Stephanie recommends "When You Say You Love Me" by Josh Groban
December 18, 2004 — my wedding day. It was a typical wedding at a wedding chapel. My father walked me down the aisle to my future husband and gave me away. The music was traditional wedding music until the unity candle portion of the ceremony. My fiancé and I had fought many times over the “unique” song, and I eventually won. I wish I hadn’t.
Eight years later, we separated, and by what would have been our ninth anniversary, we were divorced. I managed to avoid this song for a decade—not because it was too painful to hear, but because it utterly pissed me off. I fought for this song because it was perfect, and I really did hope that because it was so passionately beautiful, it would help me feel the kind of love I should have felt for the man I was vowing to spend the rest of my life with.
It didn’t.
I listened to the song periodically throughout my marriage. The sentiment of wanting to feel that way was always there. The feelings just weren’t. I kept my vows, still with the hopes that one day I would feel the cheesy, romantic love and not just go through the motions. But I never did.
I stayed in the marriage because I made a vow. I remained faithful and dutiful. I had dreamed of feeling this great, passionate love, and I stuck with the first man who I thought felt that way about me, hoping those feelings would grow for me, too. They never did.
My divorce hurt, but my marriage hurt more. As it turned out, he never felt that way for me at all. I wasted so much time hoping to feel something that I should have always felt. I wasted so much time not wanting to hurt the person I vowed to spend the rest of my life with because I thought he loved me. In the end, the only person hurt was me. And now, a decade later, I heard this song for the first time since the separation, and I cried all the ugly tears. I didn’t weep for what was. I wept because I finally feel the passionate, romantic, cheesy love I’m supposed to feel with a partner. I wept because I wasted this absolutely perfect song on someone who didn’t deserve it. I wept because this song is the only way I can express these almost soul-crushing feelings.
But I wasted it.
Stephanie L. Haun holds an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Creative Nonfiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Previous works have been published in The Smart Set, Drunk Monkeys, Beyond Words, The Intima, The Centifictionist, and others. Stephanie is a Perry Mason fanatic, an avid knitter, and a sometimes trombonist. She can be found on Twitter (@shaunwriter) and Instagram/Facebook (@stephaniehaunwriter). Her website is www.stephaniehaun.com.
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