I first heard this song on a cd by an acapella group at Stanford, The Mendicants. There is so much sadness and regret in the song that I couldn't help but love it. Yes, I know that makes me a little odd. I sought out the original by Elvis Costello and loved his version even more. Decades later, I meet my partner, Allison, who also loves the song. For her, I think it is a song that describes how she has felt so often in her life. She hasn't had an easy life. She's been in several relationships with men who treated her like shit. She's been emotionally and physically abused at the hands of men she loved. She has had her life and the lives of her children threatened by a man she was with. She was once told by her ex-husband that he hoped she and the kids didn't come back from their vacation. My partner has had to make decisions no mother or woman should have to make, but made them to protect herself and her kids.

She is a beautiful, intelligent, caring, funny, and loving person. Her experiences have made her cynical and distrustful, yet the optimist in her still shines through now and then. She weeps for the injustices in this world. If she could help all the poor and homeless, she would. She does not trust easily and is quick to assume that people are judging her. The words "I'm sorry" don't always come out, but she says it in her own way. She is easily hurt and often slow to forgive and forget. Her mental illness weighs on her and often causes her to lash out at those she loves most. The guilt she feels for those episodes is immeasurable. All she wants is for her family to be healthy and happy. She wants to not feel the way she does, but often refuses to take the steps necessary to aleviate her own pain.

When I came home last night, I knew she hadn't been having a good day. She finally told me why. She feels like she has no future or career prospects. She is almost done with her Master's degree, but getting a job teaching at a community college is next to impossible right now. She quit a dead-end job with the state years ago to pursue something better, but that something better isn't looking all that great now. I can't reassure her that the teaching jobs will come back. I can't tell her that everything will work out because I don't know that. But what really killed me last night was something else she said while we talked:

"I can't count on you always being the breadwinner. I have to think about what I'm going to do if I have to support the girls on my own. Because let's face it. I'm no gem. You could meet someone who's a lot nicer to you and doesn't have the issues I have and leave."

That just about broke my heart. We've had our problems. We've come close to ending things. But we've stayed together. She can't get away from the thinking that I'm going to leave. Because that's what has always happened to her. The people she's really loved have always left her. They couldn't handle her illness. They weren't willing to put in the effort to understand her and treat her the way she deserved. But I keep telling her that I'm not those people. I have to live with the ghosts of her past relationships that have left her damaged and vulnerable. She has to live with the demons in her own mind, demons that I can't fight.

When I hear the lyric "I know this world is killing you" I think of how much she hurts all the time. I can't control the outside world. I can't control how the kids act. I can't control the job market. But I'll be damned if I let anyone else hurt her. I told her I wasn't going anywhere, even though there have been times I've been so frustrated and angry I've thought about it. So has she. But we work it out. And we're both hoping for a happy ending.