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Content Warning: Sad/ Heavy talks about relationships
I could go home to my love
And live the life I've always wanted
Or I could go on running off
Into the night lonely and haunted
And the strange thing is
I don't know which I prefer
So I sit here and watch the sunset on Sacré Cœur
I've talked quite a bit about Tina Dickow's Sacre Coeur track. It's off of her acclaimed album "Count to Ten" and is by far one of my favorite tracks of all time.
This track spoke to me throughout my twenties and into my thirties (aka the last 10 years since discovering her music). This is a song about seeing two paths ahead of you. The road you know and the one you don't. There is an alluring pull into the unknown, a sense of opportunity and excitement, and then there is the road back home where its safe; but is safe the right choice?
Leading up to my transition the two roads I thought I saw were "transition and lose my partner" and "stay safely in the home I have built". Turns out I didn't see that the transitioning path actually joined back up with the other and was a minor deviation away. My (spoilers: ex) partner and I made it work. Transitioning definitely changed the path, itt wasn't the original path I saw at the fork, but a middle path where the two met up. And all seemed well.
But what I now realize is that this song wasn't about me transitioning... we'll not just about that but actually a lot lot more.
I am not going to dump my relationship onto you, dear readers, but I will just say: I took a look at the two paths ahead of me again and once again I chose the path into the unknown. And this time I ended up lonely and haunted… or so I thought.
Turns out life is what you make of it. I made the best I could. It's scary not knowing whats on the road ahead, but loneliness is solvable, and being haunted will heal with time. I always felt when she ends the final chorus with "and the sad thing is" told it all. She knows what journey she needs to take. She knew that while going home was safe, it wasn't what she needed for herself. That she was making decisions against her own self for the sake of others. To meet the expectations of a past self…
But where does that leave this song with me? I am now on that journey, a ways down the road…
A song that spoke to me so strongly, that defined my life so clearly, now turned into a bittersweet anthem of my past, who I was, the journey I was on. It's cathartic in a totally different way. I no longer cry when I hear the song. I almost feel content.
But I certainly won't be listening to it on repeat.