how to sing”
Instead, here I am at home, still learning how to sing.