Taking All This Work

The last three weeks have been a interesting experience, the exploration of love lost up for discussion with a lost loved one, and the reality of life weighing down on the proceedings from the start.  It all brought me back to a song from nearly 6 years ago that was the engine to my first concerted effort to move on when said love affair first hit the rocks Hard.  I had just turned the corner in my life, New Job, stable routine, romantic collapse.  Enter Jars of Clay's Good Monsters, enter Work:

Just in case, I will leave my things packed
So I can run away

I cannot trust these voices I don't have a line of prospects that can give some kind of peace
There is nothing left to cling to that can bring me sweet release
I have no fear of drowning
It's the breathing that's taking all this work

Do you know what I mean when I say, "I don't want to be alone"?
What I mean when I say, "I don't want to be alone"

Empty spaces with shadows hit by streetlights
Warnings signs and weight of tired conversations
In the absence of a shoulder, in the abscess of a thief
On the brink of this destruction, on the eve of bittersweet
Now all the demons look like prophets and I'm living out
Every word they speak, every word they speak

Do you know what I mean when I say, "I don't want to be alone"?
What I mean when I say, "I don't want to be alone"
What I mean when I say, "I don't want to be alone"

Alone, alone, I don't want to be alone

I have no fear of drowning
It's the breathing that's taking all this work

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The urgency of this song still resonates with me to this day, particularly when confronted with the struggles that come with maintaining any sort of relationship with a broken trust and wounded hearts, especially when the ends fail to justify the means for all parties involved.  It creates a pressure to give it up entirely, or dream of some miraculous change that justifies it all in the end.  In the end, we seem to always find a path to resignation, which is what this song seems to wrestle with.

But in contrast there is a lyric from Silverchair's Across the Night "I don't want to be lonely, I just want to be alone." that is a bit of a counter-point to this sentiment.  It's a great song as well.