Clumsy, Etc.

Two blog posts in one day? What is going on with me?
I know. It's weird, but my brain wants things to be known, so I'm letting things be known.

So I was listening to Clumsy by Our Lady Peace in honor of today being the 21st anniversary of its release, and lots of things made sense to me in ways that they didn't when I was younger and listening to the song and memorizing every frame of the music video and such.

Now I know several things I didn't know then. 1) I am not attracted to many people, so when I am attracted to people, I am not great at discerning their actual talents. For instance, I am aware that David Tennant is likely a fine actor. I can't tell you for sure. I just know he's terribly attractive.
As such, several lines from these songs that were just words from Canadian rock stars when I was 14 are now more...startling? I want to tell my pubescent self that some guy singing, "I'm watching you!" loudly in a video that closes up on his huge eyes at the same time is a bit creepy. You should be a little creeped out, girl-person. The words and images are important.

2) I know that you cannot save everyone. You can't really save anyone, but you can provide outside assistance and counsel. Bottom line, you can't fight the battle for them. In the song, the main refrain starts with, "I'll be waving my hand, watching you drown..." which I heard many times explained as one of these moments when you have to watch someone battle one of these things you can't fight for them, so you stand by and wave, letting them know you support them as much as you can. I didn't really get it then, and that line stood out as something I wasn't quite sure of before. The complexity of these situations escaped me, and the fine details have only recently become fully formed for me. Sometimes, you can only wave.

And sometimes people are clumsy-- clumsy with words, with situations and such. Anyone who knew my teenage variation would immediately remind me of the thousand or so things that got simplified incorrectly in my head before they came out of my mouth dead-wrong. More embarrassing than pain-inducing, but regrettable all the same.

I've recently, after a poorly worded altercation, come to a certain conclusion. I endure to be kind, accurate, or both as much as possible in my words and to some degree I expect the same. I know some of my friends will be more accurate than kind, and occasionally neither but very rarely or I wouldn't call them friends. When someone chooses to be neither, I choose not to be around them.

But maybe I should be more forgiving. Sometimes. We can all be clumsy sometimes.