on that night on beach boulevard

It could have been me.
I'm happy that you are happy, finally.
And I am even more happy that you found someone happy to be with you.
Because that's what you deserve.

Sometimes I get down on myself for the way it ended.
For the way you won't return my messages.
The way I dragged you through my dreams
kicking and screaming.

But the more I think about it the more I realize that this is life.
It is learning through mistakes
growing through pain.
It's being mature enough to see a picture of someone you used to love
with someone they love now
and smile because they are where they need to be in life.

It is difficult sometimes,
but when I smile, I smile because I didn't settle.
I didn't settle for what we were
even though sometimes that was beautiful.

It could have been me in that photograph
all smiles and eyes glazed over in happiness,
but I know when the flash ended
and the camera was put away
we would have been where we started.
Finishing another bottle
probably beginning another endless argument.
Me running down Beach Boulevard with you chasing after me,
my head in my hands,
your heart beneath my feet.
Huntington Beach had never seemed so cold
as you found me sobbing on a street corner
in a parking lot far away.
Making promises you couldn't keep down on your knees
and me making them right back at you.

I was so good at stepping on your toes
and claiming that you were crowding my dreams.
You were so good at accepting me for all I was.

I'm sorry, for what it's worth.
Not because I would wish us back
or because I would ever try to pry you away
from the happiness you have found.
But because it's a shame we have to be happy apart,
with no promise of friendship or ever keeping in touch.It's a shame our paths can't cross again.

So stay warm in the California sunshine;
I still have my mix that makes me think of you.
We listened to it when times were easier.
With the windows rolled down, my feet on the dashboard,
the sun glaring off the windshield and slicing
between the boughs of the palm trees.
And you know how I loved the palm trees.

I don't wish you back. But I wish you well.