I got a chance to hear “Fields of Gold” tonight, on TV. To me, that song will always be for a girl I was in love with in High School, but more importantly, it will remind me of a time when love was a more innocent thing.

When I was oh, so very much younger, love was the ultimate expression of joy and of celebration. I thought that the sacrifices required for love would always be grand and noble; poetic and warm. Slaying metaphorical dragons and crossing symbolic seas. In my mind love was a warm and golden light like a sunbeam through wheat chaff that would just fill you up and leave no room for the doubts and insecurities that normal people had.

I had no concept of broken love, or of the way you can need each other, and love each other, even as you you claw each other apart to keep from drowning in the brittle broken pieces of your disintigrating sense of self. I didn’t know that love is not really all you need. I didn’t know that love could turn on you and cut you and pierce you clean through.

And now, when I hear that song, I can still see myself walking through those literal fields of gold where we grew up, but the color and the warmth have bled out of my memories. They’ve turned a little grey, and a little brittle. The fairy tale is like a favorite t-shirt that has gone a few too many times through the reality spin cycle. It’s still comforting and the fit is good, but the color is dim, and I’m starting to wonder how many more times I can fit myself into it and feel that sense of rightness.

It’s getting a little threadbare.

I had my first real nightmare last night. I wrote it down, but I left the file at work. I’ll talk about that later today, because it was a very strange experience for me.