daverea.com

Maybe I’ve just watched one too many episodes of Dawson’s Creek. OK, for a guy, any number of episodes of Dawson’s Creek is too many. But there’s a small part of me that’s a sucker for a sappy song and an emotional scene – haze filter over the lens, slowing pulling away from the characters as they embrace and share some manner of emotions. Fade to black, roll the credits, enjoy a few seconds more of that song before the 11 o’clock news snaps you back to reality.

Or, if you’re lucky, they cut to a sappy coffee commercial and you get to enjoy 30 seconds more vicarious emotion.

On some scale or another, I think all of us has a need to feel that scenario – the one those characters remind us of as Bic Runga or Shawn Colvin or Edwin McCain brushes our senses just right. We all crave the connection we feel when we stand in the middle of a messed-up week or a messed-up situation or a messed-up life, clinging to someone who loves us, and we know none of it matters as long as that soundtrack keeps playing in our minds and that person won’t let go.

Yes, I know I’m a sap. But that’s part of the deal – it’s OK to admit you’re a sap and that you need this sappy stuff every once in a while. Because we all do. It’s what makes being single so hard, it’s what makes distance relationships to tough, and it’s what makes curling up with a big pillow and a good song so appealing when singleness or distance is what’s causing it all to begin with.

So don’t say anything – just put on Home by Cary Pierce, or Family Affair by Abra Moore, or Sleeps with Butterflies by Tori Amos – doesn’t matter if it’s on the stereo or in your head – and enjoy.