Half a Person

Call me morbid, call me pale
I’ve spent six years on your trail
Six long years
On your trail 

And that’s the story of my life too. Some may say that relating passionately to The Smiths is a teenage pursuit, but I disagree. Admittedly, many of Morrissey’s early songs have a certain immaturity behooving the mindset of a loser who lives with his mom. Not necessarily a teenage mindset but definitely the mindset of someone young, unhappy and at loose ends. Maybe it’s a sort of arrested adolescence mentality. The burden of our clumsy and shy adolescent selves is something most of us secretly still carry inside. Youth can be hard, especially the limbo years of wondering when and how your ‘real life’ will begin. Myself, near 30, passionately relate to this mopey Smiths song, not because I feel like that now, but because I used to. Ironically, at the time when I was pallidly and morbidly pouring my heart down the toilet and on the trail (six whole years!) of the wrong, wrong person, I didn’t like The Smiths very much. I didn’t have the maturity, I guess. I didn’t get what their songs were even about. It wasn’t until I was older and much worse for the wear that I suddenly understood what Morrissey was talking about. Perhaps being old enough to put some distance between myself and my emotions, I can see myself more clearly. I realize that I’ve been this half a person, maybe I even will again. Why, I don’t know.