Musicophilia

I wasn't sure if I was still going to read it. 

This book that was one of the greatest books on music therapy.

According to him.

I'd literally done a search on Amazon for 'music therapy books' and ordered one on a whim. 

Apparently my instincts were spot on.

I remember feeling excited to learn about something that was so important to him. 

That's what it is to love someone. 

To want to understand every detail about them, to bathe in their passions believing that in some way, understanding what they love will bring you closer to them.

You shouldn't start with that one, though, he had told me, You should read 'This is your brain on music' so you have a better understanding.

And of course I went out and got that book because if he thought I should read it first, then I wanted to read it first. 

Except the thing of it was, it was kind of boring. 

It seemed to be written in layman's terms for people who had no foundation in music.

It wasn't until the last quarter of the book when it got more technical that it started to grip my attention. 

He had thought I needed this book to understand the book I actually wanted to read. 

He didn't think I was very intelligent. 

I should have been insulted.

I'm educated. 

I'm a smart cookie. 

There's more to me than my Double D's and killer smile. 

But I was just disappointed. 

My Bachelor of Arts I'd received eleven years ago was in Music, for fucks sake.

When he was still in high school.

But it shouldn't have been surprising because he wouldn't have known that, wouldn't have cared to know that because our interactions together were never about me. 

They were always about his needs, his thoughts, his constantly unpredictable will. 

A month ago, after the incident, I glanced at the book atop a stack of other new to be delighted in unseen novels, and thought, Now I am never going to read you.

Because it was associated with something so awful. 

And I figured that would be it. 

Like the Dostoevsky novel I never finished or the science fiction novel I couldn't seem to get into, it would be one of those books that was just not meant to be. 

And then today, today I glanced once again at the book and thought, No.

I wanted to read this book because it interested me. 

And it was at a time when I thought I would never see him again. 

My commitment to reading this authors words had nothing to do with any conversation I hoped to one day have with him about my reaction to it. 

The book I'd simply ordered, one night, on a whim, because my little love sick spirit wanted to feel closer to him. 

And he wasn't going to take that away from me. 

I picked up the book today and curled on the couch with the pages lovingly clasped between my fingers and my cat lovingly asleep at my lap.

And two chapters in I realized this book interested me far more than the book he'd insisted I "should read."

Because my instincts were right and I should have just done what I wanted to in the first place. 

And I realized something else. 

I realized I want a partner whose passionate, who inspires me.

But who wants to share his passions with me. 

Matthew had the same elitist dismissal that Kai did: Nobody else is as smart as I am, nobody else understands things with the precision I do, nobody else is worthy of sharing in this interest/hobby/passion of mine, so I'll belittle anyone who even tries to.

It's sad. 

It's disappointing and it's incorrect.  

I still remember the unlikely friendship I developed with the guy who lived in Rhode Island and he wanted me to read the books he liked. 

I'd read them and we'd talk about them and he told Charles he liked me because I was smart. 

You know I think he's the only man whose ever said anything like that about me. 

Matthew finds a porn star who looks like me, Kai thinks I'm weird and some odd social outcast from the east coast thought I was a smart cookie. 

We never fucked though so maybe that's why he saw me as more than just a pair of tits.

I like the book. 

It's fascinating and thought provoking and I'm disappointed that he thought so little of me he assumed I needed an introduction to understand its concepts. 

You know, you take away the other woman and the gun he pulled out of his desk, and he's still just another wrong guy. 

A kid who never understood a damn thing about me. 

What a terribly boring story.