About three months ago, Sister Hazel magically re-appeared as a dominant force on my music playlist. It's good to have them back. What I have always loved about Sister Hazel is what I typically hate about most bands: they sing about the same thing in all their songs. It seem that, with Sister Hazel, either someone in the band has gone through an incredibly hard break-up in life, which they have never recovered from, or their song writer has. I own 16 songs of theirs; out of the 16 at least 7 of them I interpret to be about this break up (in case you are wondering they are Best I’ll Ever Be, Champaign High, Life Got in the Way, Your Mistake, Killing Me Too, Your Winter, and Hopeless.)

Oddly enough, an 8th song of theirs I own is called Thank You, and it appears to be about a break-up, but the guy is actually glad the relationship has ended. Maybe this is a different girl. However, my theory is that this song was written in the all too common anger stage of the break-up where instead of admitting you want someone back, you get nasty mean. Anyways, I digress.

In college, my roommate had a name for this particular ex-girlfriend in my life. He called her “The One Who Got Away,” and I think the name is accurate. I find this is a common story amongst those who are single and in their 20s. I imagine it gets all the more common in our 30s. This is not to say that we sit around, longing for the day that person will return (although we may not mind that if it works out). No, it has a profoundly different stigma in our life. One I think Sister Hazel and Chuck Klosterman can relate to.

In his book “Killing Yourself to Live” Chuck writes:

“The first girl I loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is suppose to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people… But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”
-Killing Yourself to Live (Page 232)

I love how Chuck says this “usually happens retrospectively.” I find this ironic in my own life. As the one girl in life that I have told that I loved, I certainly did not love. Since then, I haven’t told anyone I loved them, including the one girl I most certainly did.

But as Sister’s Hazel says, life gets in the way. We can’t control that. We move along with our lives. Pursue different things. Live in different areas. And ultimately, that template of love is all we have left. But it is still worth it. Every second of the relationship was worth it, and every second with out the relationship has since been worth it. We all need that template. Because when life gets in the way, we at least know what we are longing for and the way life should be. And that gives me hope that one day I will find this love again, and this time, she won’t get away.