(serene music)
- Thanks for the flowers, they're lovely.
Sounds nice, well, it was the saddest
text I've ever gotten in my life
because that was the moment I knew,
my girlfriend no longer loved me.
I was away from home, I was on a camping trip
and she had ditched out on the trip the last second,
which wasn't totally surprising
because she'd been going through what I call,
the funk, for a few months, she was
quiet, cold, kinda depressed, she'd taken up smoking
for the first time since I'd known her
and our relationship had been suffering too.
We're bickering all the time,
an argument about what kind of dining room chair to get,
would escalate into an indictment
of our entire relationship.
She'd say things like, "we're incompatible."
and "if you knew the real me, you wouldn't love me."
and I would fight back, I'll say,
"I know the real you and I love the real you
and we can work together, we can figure this out."
and so things had been rough for awhile.
But I hadn't thought about breaking up with her,
I didn't even thought that the relationship
was in jeopardy because we were in a little thing called,
true love and when you're in true love,
you make it work, you stick together
through thick and thin, you ignore all signs
that something might be wrong and you just love harder.
So that's what I was doing, so before
I'd gone away on this camping trip,
I'd written her a love letter,
a long letter, five pages, single spaced by the way.
Telling her how much I loved her
and cared for her, how I wouldn't give up on her or us
and before I went on this trip,
I left it on the kitchen table with a bouquet of flowers.
It was a long drive to Lake Powell, 12 hours,
I spent the entire drive, waiting for my phone to ring.
I was envisioning the call, she'd be crying
and apologizing, telling me, "oh, I love you too
and we'll make it work and this letter,
has given me the strength to turn things around,
thank you, Madison."
the call never came.
Instead, I got that text message.
Thanks for the flowers, they're lovely.
There was no mention of the letter, there was no I love you.
By the end of the weekend, there'd been
no further communication and I knew it was
probably over, so I was heartbroken.
So I did what anyone should do when they're heartbroken,
I put down all the windows in my car,
I stepped on the gas, I was driving
a hundred miles per hour down this deserted road
and I blared a song to help me work through
that anger and pain, I blared
Billy Joe's She's Always A Woman.
Now I know, that doesn't sound like
a very hardcore song, but the great thing
about Billy Joe's She's Always A Woman,
is that every lyric sounds like it was written
specifically about your girlfriend.
She was frequently kind and suddenly cool, Billy.
How did you know?
So I spent two hours with the song on repeat,
just singing and yelling at the top of my lungs,
♫ She's always a woman to me
and it helped.
Finally, I turned down the volume,
I lowered my speed and I'd been wondering
for so many months what was wrong with our relationship,
what was wrong with my girlfriend
and I blamed quarter life crisis.
She just needed a better job, anything but the relationship
itself and now, I knew there's nothing wrong with her,
she just didn't love me anymore.
When she'd been saying things like,
"if you knew the real me, you wouldn't love me."
what she'd been trying to say is,
"I don't love you" but she didn't want to hurt me.
So when I got home, I knew I had to start
a conversation that would end with her breaking up with me.
So that's exactly what happened.
She moved out and there was sadness
and there was pain, but there was relief too
because at least I knew what was going on
and we can both take the next steps in our lives.
For me, that meant listening to a
lot more Billy Joe for awhile.
♫ Soul Pancake
(upbeat electronic music)